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Choosing Occupation Over Security
For as long as Israel’s military occupation continues, Israelis and Palestinians will continue to die, the latter in significantly higher numbers. Israelis have to choose between the military occupation and security. They simply cannot have both, naturally.
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Israeli “Justice”
When an Israeli kills a Palestinian, he gets a slap on the wrist. When a Palestinian kills an Israeli, all Palestinians are made to suffer.
Finkelstein on Palestine
I posted this quote from the fearless Normal Finkelstein a couple years ago. Unfortunately, it still rings true: “In war parents bury their kids. In peace kids bury their parents. In Gaza, Israel buries whole families under the rubble.”
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One Palestinian child has been killed by Israel every 3 days for the past 13 years
Middle East Monitor: Official statistics from the Ministry of Information in Ramallah have revealed that 1,518 Palestinian children were killed by Israel’s occupation forces from the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000 up to April 2013. That’s the equivalent of one Palestinian child killed by Israel every 3 days for almost 13 years. The ministry added that the number of children injured by the Israelis since the start of the Second Intifada against Israel’s occupation has now reached 6,000.
“The International Day for the Protection of Children is on June 1,” said a spokesman, “but Palestinian children are still subject to attacks by the Israelis and Jewish settlers on an almost daily basis.”
Noting that 2012 saw an unprecedented rise in the number of children arrested by Israeli forces, the report pointed out that 9,000 Palestinians under 18 years old have been arrested since the end of September 2000. Almost half of the Palestinian population is under 18. Almost two hundred and fifty Palestinian minors are being held in prison by Israel; 47 of them are children under 16 years of age.
Video: Israeli Settlements Explained
Here is an awesomely made informative short video on illegal Israeli settlements in the remainder of Palestine.
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VOA Interview regarding “The Saudi Roots of Today’s Shi’ite-Sunni War”
Here’s a very brief interview regarding my article “The Saudi Roots of Today’s Shi’ite-Sunni War” at Voice of America. Please excuse the accent.
The Saudi Roots of Today’s Shi’ite-Sunni War
My latest piece at The Huffington Post: The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its fervent anti-Shi’ite worldview has once again sparked the debate about the “age-old” conflict between Shi’ites and Sunnis with countless “experts” offering analysis rife with clichés that the two largest Islamic sects have been fighting each other for “centuries” and even “millennia.” A brief glance at history not only dispels this notion but demonstrates that the rise of Shi’ite-Sunni sectarian warfare has its roots not in the distant 7th century, but in Saudi Arabia’s response to Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, when the Saudi regime as a matter of policy began to counter Iran’s revolution by financing anti-Shi’ite Islamists across the Muslim world. That policy has born fruition with Islamists in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere taking up arms in the name of an Islam that is diametrically opposed to Shi’ism, the minority sect in Islam.
The Saud dynasty established modern Saudi Arabia and was always anti-Shi’ite in its worldview, which is apparent in Ibn Saud’s famous quote to his British confidant, John Philby: “I should have no objection in taking to wife a Christian or a Jewish woman…The Jews and Christians are both people of the book; but I would not marry a Shi’a… [who] have been guilty of backsliding and shirk [polytheism]…” (1) Such prejudice was echoed in the 90s by Abdul Aziz ibn Baz, the chief state cleric in Saudi Arabia, when he issued a “ruling against the Shi’is, reaffirming that they were infidels and prohibiting Muslims from dealings with them.” (2) Predictably, such an approach had dire consequences for the Saudi Shi’ite minority that predominate in the peninsula’s east, but the Saudi regime as a matter of foreign policy collaborated with pre-revolutionary Iran, the Shi’ite powerhouse.
Iran, one of the most populous countries of the Middle East, is one of a small number of Shi’ite majority countries, but that does not necessarily mean that it has been at odds with its Sunni majority neighbors.
Saudi Arabia, the quintessential Sunni country and home to Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, sits across from Iran on the other side of the Persian Gulf, and prior to the Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 had increasingly close strategic relations with Iran.
Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the monarch whose rule came crumbling down in the face of the revolution, worked hand-in-hand with Saudi Arabia to counter threats emanating from common enemies.
