http://www.aina.org/news/20140913003159.htm
Bishop Mar Awa Royel.Washington (AINA) -- Yesterday, on the third day of the In Defense of Christians summit, Bishop Awa Royel, Bishop of California for the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, spoke on the need to maintain the Christian presence in the Middle East.
Here is the text of the Bishop's speech:
Your Holinesses,
Your Beatitudes,
Your Excellencies and Graces,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is a great honor and privilege to be here with you this afternoon, representing His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East (along with my brother His Grace Bishop Mar Paulus Benjamin), who could not attend due to health reasons. His Holiness sends his greetings, prayers and love to each and every one of you, with a particular gratitude to Toufic Baaklini and the organizers of the IDC.
This afternoon's panel discussion is a most pertinent one, I believe, because it gives a sense of direction and purpose to our discussions and deliberations in which we have engaged during the course of this summit. It is a topic that affects the daily lives of our Churches and peoples, both in the Middle East and in the Diaspora, namely: What indispensable role does Christianity have to play in the Middle East?
That Christianity does have an important role to play in the Middle East today cannot be questioned. The changing demographics of our Churches and peoples in our homeland in the Middle East goes hand in hand with defining the vitality of the role of our Christian faith in the East today. Notwithstanding the fact that many of our Churches have migrated to the West, and as a cause we have seen the dwindling of the numbers of our faithful in the Middle East, the roots of Christianity and it important role in society cannot be undone. I would like to echo the words of His Holiness Pope Francis stated in Jordan during his visit to the Holy Land this past May: "We will not be resigned to think about the Middle East without Christians!"
I propose to look at the important and vital role of Christianity in the Middle East in its three important moments or junctures, namely: past, present and future.
First, historically Christianity has played a role in the Middle East, indeed from the inception of our faith and beginnings of the Early Church, which has marked an important change in the life of humanity as a whole. The very mystery of the Incarnation itself, unique to the Christian faith, marked a turning point for all of humanity, indeed on a cosmic level: God stepped into history in order to show His solidarity with man--God became man, that man might become God. Therefore, by its very nature Christianity has the vital role of being a salutary faith (i.e. offering salvation to humanity) and demonstrating the proximity of our Creator to his most cherished of creations--man. In the Incarnation, the Son of God (the Word become flesh), announced to us the Gospel of salvation and eternal life in his name. Christianity, therefore, is not just another religion in the Middle East (even the classical nomenclature of comparative religion as being one of the three 'monotheistic' religions does not suffice!), but it offers salvation to the world and to the peoples of the Middle East. As Christians, we can never lose sight of the importance of the missionary aspect of the Church. By its very nature, the Church must evangelize and bring the Gospel to all peoples--even to those who are enemies of the Gospel. This is evident in the great commissioning of the Twelve by our Lord (cf. Matthew 28:18-19).
As the Church grew and became present in the whole East, it brought civilization and learning to all the peoples of the Middle East. The history of the court physicians of the Abbasid caliphate, for example, is all too well-known in the annals of history. The fact that Greek learning and philosophy passed into the Latin language and to the Arabs via the Syriac translators and fathers is living proof of the pivotal role of the Christian East in the society and social context of their day for countless generations.
The second important moment of Christianity's vitality for the Middle East is the present. And, indeed, this is a pertinent moment for all of us gathered here today under the aegis of the IDC, and it is a matter of concern for all of the Churches that continue to struggle for survival in the Middle East. It cannot be denied that the role of the Christians of the East in helping to build up the new Arab nation-states that were constructed after the First World War and as result of the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire was a most decisive one. Christians excelled in areas of science, mathematics, culture, education, medicine and literature, not to exclude their influence and important role in the political life of the countries of the Middle East which they have known as their homes. The many private schools owned and operated by the Christians since the formation of the modern Arab states are a living testimony to these contributions on the part of the Christians. Respecting the culture and religious sensitivities of the Muslim Arabs all the while, Christian educators tutored and imparted learning and culture to the most elite of the Arab fabric of society. Further, till this very day Christian caretakers and those in the medical field have cared for children, women and the elderly of Muslim Arab society without distinction and in a most superb and caring manner. We can only imagine what a vast void would be left in modern-day Muslim Arab society were there no Christian schools, hospitals, child and elderly care facilities operating (and successfully!) in the Middle East today.
