Thursday, June 26, 2014

Rania Abouzeid on ISIS

Let us take this passage:  "It began, in mid-2011, with the Syrian regime’s suspicious release of hundreds of jihadis from prison—a move that served Assad’s strategy of presenting the uprising at once as a plot by Islamist extremists, agents of Israel and the West and a small number of disillusioned citizens with legitimate gripes who had fallen prey to “foreign conspirators.” It also played, unwittingly or not, into Golani’s hands...The truth was that al Qaeda had never really been an established presence in Syria. Historically, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and its more violently sectarian offshoot, the Fighting Vanguard, were the country’s most prominent Islamist organizations."  First regarding: "with the Syrian regime’s suspicious release of hundreds of jihadis from prison".  The regime is not above playing those dirty intelligence games and has done so in the past but there is no direct evidence of assistance to ISIS from regime. And for every hundred of Jihadis that the regime releases it kills a thousand.  So other than unsubstantiated accusations in Hariri and Saudi and Qatari media there is nothing solid there.   Then this: "Historically, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and its more violently sectarian offshoot, the Fighting Vanguard, were the country’s most prominent Islamist organizations".  Yes, Rania: the key word is "historically".   Things change, you know and the Ikhwan were decimated and there are many new more radical offshoots. And there was no Al-Qa`idah back in 1982.  So the political land of the Middle East is not static.