Both were opposed to the spread of Communism in the region, both funded Islamic groups to preach religion as a counter to godless Communism, and both monarchies opposed Republicanism and populous Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.
So close were these two countries that the Shah, in exile after the revolution, had nothing but praise for his Saudi counterpart:
“Twice I had the great joy of making the supreme pilgrimage. As a faithful Muslim and Defender of the Faith, I hope that Saudi Arabia will always remain the guardian of these holy places, Mecca and Medina, where millions of pilgrims travel every year on the path to God. History has recorded the stature of Ibn Saud, founder of Saudi Arabia. He was wise and brave and an excellent administrator. When one considers the fatal events for which Iran is now the theater [in 1980], one cannot but rejoice at seeing Saudi Arabia still free and independent. One can only pray to God that it remains so.” (3)
The Shah’s summation that Saudi Arabia is “free and independent” coupled with his tribute is all the more astonishing given how much distrust and animosity exists between Iran and Saudi Arabia today, which is a direct consequence of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.
The revolution was doubtless a watershed moment in the history of the region and beyond. After assuming power, Ayatollah Khomeini did not hesitate to challenge the status quo of the entire region in a radical way. He called upon all Muslims, irrespective of sect, to rise up as Iranians had done and rid their countries of monarchies and western-backed dictators. His call did not fall on deaf ears.
Iran became an exemplar for action which, coupled with complex local circumstances, proved very consequential. Shi’ites led by Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr, the so-called “Khomeini of Iraq,” led a revolt against Saddam’s Ba’athist rule in 1980, and a four-month uprising in Saudi Arabia engulfed the peninsula’s east. What’s more, Kuwaiti militants unleashed a bombing campaign, and there was an attempted Iranian-inspired coup in Bahrain. Even Sunni Islamists across the region found inspiration in Iran’s revolution and Iran supported Sunni Muslims in Bosnia during the Balkan Wars and Palestinians via radical Sunni Islamist groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
Khomeini held special disdain for the Saudi monarchy and challenged the dynasty’s Islamic credentials. In an attempt to buttress his Islamic authority, the Saudi monarch exploited the legitimacy that Mecca and Medina afforded him by adopting the title “Custodian of the Two Holy Sites.” Furthermore, the Saudis took a more proactive anti-Shi’ite and anti-Iranian approach in their foreign policy in order to inundate Iran’s revolutionary message.
First, they financed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in 1980. Second, they sought to depict Iran’s revolution not as Islamic but as Shi’ite beholden to Shi’ites only. What’s more, they castigated Shi’ites as apostates and spent billions preaching this creed across the Muslim world. Saudi support of the vehemently anti-Shi’ite Taliban in Afghanistan, Iran’s eastern neighbor, was an integral part of the state policy of surrounding and quarantining Iran with hostile anti-Shi’ite forces.
Portraying Iran’s revolution as beholden to “apostate” Shi’ites was designed to ensure that Sunni Muslims, the majority of the Muslim world in general and in Saudi Arabia in particular, would differentiate themselves from Iran and not heed Iran’s revolutionary message, which was a dire ideological threat to the Saudi monarchy, as Iran labeled the Saudi regime an illegitimate usurper beholden to foreign powers.
Iranian authorities may have tirelessly presented their revolution as an Islamic one that had a revolutionary message for the entire Muslim world, and continue to invoke their support of Palestine to demonstrate how Iran’s foreign policies serve Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims alike, but the Saudis bankrolled Sunni mosques and madrassas in the majority Sunni Muslim world as well as Arabic language media in the Middle East and North Africa to ensure that the Iranian message is overwhelmed by the Saudi message of anti-Shi’ite sectarianism.
Thus, although the Shi’ite-Sunni divide has its origins in Islam’s early years, its explosive modern ramifications, which are manifest in ISIS’s puritanical and venomous anti-Shi’ism, are more directly a consequence of Saudi foreign policy since 1979. Prior to Iran’s revolution, Iran and Saudi Arabia worked closely to counter common threats. They parted ways after the Iranian Revolution when the Saudis responded to Khomeini’s revolutionary call by de-legitimizing Shi’ites across the Muslim world as a means by which to counter Iran’s ideological challenge and safeguard the continuity of the Saudi royal family’s rule.