What this means is that Christians are an indispensable part of the fabric of Muslim/Arab society in the Middle East today; they have always been, since the rise of Islam in the early 7th century!
The third and final moment of the vitality of Christianity in the Middle East is the future. What will the face of Christianity look like 5, 10 and 20 years from now in front of an Islam that is growing ever more intolerant and fundamentalist? The history of the Church in the East teaches us many lessons, and we can see well-established patterns and tendencies that, more or less, repeat themselves any given number of years. However, can the world stand by and continue to allow that to happen? What will become of a Christianity which is ever so persecuted, but continues to contribute to the good of the society in which it lives, even though that society is unwelcoming and antagonistic? How will our Churches survive in the East in the coming years? What can we do to insure that survival, or at least (if utterly nothing else) slow it down considerably?
I'm of the opinion that this 'third moment' of Christianity's vitality to the Middle East will be determined by one possible factor among many, and that is the unity of the Christian Churches in the East!
It is no understatement that our present Cross and burden being borne by all of our Churches in the Middle East has indeed brought us together. The present summit, the IDC and many other organizations across the globe demonstrate the willingness of the Christian Churches in the East to come together, to 'unite' as it were, in order to understand our common plight and search out common solutions and answers to our plight. There is a certain level of unity that is demonstrated, and on the first day of the summit many of the eminent speakers expounded upon the topic of the 'Call to Unity.' Patriarch Aram I reminded all of us that unity is an essential part of the Church's very nature and fabric. And that is exactly the point that I would like to propose as the 'third moment' of Christianity in the Middle East--i.e. the future of our Churches in the lands we know and call our own, yet which in a very real way are not welcoming and are not our own.
The ecumenical movement in the life of our Churches as a real response to addressing the concerns and fears of survival of Christianity in the Middle East for the future cannot be overstated. Although we are united in a very real sense here today, but yet we acknowledge that we are not yet really united. The scandal of the division of the Body of Christ (his Church) is a wound that we all suffer from in our daily lives and in the lives of our Churches and faithful. Crystalized dogmatic expressions and anathemas continue to be a part of our ecclesial, canonical and liturgical identity in a very real and definitive sense. And the greatest scandal is that we cannot as of yet fully and really participate at the Lord's altar together, in order to partake of the one Bread of Life and the one Chalice of salvation.
As we move forward in the lives of our Churches in the face of neighbors who have not acted so neighborly towards us, let us remember our own sins, and make the firm resolve to proclaim one Gospel together, one Christ and one faith. We have been united these days together as brothers in sisters in Christ on account of the evil perpetrated against our brothers and sisters in the Middle East, let us take this momentum and move together, and be united really and visibly into the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church built by Christ himself, so that the gates of hades might never prevail against her. Thank you.
© 2014, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use.

Ted Cruz Exposes Christian Bigotry Against Jews In the Middle East
By Lee Smith/September 13, 2014
Cracks in what is normally represented as a tight alliance between Jews and Christians in Washington D.C. over Middle East issues were highlighted by Senator Ted Cruz’s dramatic and courageous performance Wednesday night as keynote speaker at the gala dinner for the In Defense of Christians conference. The gathering was assembled to address the plight of Middle Eastern Christians, who have been targeted by various extremist groups—with ISIS currently getting the lion’s share of media attention. Cruz kicked over a hornet’s nest when he encouraged his audience to see a potential ally in another Middle Eastern minority—Israeli Jews. After all, explained the likely 2016 GOP presidential hopeful, Christians and Jews in the region share many of the same enemies, from ISIS to Hamas. “The very same people who persecute and murder Christians,” said Cruz, “who crucify Christians, who behead children, are the very same people who target Jews for their faith, for the same reason.”
