The British newspaper “The Daily Telegraph” recently published an article by Tim Collins where he called for the establishment of a special State for Syrian Sunnis, and he presented his vision to rid the Syrian Sunnis from “the control of Iran and its proxies and to secure them from the organization ‘Daesh’”, while giving them real promises of access to employment, education and safety. There is nothing wrong with that, since it is the wish of everyone who seeks to save the Sunnis in Syria from the ugly sectarian war against them, led by both Iran’s proxies and ‘Daesh’.
What is problematic in this proposal and other alternatives and perceptions put forward for dealing with the Syrian issue is the fact that they are based on doctrinal and sectarian foundations, and these foundations are capable of undermining the bases of the State and its sovereignty in the region. In fact, the establishment of a State for the Sunnis and another for the Alawites, and a third one for the Kurds in Syria opens the door to similar scenarios in the rest of the region which witnesses a similar security and political situation, and it encourages communities and minorities and other ethnicities in most Arab countries to clone this scenario and apply it and enter a stage of chaos as a result, which paves the way for launching such calls.
My objection to the idea of division stems mainly from the fact that division represents the end of the idea of the State and its sovereignty in the Arab region. In other words, the State according to the Westphalian concept, which was present in the political literature and international relations, has ended under these calls, and this represents the biggest threat to regional security and stability, and opens the door to long years and decades of turmoil, violence and bloodshed.
With the exclusion of the idea of “conspiracy” behind the calls for the division of Syria on a sectarian basis, and although I realize the need not to exclude this idea in light of the details of the current regional landscape with its conflicts on the prestige and influence, and with the fact that Syria has turned into an arena for strategic stakes of regional and international powers, I think that the idea in itself opens the door for further evils and provides a way to move the flame of religious and sectarian conflicts to other countries, and this, I think, is not in the interest of international security and stability.
There are regional powers seeking the fragmentation and dismantling of the region, and its restructuring according to new strategic perspectives and visions, and at the forefront of these powers is Iran and to some extent Turkey, which fears only the establishment of a Kurdish State, but it may not reject division, according to a sectarian logic, not an ethnic one. As for major powers, it seems that they prefer the idea of chaos itself, whether it produced divisions on ethnic or sectarian bases. Major capitals now approve of the idea of the outbreak of a calculated regional chaos so that it can be controlled one way or another, and consider that this helps them achieve their interests and rid them of terrorist organizations and guides the excess force of the currents of violence and Islamic extremism to the inside, and occupies these currents and organizations with Islamic-Islamic sectarian battles so that they do not devote themselves to direct their energies and their violence to what they used to consider as an enemy in previous years, which is the West of course.
I have no doubt that these scenarios are present in the minds of strategic planners in Iran, but they see that division and sectarian conflicts are in their interest because they eliminate major Arab countries that represent bulwarks against Iran’s regional influence. Tehran has already tried this when Iraq collapsed, as Iraq represented the first strategic threat for Iran and its expansionist ambitions. Thus, the Arab chaos scenarios and the associated division plans are not far from the strategic thought of the West, Russia and Iran, and the division plans published for nearly three decades are only signs that there will come a moment for the implementation of these ominous plans.
The most serious factors supporting these plans are Arab religious organizations and groups that act as agents of regional and international forces, and which seek to achieve the objectives of these forces, such as the terrorist groups the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda and its branches and the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Houthi group and the Shiite organizations in Iraq and elsewhere. These trans-national groups and organizations that disregard the principle of State sovereignty, represent the inside agents that market these plots in the media, in communities and among the elites, without the slightest regard for the interests of peoples and nations. They base their actions on narrow self-interest or a strong desire to settle scores and skip power and achieve their goals, regardless of the destruction of peoples and countries. The participation of these organizations and groups in these plans and plots may even end states altogether!!!
The current moment in the Arab world needs enormous political potential to save our countries from the plots and plans of regional and international powers, it also needs national awareness that realizes the complexity and the paradoxes of the situation, gives priority to people’s interests, and seeks to save them from the plots around them.