Sources:
(1) Nakash, Yitzak. Reaching for Power: The Shi’a in the Modern Arab World. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 44.
(2) Nakash, Yitzak. Reaching for Power: The Shi’a in the Modern Arab World. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 50.
(3) Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza. Answer to History: By Mohammad Reza Pahlavi The Shah of Iran. New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1980, pp. 134.
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AbuKhalil: The US and the Iraq question: Let the blame fall on one man, provided he is not an American
Al-Akhbar English: It is rather stunning to watch pundits in the US analyze the situation in Iraq. Imperial hubris prevails in all the discourse by Democrats and Republicans alike. The answer to the problems of Iraq has been simple: Nouri al-Maliki is the villain, and once he is removed and replaced by the client of Saudi and Western intelligence, Iyad Allawi, the vision of Bush in Iraq could be fulfilled. Maliki was compared to Stalin and will soon be elevated to the status of “yet another Hitler†in the Middle East. Imperial powers, especially the US, can’t fault their own wars and bombings and political manipulations. The natives are always at fault. That was the case in South Vietnam: it was this South Vietnamese general or that won who made “us lose Vietnamâ€. Technical reasons are sometimes invoked but the US is not at fault. How could the US be at fault: the worst military interventions and the most devastating can be categorized as “a liberation war†(by Republicans if the administration is Republican) and as “action of the policeman of the world†(by Democratic critics if the administration is Republican).
The US does not commit crimes although the reason why the US government did not maintain troop presence in Iraq, something that Maliki in fact wanted, is because the latter brazenly insisted that US troops would not be immune from prosecution on war crime charges in the event war crimes are committed. The US wanted an indefinite presence, as the US is indefinitely militarily present in more than 130 countries of the world.
As Iraq is increasingly descending into a brutal sectarian civil war, US pundits who had cheered the American invasion back in 2003 under the most false of premises are not reluctant to offer advice and to urge yet another military intervention. Little is said about the proposal by a sitting US senator at the time of the invasion who recommended a sectarian and ethnic division of Iraqi territory (Joe Biden). The US who now complains about Nouri Maliki wants to forget that the man was showered with praise by none other than Bush himself. He was picked under the political conditions of direct military occupation where the US had the final say of all key (and sometimes not-so-key) decisions.
Neo-conservative and liberal advocates of the American invasion of Iraq are not apologetic. They don’t see a link between the American war actions and political devastation of Iraq and the recent developments in Iraq and the region as a whole. They insist all the problems in Iraq are due to one unwise man, just as the killing of more than 150,000 people in Syria are all caused by the actions of one man. This is the way foreign policy is explained to the American public. And once the one man is removed, all will be well in that country. During Saddam Hussein, all the ills of the region were blamed on that one man, but after he was removed from power by the US, the American government ensured that what follows is even worse than what existed under Saddam, especially if you measure it by the number of people killed.
The US complains these days about the sectarianism and corruption of the Maliki regime when the sectarianism and corruption of the Iraqi political system was designed by the American occupation government in Baghdad. It divided the Iraqi people into the various ethnic and sectarian groups in order to facilitate their subjugation and occupation, and to prevent the formation of Iraqi national resistance to American occupation. This was the plan all along from the minute the US set up the lackey governing body, and distributed the seats according to the narrow sectarianism of the Lebanese political system.
The US created conditions in which the rise of sectarian movements became inevitable. And US close allies in the Gulf region were the sponsors, funders, and military suppliers of the various Jihadi groups. The US was satisfied when GCC regimes explained that the funds to Jihadi groups came from “private citizens†as if the notion of “private citizens†is allowed in such authoritarian regimes.