This was too much for the IDC audience, which evidently included a large number of anti-Zionists—including featured speaker Antioch Church patriarch Gregory III Laham, who in this video of Wednesday’s event can be seen demanding that Cruz leave the event. Eventually the Texas Senator did leave the stage amidst a deafening chorus of boos.
If many commentators saw Cruz’s speech as a courageous expose of anti-Israel prejudice—and perhaps anti-Semitism—among Middle Eastern Christians, others are apoplectic. The noise is especially loud from those precincts of the Christian right not affiliated with the pro-Israel majority of evangelical movement. These Christians—including New York Times columnist Ross Douthat—think that Cruz seized on an opportunity to show off for political purposes at the expense of an imperiled minority. “Persecuted Middle Eastern Christians,” Douthat tweeted. “Too religious for the left, too foreign for the right, insufficiently pro-Israel for Ted Cruz.”
The conference, explained the American Conservative, “was organized to bring together Christians of every sect and denomination to stand in solidarity with their persecuted brethren. Ted Cruz, however, fractured that unity.”
It’s not clear why anyone thinks that “unity” and “solidarity” are particularly useful concepts when discussing a faith that has lots of denominations, some of which have famously gone to war with each other. The big divide between Christians in the Levant right now is not between denominations—Catholic vs Orthodox, for instance—but rather between those who stand for freedom and equality, and those who side with tyrants who they believe will protect them from what they see as the even more terrifying specter of groups like ISIS. The organizers and speakers at the In Defense of Christians event are correct that ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups pose an existential threat to Middle Eastern minorities. However, a number of the speakers invited to the conference, as well as some of its financial backers, support figures and outfits every bit as vicious and dangerous as ISIS.
As the Washington Free Beacon reported Wednesday, one featured speaker, Syriac Orthodox Church Patriarch Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, posted pictures of himself on Facebook meeting with a high-level delegation from Hezbollah. Other speakers, like Patriarch John X (Yazigi), Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan, and Patriarch Gregory III Laham (pictured in the YouTube video above) are proud supporters of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent people in its war against Sunni Arabs. Sure Assad has used chemical weapons against innocent civilians, dropped bombs on them, while his forces have tortured, raped and massacred men, women and children, but from the perspective of pro-Assad Christians, his violence is justifiable insofar as he is believed to be a protector of Christians.
Of course, anyone who is familiar with the Syrian regime knows this is nonsense. I lived in Beirut during one of Bashar al-Assad’s anti-Christian campaigns, when his spies and allies assassinated Christian politicians and journalists and bombed Christian-majority regions of Lebanon. It’s right to sympathize with and seek to help Middle East Christians who fear for their lives, families and communities. But there is no reason for Americans to call pro-Assad, pro-Hezbollah Christians friends just because they nominally share the same faith. Christians who stand against political violence and oppression—like their Sunni, Shiite, Druze, etc. neighbors—merit our friendship not for the faith they profess but for the values they embody. It is hard to see how Christians who support criminals and thugs who murder innocent people in barbaric ways by the tens of thousands are being faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ anymore than the barbarians of ISIS should merit the fealty of believing Muslims.
My sources tell me that once Cruz was briefed about some of the IDC’s speakers and backers, he initially chose to withdraw from the conference, but then decided to go ahead and speak. Whether he knew what kind of effect his pro-Israel talk would have on the crowd is irrelevant. Its outraged protestations showed that too many members of the Middle Eastern Christian community are as intolerant as those from whom they seek protection. Much more depressing, however, is that Cruz’s talk also showed how even some educated Christians in the U.S.—eager to jump to the defense of those who profess the indefensible—are absorbing the very worst aspects of Middle East political discourse.

Why Ted Cruz Was Right to Walk Out on the 'In Defense of Christians' Conference
by Katie Gorka 12 Sep 2014
Breitbart
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/09/12/Why-Ted-Cruz-Was-Right-to-Walk-Out-on-In-Defense-of-Christians-Conference
An extraordinary thing happened on Wednesday night in Washington, D.C. More than one thousand people were gathered for a dinner in honor of the newly formed organization In Defense of Christians.
