US and Israel are winners in Syrian crisis

Israel has gained from the fighting between Sunni and Shiite extremists what it has not been able to achieve since 1967, an Arabic-language columnist says. Other topics: Egypt and Lebanon.

The longer the devastating conflict between Sunnis and Shiites continues on Syrian soil, the more gains for Israel and its backers in Washington, columnist Sawsan Al Abtah wrote in yesterday's edition of the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al Awsat.
As members of the two Muslim denominations continue to destroy one another, exhausting regional resources in the process, Israel is clearly emerging as the biggest winner out of this whole Arab Spring, effortlessly achieving more strategic gains than it had since 1967.
While the United States has shown restraint in providing the Syrian opposition with weapons, it has nevertheless condoned, for more than a year now, the steady flow of weapons through Turkish borders into the hands of radical groups, like Al Nusra Front, the writer said.
Washington wants to make the world believe, Ms Al Abtah noted, that it understands that the arms' supplies going to the Syrian rebels would present a long-term danger, given that they could be used by extremists and terrorists to further their own agendas.
Gen Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the Syrian conflict might pose a "10-year issue" for Washington.
"It's been hijacked at some level on both sides by extremists - Al Qaeda on one side, and Lebanese Hizbollah and others, on the other side," he said.
For the columnist, what is being framed by Gen Dempsey as an "issue", is in fact a milestone that the US and Israel could have never dreamed of attaining in just two years.
"What if the main goal that the US has been striving to achieve was actually to drag the two sides, the Sunnis and Shiites, to the Syrian turf and leave them there to kill, exhaust and annihilate one another, which for Washington and Israel would be hitting two birds with one stone?" Ms Al Abtah wrote.
"Israel has gained from the fighting between Sunni and Shiite extremists in Syria what it has not been able to achieve in all its wars against the Arabs since 1967 . a destroyed Syrian state, with all what it stands for in Arab imagination, and weakened Hizbollah," she said.
Washington had long failed in its costly wars on Al Qaeda to turn it away from European and US targets. Now, as the Syrian conflict spirals out of control, Al Qaeda's primary targets have become Arabs and Muslims, the author added.
Indeed, as new waves of turmoil continue to convulse Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq and potentially Sudan, what the US and Israel have managed to achieve with the Arab Spring - neutralising such a large extent of the Middle East - is something that, until recently, belonged strictly in the realm of "Western fantasy", she concluded.
Salafists are learning the political ropes
Al Nour, Egypt's Salafist party that has often been described as more conservative than the Muslim Brotherhood, has actually shown great flexibility and ability to learn in barely two years of political practice, wrote Saleh Al Manea, a political-science professor at King Saud University, in the UAE-based newspaper Al Ittihad yesterday.
"Al Nour, which made quite a primitive debut in the elections two years ago, leading many to dismiss it as the epitome of political naivety, has proved that it can learn and adapt," he wrote.
Unlike the Brotherhood-run Freedom and Justice Party, which became known for its exclusionism and knee-jerk reactions, Al Nour behaved much more rationally in critical situations.
For instance, when the crisis between Egypt and Ethiopia started to escalate over the latter's dam project, Al Nour's position was more measured than the Brotherhood's.
"Al Nour asked the government of President Morsi to temporise, and refrain from taking a political decision before an international fact-finding commission dispatched to Ethiopia finishes its inspection of the project," the writer said.
Indeed, Al Nour has emerged as a quasi-kingmaker after the ouster of Mr Morsi, blocking nominations for key posts in the interim government and now becoming an essential player in the Egyptian political map, the writer observed.
Abbas visit to Lebanon is to show neutrality
The three-day visit by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, to Lebanon this month was intended to make a point about the importance of maintaining Palestinian neutrality in Lebanon's domestic issues, according to Rajeh Abu Asab, a lawyer writing for the West Bank-based newspaper Al Quds.
The visit came as Lebanon is getting gradually sucked into the Syrian conflict next door, while extremist elements in Tripoli, in the north of Lebanon, and in Sidon to the south, are trying to entice Palestinian refugees to join them in their clashes with the Lebanese army, the writer said.
"Palestinians have no dog in this fight and no right whatsoever to meddle in Lebanon's internal affairs, because Palestinians are simply guests in the country," Mr Abu Asab said.
President Abbas knows very well the kind of fallout that can ensue if Palestinians take sides in any Arab internal or regional conflict. When Palestinian leaders sided with the late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein as he invaded Kuwait in 1990, the aftermath was dire.
Palestinians living and working in Kuwait lost their careers and were deported, and years passed before the ice was broken again with the Kuwaitis, the writer said.
This is the kind of scenario that Mr Abbas wanted to avoid by visiting Lebanon, he concluded.
* Digest compiled by Achraf El Bahi
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