The US must be stunned with the developments in Iraq. The US government did not think that its policies of supporting, funding, and arming “moderate Syrian rebels†– whatever that means – would unleash the second wave of Jihadi proliferation (or third period of the mujahidin in Afghanistan). The US deceived itself and its public by insisting that there are categories of Syrian rebels and that some of them are quite “moderate†and “secular†and that some of them are actually led by Syrian feminists (Suheir al-Atassi’s name is always invoked perhaps because liberals in Congress like to think that their “rebels†are actually feminists). The entire narrative was bogus and had no roots in reality. The Free Syrian Army has now been exposed as nothing but a fictitious name intended for fundraising purposes.
The US may continue to express desire to extend more support for the Syrian “moderate†opposition but the fate of that opposition is now sealed not only by virtue of the advances of the Syrian regime, and not only due to the expansion of the power of the the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) at the expense of Nusra and its sisters, but also because of American fears. The images of ISIS fighters driving American-supplied Humvees must have caused panic in Congress, and must have reinforced all the early trepidation of Obama regarding Syria.
The US will once again ponder: how to undermine one’s enemies without producing worse enemies. The US did that in Afghanistan (twice) and once in Iraq and now in Syria. But this last adventure in Syria may prove to be more deadly than previous ones. The US basically allowed the GCC regimes (on its own behalf before the US tries to re-write history as it always does to absolve itself of responsibility) to arm and finance some of the most fanatical groups the world has ever known – all in the name of supporting a “revolution†– as if revolution and Wahhabiyyah ever mix.
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Neocons are Back!
Have you noticed that all those neo con leaders (Wolfowitz, McCain, Kristol, etc) who led us to war in Iraq in ’03–a war based on lies that ultimately laid the foundation for ISIS–are now back on TV screens offering their sage advice on Iraq today?!
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Tony Blair’s and ISIS’s Roots
ISIS has announced with pride the execution of 1700 Iraqis, presumably most or all Shi’ites. Reports indicate that those Sunni soldiers captured were released. Ayatollah Sistani, the highest ranking Shi’ite cleric in the world, has issued a call to arms and thousands are heeding the call. Unlike ISIS, he did not appeal to a certain sect but called upon all capable Iraqis to fulfill their duty to defend Iraq. Predictably, the overwhelming majority of those responding to his call are Shi’ites, but there are reports that some Sunnis are forming battalions as well.
Qassem Sulaymani, Iran’s second most powerful figure, is in Iraq as we speak and reports suggest that he isn’t meeting with Prime Minister Maliki or Iraqi generals, but with militia leaders. Iraqi soldiers are salaried employees who lack that ideological vigor needed to battle the zealous and battle-tested ISIS. Thus, Sulaymani is preparing militiamen to serve as an example of how to fight with spirit de corps in the defense of the capital.
ISIS has promised to burn Najaf and Karbala and there is much talk about the origins of this conflict. Before the Syrian war, ISIS was the Islamic State in Iraq, which itself was a merger of al-Qaeda in Iraq and other jihadist groups. AQI was the main faction in the merger and that too was originally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad Organization (Monotheism and Holy War).
Zarqawi, before being killed by US missile strike in 2006, cemented his bloody legacy when he spearheaded the union of jihadist groups into the Islamic State of Iraq.
When Iraqi Sunnis lost the sectarian civil war (2006-2008), many fled to neighboring Syria to bide their time. When the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, many took up arms against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad with the objective of winning the jihad in Syria in order to take it back into Iraq. The Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (Syria/Levant) and its recent march onto Iraq is the manifestation of that long-term plan of vengeance.
Thus, when Tony Blair says that him and Bush’s war in Iraq has nothing to do with the chaos in Iraq today, he couldn’t be more wrong. Their war was the catalyst for all this and sowed such resentful seeds that will haunt the region for decades and his denial is either disingenuous or or based on ignorance. Either way, he has lost his right to have an audience.
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The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s March
There is much to say about the recent news from Iraq but perhaps the most mind-blowing aspect of ISIL/ISIS and its recent gains in Iraq is the group’s declaration that the Sykes-Picot agreement is null and void. The Sykes-Picot agreement was the secret deal struck between the French and the British during World War I to divide up the Ottoman Empire between themselves as the spoils of war. The agreement did not stay secret for long as the Czarist Russia was initially a party to the deal until the Bolshevik Revolution withdrew Russia from the pact and exposed French and British duplicity (the two had promised Arab self-rule to revolting tribes). Anyway, they arbitrarily drew lines in the region and divvied up the region in the most harmful way imaginable. ISIS and their push to unite the Sunni Muslim regions of Syria and Iraq and probably much more in the future (i.e. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc) is, in the eyes of the extremist group, a resolution to the imperial catastrophe visited upon the region nearly 100 years ago.