It should have been a victorious, celebratory moment―and for a short time it was.
The spirit was jubilant as we all took in the fact that at last the crisis affecting Middle East Christians had hit the mainstream. Many of us have been toiling away for years on this issue, happy if we could get ten people in a room to hear our case. Here we were, with Patriarchs and prelates from 12 different countries, and earlier in the day no less than 17 different members of Congress had addressed the gathering. It was an evening to celebrate.
Then U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) came on stage. He was there to give the keynote speech, and this was to be the crowning moment. Senator Cruz opened with these words:
Good evening. Today we are gathered at a time of extraordinary challenge. Tonight we are all united in defense of Christians. Tonight we are all united in defense of Jews. Tonight we are all united in defense of people of good faith who are standing together against those who would persecute and murder those who dare to disagree with their religious teachings.
“Oh no,” someone said quietly at my table. “Don’t go there, Cruz.”
Lebanon and Israel have been engaged in a long-standing conflict, so to mention Jews was to step on an obvious land mine. More than that, word had gone out several months before that the funders of the event were associated with Hezbollah. At first, it was just word of mouth based on sources inside Lebanon.
Then a Syrian-American activist named Frank Ghadry wrote about it, but he subsequently retracted his article and almost all traces of it have been deleted from the web. But you can read it here on Facebook.
Within the NGO community, concerns were expressed about the Hezbollah rumors, but when the Ghadry article was retracted, it seemed these might be just rumors after all.
Cruz’s speech seemed a consummate effort to flush out the true nature of the organizers and their guests. He went on:
Religious bigotry is a cancer with many manifestations. ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and their state sponsors like Syria and Iran, are all engaged in a vicious genocidal campaign to destroy religious minorities in the Middle East.
Sometimes we are told not to lump these groups together, that we have to understand their so-called nuances and differences.
But we shouldn't try to parse different manifestations of evil that are on murderous rampage through the region. Hate is hate and murder is murder.
The grumbling from other tables now became audible, and it was not long before the murmurs and fidgeting erupted into boos and outright heckling.
“Stop it. Stop it,” Someone shouted.
Cruz pushed on: “Let me say this: those who hate Israel hate America.”
“No,” someone shouted back.
Cruz said, “And those who hate Jews hate Christians.”
At this, a number of people in the audience booed in unison.
“And if this room will not recognize that, then my heart weeps that the men and women here will not stand in solidarity with Jews and Christians alike who are persecuted by radicals who seek to murder them.”
Several members of the audience then walked out of the room to scattered applause, including Antoine Chedid, the Ambassador of Lebanon to the United States, and several Lebanese politicians, a fact which was confirmed by the Daily Star of Lebanon.
Cruz only lasted a minute or two longer before cutting short his speech and walking out with the words: “if you will not stand with Israel and Jews, then I will not stand with you. Thank you and God bless you.”
As soon as Cruz left the stage, the room burst into conversation about the spectacle we had all just witnessed. Some seated at my table said that Cruz had been badly misinformed by his staff about the nature of the event and that someone should be fired.
But what I discovered the next day is that Cruz had known exactly what he was doing. Indeed, he had read the article that had been published about the event just that day and which essentially repeated Frank Ghadry’s allegation that the conference organizers were close to Hezbollah.
Whether Cruz ever contemplated withdrawing from the event is not certain, but what is clear is that he was keenly aware of the alleged links between the organizers of the event and Hezbollah, and he was not going to let that go untested.
Many have criticized Cruz since the event, saying he should have known the audience better or that he was grandstanding. But his actions on Wednesday evening reminded me of the line from the recent New Yorker article about Cruz: “That is the kind of politician Cruz has become―one who came to Washington not to make a deal but to make a point.”