ISIS is vehemently anti-Shi’ite and anti-Iran and you can bet that the Saudis are providing weapons, training, and money to the group. ISIS is avowedly anti-Saudi, or at least it is verbally, but even if it is authentically anti-Saudi it doesn’t mean that the Saudis aren’t supporting the group. Indeed, the Saudis are probably thinking more short-term; that the group’s anti-Shi’ite/Iran stance is aligned with Saudi foreign policy priorities. ISIS’s anti-Iranian nature is evident in their referral of Iraqi Shi’ites as “Safavids,” implying that Iraqi Shi’ites are Iranian traitors and warrant ISIS’s wrath.
Iran understands this well and it is reported that Qassem Sulaymani, the master strategist of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s foreign arm, the Quds Force, is heading a contingent of 150 military advisers to help the ineffectual and beleaguered Iraqi government take back lost territory. There are reports that this has already made a difference with a portion of Tikrit back under central government control.
Iran has long supported the Iraqi and Syrian governments but with Iranian military personnel on the ground participating in armed conflict in one capacity in or another in two wars represents an unprecedented historical occurrence. Never has the Islamic Republic been so heavily involved in two wars outside of its borders concurrently. Having said that, I think Iranian support has definitely made a difference in Syria and will be very consequential in Iraq.
ISIS is certainly emboldened after seizing Mosul and Tikrit so easily and quickly. The lightening speed with which they have marched onwards has caused ISIS to promise to move on Baghdad soon and even Karbala and Najaf. This is simply hubris. First, there is reason to believe that they were able to take Mosul so easily not because of their military prowess but because someone may have bought off the 3 Iraqi generals in charge of the military security of Mosul, who promptly told their soldiers to stand down. In other words, Mosul fell without a fight.
Baghdad will not be the same and ISIS will certainly suffer a very different fate in the shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf should the group miscalculate and try to replicate the history of 200 years ago when Wahabbis sacked and burned the shrine cities.
For one, Mosul is predominately a Sunni city and although not all Sunnis support ISIS, the group will certainly be able to swell its ranks. ISIS set up recruitment drives when it seized Fallujah months ago and they will do the same soon, if they haven’t done so already in Mosul.
Baghdad, however, is a predominately Shi’ite city–a consequence of the sectarian war in 2006-2007–which the Shi’ites won in Baghdad. Thus, there will be no generals who take money and order their soldiers to stand down in Baghdad, no local Sunni support, and certainly no recruitment drives, which will be important to maintain control of the city. On the contrary, Ayatollah Sistani has issued a call to arms and hundreds of Shi’ite Baghdadis are signing up to form popular committees to support the Iraqi military. What’s more, Iran is now party to the conflict as well as the Kurdish Permeshga who have taken the oil city of Kirkuk to keep it and its oil wealth out of ISIS hands.
But incredible damage has already been done. ISIS made out with half a billion from Mosul and achieved an monumental propaganda victory. The media keeps saying that Mosul is Iraq’s 2nd biggest city, which it is not (Basra is the 2nd), but with 2 million residents it is nevertheless far more consequential than Fallujah. ISIS also secured some very valuable and hi-tech American military hardware, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, which they will use to good effect. The half a billion will pay the salaries for all those new recruits from Mosul which will predictably join the group.
A hard fight is on the horizon. Shi’ite groups are re-forming in preparation for a major dust up. Things just went from very very bad to even worse. Brace yourself for the fact that Zawahiri is no longer the most powerful and fearsome jihadist leader of al Qaeda, but Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the al Qaeda-disavowed ISIS.