The point he made is two-fold: even in as worthy a cause as defending Christians from extinction in the Middle East, we cannot compromise our fundamental commitment as Americans to the right of all people to live free from persecution and free from the subjugation by totalitarian, supremacist ideologies, such as that espoused by Hezbollah.
The decision by In Defense of Christians to accept the largesse and support of individuals who are widely believed to be associated with Hezbollah was thus a moral failing, but it was a tactical one as well. Any good strategist knows that you cannot enter battle with chinks in your armor. To enter the fray in as serious a fight as that between ISIS and Christianity, one must be invulnerable. To enter into this fight with such an easily identified shortcoming not only hurt the broader cause of protecting Christians, but it hurt all those who have been working for years, often on meager salaries and with little support, to shed light on the plight of Christians. It fed right into the enemy’s hands.
St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, tells us that engaging in spiritual warfare—and what is the war between Christians and the likes of ISIS if not spiritual battle?—that we must be fully prepared. We must put on the whole armor of God (Eph 6:11). We must gird our waists with truth, and put on the breastplate of righteousness (Eph 6:14).
Ted Cruz clearly is prepared to fight for the Christian cause but is not prepared to do so in ways that support unchristian values. He should be cheered and not heckled for doing so.

 Opposing Terrorism of Every Stripe
Salman Aldossary/Asharq AL Awsat
Saturday, 13 Sep, 2014
Washington has finally been convinced of the merits of the Saudi vision to confront terrorism through a comprehensive strategy, rather than specific and temporary battles. The US has finally taken the critical step in its long war against terrorism; a war which has witnessed a ferocious and violent response from terrorist groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Libya. However, this violence and ferociousness will only further increase so long as we delay the confrontation of the roots, and leaderships, of these terrorist groups.
If Washington had taken this step earlier—say just two years ago—then the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) would not have been able to expand and weaken the moderate Syrian opposition by taking over its territory. ISIS would not have been able to capture a third of Iraq. It would not have been able to terrorize innocents and minorities. It would not have been able to execute two American journalists. If Washington had taken this step earlier, then ISIS would not have been able to accumulate between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters in Iraq and Syria, according to the CIA itself.
While if the world had hesitated to confront this threat for much longer, we would have found ourselves—in just a year or two—facing an unimaginable disaster. Who knows, maybe this would have spread from the Middle East to Europe and even the US?
All the indicators that the West relies on to classify terrorist organization are seemingly flexible and not commensurate to dealing with the bogeyman that is now threatening the entire world. When you turn a blind eye to Hezbollah’s terrorism, its control of state institutions and its open challenge to the Lebanese military, this opens the door for more of the same. So we are seeing Yemen’s Houthis now knocking on the door of Sana’a, seeking to seize power and transform Yemen as a whole into a terrorist state. As for the rest of the world, it does not view the Houthis, nor Hezbollah, as terrorists at all.
The truth is that just as there is Sunni terrorism and extremism, there is also Shi’ite terrorism and extremism. This international alliance will not succeed unless it seeks to confront all forms of terrorism—whether Sunni or Shi’ite.
You cannot view ISIS as an imminent threat, and not believe that the same applies to the Al-Nusra Front, the Houthis or Hezbollah. You cannot fear the threat represented by Al-Qaeda, but not see the same threat from the extremist militias that are exporting terrorists to the rest of the world from Libya.
The complications that followed the Arab Spring did not just confuse ordinary citizens, politicians and Arab officials, it also confused the world’s greatest superpower. Otherwise, who could believe that the US—with its intelligence agencies and research centers—could miss a terrorist organization that may have started out small but soon grew to encompass a roster of tens of thousands of fighters?
The greatest complication is the double standards set by Washington in its classification of terrorist groups; there is no clear yardstick. Some organizations are classified as terrorist groups, while others not. This is something that was recognized by the US administration in the strategy that President Barack Obama announced on Wednesday, and which was later reconfirmed by Secretary of State John Kerry during his attendance of the Jeddah conference which sought to build a regional alliance against terrorism.