CNN Video: 2 Palestinian boys shot dead
The recent shooting death of 2 Palestinian boys is not the exception, but the norm in the Occupied Territories where there’s a supposed “ceasefire” in place. The meaning of a ceasefire for the Palestinians under occupation effectively means that Israel can continue the military occupation and pick off Palestinians on a seemingly daily basis but Palestinians must not fight back or else Israel would unleash its military machine on the largely defenseless population. See the video of the shooting here. I can already here Israeli state terror apologists saying that “Palestinians shot the kids dead in order to frame innocent Israel” or that the Palestinians were not unarmed as rocks are like missiles, lol. Better yet, they’ll say that we don’t know what happened until the Israeli military conducts an investigation, which is akin to waiting for the rapist to conduct an investigation on whether he raped the woman. Fat chance you’ll get any admission of guilt out the Israelis who insist on blaming the victims of their endless military occupation of the remainder of Palestine.
Oh, and did you see Anthony Bourdain’s acceptance speech at the MPAC Media Awards? The world is indeed waking up to the reality in Palestine. Here is an excerpt: It is something we do all the time: “Show regular people doing everyday things–cooking and enjoying meals… It is a measure, I guess, of how twisted and shallow our depiction of the people is that these images come as a shock to so many. The world has visited many terrible things on the Palestinian people, none more shameful than robbing them of their basic humanity.â€
The Twisted Logic of Occupation
“We [Palestinians] are the only people on Earth asked to guarantee the security of our occupier… while Israel is the only country that calls for defense from its victims…” It’s funny because I can already read the response of Zionists who will see this post. Instead of actually letting the map below sink in, they will try to make themselves feel better by saying: “Why are talking about this and not Syria?” Allow me to pre-empt, I’m posting about Palestine because it’s the anniversary of Israel’s ethnic cleansing operation. #FreePalestine
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Learning to Fight Like an American at the FSA Training Camp in Jordan
Here’s the article I mentioned a couple days ago: “I do not want to mention my name,†said a 20-year-old Free Syrian Army fighter, “because the camp we practiced in was highly classified.â€
So classified, in fact, that the CIA—which is rumored to be running the camp (but declined to comment for this article)—still won’t acknowledge it exists.
For nearly a year, rumors have swirled about a covert, US-run training camp for FSA fighters in the vast Jordanian desert. (Jordanian intelligence also did not respond to requests for comment on this article.) And last week it was reported that the Obama administration appears to be expanding “its covert program of training and assistance for the Syrian opposition.” However, despite all this speculation, little is known about how this supposed Jordanian camp works, who trains there, and what tactics they learn.
I recently tracked down a fighter who said he’d completed the course and was willing to talk.
“Fighter A” is from Daraa, just a stone’s throw from the Jordanian border in southern Syria. He was in high school when the revolution twisted into civil war, and his plans to study law were set aside for a Kalashnikov; he joined the FSA at just 18 years old.
One day last May, when Fighter A was 19, he was taken aside and given some good news. “I was selected by the brigade commander to go to training camp,†he said. “I was told we would be trained on heavy weapons and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.†But he didn’t know exactly what to expect. “I had heard of military camps taking place, but I didn’t know where and when.â€
The next morning, Fighter A and 39 other young men like him headed south into Jordan, their journey jointly choreographed by Daraa’s FSA military council and, allegedly, Jordanian intelligence. Mobile phones were confiscated, to be returned at the end of camp. No questions were asked. These men were going off the grid.
When the group finally arrived at a high-security military facility deep in the Jordanian desert, Fighter A found the last thing he expected: Americans.
“I was surprised when I saw foreign trainers,†he said. “The Americans who taught us wore military uniforms I did not recognize. We called them by their first names, and they spoke English to us.â€
And so began a 40-day program of fitness, fighting tactics, and weapons training, all—according to Fighter A—barked out by US military instructors with interpreters at their sides, translating every order into Arabic. Recruits exercised in the morning and at night, knocking out set after set of crunches and push-ups and going for long runs. “The exercises were tiring, but I became fitter,†said Fighter A.
He was also well fed. “They served us the best types of food at the camp, grilled meat, mansaf (a Jordanian lamb dish), Kentucky Fried Chicken, soup, rice, Mexican chicken, and many other foods. Each person got American food or Arab food at his request.â€
Accommodations on site were in pre-fabricated housing, and days were spent preparing for combat. “We were trained in urban warfare and street fighting: how to break into buildings as a team, how to blow up houses held by the enemy, and how to free captives.â€
Weapons instruction was at the heart of the program. Recruits were trained on Kalashnikovs, light machine guns, cannon mortars, anti-tank mines, and SPG-9 unguided anti-tank missiles. This teaching beefed up Fighter A’s light- and medium-arms skills and introduced him to heavy weapons he hadn’t previously used. “Before the camp I used a Kalashnikov and light machine guns, and at the camp I was trained to shoot faster and more accurately. Mortars and anti-tank missiles like the SPG-9 were new to me.â€
The much-anticipated anti-aircraft missiles known as “MANPADS,” which Barack Obama was reportedly planning to send to Syrian rebels, never materialized.
I asked Fighter A about a graduation ceremony: How had the recruits and their instructors marked the end of the program?
“There was no graduation ceremony, but we did a graduation project at the end. It was a complete fighting project that included everything we had been trained on. For me, this was the best part of the camp.â€
And then camp was over.
Fighter A and his fellow recruits were each given $500 and sent back to Syria. It took a day to reach Daraa, where phones were returned and lives re-connected. He went to see his family first, then reported to brigade headquarters for his next orders.
Since his American training, Fighter A has become a trainer himself, teaching the men in his brigade to shoot faster and more accurately, to fire mortars and lay into the enemy with anti-tank mines and missiles. He still fights with a Kalashnikov and a light machine gun, and his brigade has added mortars and 14.5 millimeter machine guns to its arsenal. Though he hasn’t received any more money or any weapons from the US or Jordan, “I benefited a lot from the camp,†he told me. “I gained a lot of new fighting skills.â€
One thing he doesn’t keep up with is the exercise program. The lack of food in Daraa leaves a 20-year-old man hungry on a good day, so Fighter A figures there’s no sense burning the extra energy if he can’t replace it.
In recent months Fighter A has met other rebels who have been through the same training camp. Experts suggest that this isn’t the only Jordan-based program training moderate Syrians to fight the American way.
“There’s a dribble, a small trickle of fighters, maybe 150 soldiers a month,†said Joshua Landis, director of the Center of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “But there’s not enough of them to make a difference.â€
Charles Lister, a visiting fellow with the Brookings Doha Center—and an expert on FSA activity in southern Syria—agreed. “So far, because this training effort has been on such a small scale, it doesn’t appear to have a qualitative impact on conflict dynamics inside the country.â€
Beyond manpower, there’s also the issue of arms; the earthbound FSA is seriously outmatched by the Syrian Air Force. Rebels have been asking for anti-aircraft missiles for more than a year, and at the top of their wish list are shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, the “MANPADS,” that can shoot a plane out of the sky.
While Saudi is keen to provide these, Landis said, the US has so far refused to let it happen. “America has a very important national interest, which is to know who is getting what weapons.†As al Qaeda digs into the infrastructure of rebel-controlled Syria, the threat for US interests becomes untenable. “America cannot let MANPADS into Syria because they will be used against Israeli planes someday,” he said.
Lister sees America’s refusal to step up training numbers and allow rebels more sophisticated weapons systems—namely, the anti-aircraft missiles Fighter A was waiting for—as an indication that it’s just not that committed to changing conflict dynamics.
Landis admits that the US is playing a “rather mischievous role†by supporting the rebels with one hand and restraining them with the other. “The result is that we’re prolonging the rebellion, but we’re also making sure it can’t win.â€
Back in Daraa, Fighter A is under no illusions that the American training, American food, and American dollars he enjoyed in Jordan are in any way indicative of an American desire to help the rebels win. “America is benefiting from the destruction and the killing in order to weaken both sides,†he said.
He does think the training is helping the rebels make gains in Syria and, for now, this is enough. He believes in his cause, and he is patient. “I didn’t know or expect revolutions [to be] filled with blood,†he said. “But I remember the saying: If you want to jump forward, you have to take two steps backward.â€
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