This US hesitance has become a clear feature of the Obama administration, raising doubts about Washington’s credibility and capability of combatting these terrorist groups. Today, with the formation of this international alliance to combat terrorism, and particularly ISIS, this may be the last chance for the US to save face and its prestige as the strongest country in the world. It is not permissible for the US to fail and return to its policy of hesitation in the middle of the road. If it does so, the US will lose all the remaining international respect that it enjoys.
 

America can degrade ISIS, Arabs should destroy it
Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya

Saturday, 13 September 2014
The last thing President Obama wanted is to bequeath to his successor the “dumb war” in Iraq he inherited from his predecessor George W. Bush. President Obama is painfully aware of the fact that he is the fourth president in a row to do battle in Iraq inconclusively. Before them President Ronald Reagan participated in the Iraq-Iran war, the longest conventional military conflict in the 20th century, but as a powerful proxy helping Iraq. Obama’s speech on Wednesday outlining his strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy” and the formation of a “broad coalition” to do so, guarantees that the United States will likely remain a combatant in Iraq (and in Syria) for the next few years.
The strategy, however does not guarantee the destruction of ISIS, an objective that requires political, cultural and ideological tools, in addition to brute military force. Ultimately, the defeat of ISIS can be achieved, only when the Arabs exorcise the political and ideological demons that created Islamic extremism that metastasized over the years and morphed into ISIS. In this epic battle, the U.S. can and should help, since it did contribute its share to the environment that created ISIS following its invasion of Iraq.
From junior-varsity to a Hydra
In few months President Obama moved from minimizing the threat of ISIS, calling it in an interview in January an al-Qaeda junior varsity team, to the realization that ISIS is truly monstrous, and a Hydra-like serpent with many heads. Like the Greek myth, if you chop off one head, two more are grown in its place.
“The defeat of ISIS can be achieved, only when the Arabs exorcise the political and ideological demons ”
Hisham Melhem
In addition to succeeding in describing the nature of the threat, one could say that the president appeared to have dropped his passivity on Syria and crossed his own self-imposed Rubicon to the other bank; where American jet fighters and bombers may now fly combat missions. In less than a month, the “evolution” of President Obama’s views on ISIS was very rapid. When Obama was talking about “containing” ISIS, his secretary of state John Kerry was talking about ‘destroying’ it. And, while Obama’s DNA is missing passion, his vice president Joe Biden who has a surplus of the stuff, assured us –instead of the Commander-In-Chief – that the US will chase ISIS “to the gates of Hell.”
Minimalist strategy
For all the talk about a new strategy, expanding the air strikes to Syria and the formation of an international coalition to destroy ISIS, the president’s approach is still minimalist. And while the stated objective now is to destroy ISIS, the Obama administration is still averse at describing its lethal duel with ISIS as a war. Secretary Kerry was struggling with semantics and the reporters accompanying him on his travels in the Arab world and Europe at the same time. He insisted that "What we are doing is engaging in a very significant counter-terrorism operation.” And to eliminate any lingering doubts, Kerry was blunt saying “and it's going to be a long-term counterterrorism operation. I think war is the wrong terminology and analogy but the fact is that we are engaged in a very significant global effort to curb terrorist activity."
The president’s strategy has many components; targeted attacks on ISIS in Iraq and potentially in Syria, keep pushing Iraq to overcome its political dysfunction and create a truly inclusive polity – something that will not be achieved fully any time soon, assuming Iraq will remain a unitary state- while accelerating the process of vetting, training and equipping the “moderate” Syrian opposition. A key component for the success of such a counter-terrorism strategy, especially when it does not include deploying “boots on the ground” to counter ISIS’s “sandals on the ground,” is the emergence of a regional coalition willing to engage ISIS in a long struggle on multiple fronts: military, intelligence gathering, cutting off funding, tightening border control, and countering the propaganda machine of ISIS. And this list did not include the president’s rocky and complex relations with the congress, including with some members in his own party, few weeks before the mid-term elections.
Failed states as models
When President Obama was trying to reassure the American people that “this effort” (not war) against ISIS will not involve deploying combat troops fighting on foreign soil like Afghanistan and Iraq, he committed a faux pas. The president said “this strategy of taking out terrorists, who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”
Those who advised the president to include such a reference had in mind the American public opinion, as if in this wired world one can only design a message solely to the American public opinion. To begin with, the air raids, the targeted drone attacks have succeeded in degrading the al-Qaeda in Yemen and al-Shabaab in Somalia, but the terrorism cancer is still entrenched in the body politics of both countries. If this success in Yemen and Somalia, one wonders how failure will look. And while the president did not mean to tell the Iraqis and Syrians, that greater American military intervention in their countries will hasten their slide into the status of failed states, he sure sounded like that.
Climbing down the tree
For more than three years President Obama went out of his way to avoid intervention in Syria, including serious political intervention in the sense of using his leadership to influence the behavior and policies of those Arab states, and Turkey that became deeply involved in the Syrian conflict. But his single most political damage was his constant denigration of the Syrian opposition, and his willful disingenuous comments about the nature of the opposition, their capabilities and intentions.
The president claimed in disparaging remarks that members of the Syrian opposition are “former farmers or teachers or pharmacists… or dentists or maybe some radio reporters who didn’t have a lot of experience fighting.” The president conveniently forgot that most fighters in the opposition, particularly during the first year of the uprising were former regime officers and soldiers who defected and joined the opposition. The president rejected the criticism that had he armed the opposition earlier the battlefield realities would have been different. “The notion that they were in a position to suddenly overturn not only Assad but also ruthless, highly-trained jihadists if we just sent a few arms is a fantasy.” Now that accelerating the process of arming and training the moderate Syrian opposition is an imperative in the new strategy, the president finds himself trying clumsily to climb down that tree and eat his own words.
‘The long and winding road’
The long and winding road to degrade – let alone – destroy ISIS, is fraught with traps and mines and some of the fellow travelers may defect or conveniently become stragglers. Even the partial success of the strategy is contingent on many factors that are not under the control of the U.S. Can the flow of jihadists to Syria be stemmed without an all-out effort by Turkey to tighten control on its borders? Turkey participated in the recent Jeddah meeting but it declined to sign the joint communique. The Arab support for the strategy outlined to them by Secretary Kerry was described as “tepid.”
Will the Arab members of the coalition deliver on all their commitment, including military participation in any air campaign in Syria? Egypt’s reluctance to play a major role was plain to see. Egypt would like the United Nations to give its approval to any military action in Syria, knowing in advance that this will not happen. I believe Egypt also uses its disagreements with Washington over human rights violations, freezing delivery of military hardware to justify its cold approach to the coalition. But the reality is that Egypt has been considerably weakened in the last few years and is consumed with its own political and economic dysfunctions.
Ironically, the U.S. has some justifiable doubts about the staying power of some of the Arab coalition members, just as most Gulf Arab states have their own justifiable doubts about the stamina and staying power of President Obama, given his weak track record on Syria .
A problem from hell
The U.S. is entering into a new phase in the military confrontation with ISIS that could last for years, as was and is the case with al-Qaeda. But just as there was no clear and solid way of knowing that we defeated al-Qaeda, given its defused nature, ISIS will present an even harder challenge, given its battlefield experiences, control over large swaths of Syrian and Iraqi territories, its resources, savagery and its ideological appeal to some zealots to live in the “restored” Caliphate.
Degrading and ultimately defeating ISIS will take years, because its emergence took many years as a result of the depredations of the so-called secular Arab regimes, the alienated and radicalized Islamists, the festering Arab-Israeli conflict (which was used by Arab regimes to justify their failures) and finally the blunders of the U.S. in the region, such as the invasion of Iraq which hastened the unraveling of a country that was broken by the tyranny of the Baath regime. I believe ISIS is Arab made. And ISIS should be defeated by Arabs with a little help from their friends. The first step is for the Arabs to recognize this bitter truth and to own this problem from hell.