All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
I'm happy to welcome Patrick Coburn back to the show.
He's Middle East correspondent for The Independent.
Of course, he's the author of quite a few books.
I believe the latest is Muqtada, Muqtada al-Sadr, The Shia Revival and The Struggle for Iraq, a couple of years back.
Excellent and important for the future struggle of Iraq as well.
Welcome back to the show, Patrick.
How are you doing?
Fine.
Thank you.
All right.
Now, do I understand right?
You've been spending time in Damascus, Syria lately.
That's right.
Yeah.
I got back last week.
Got back last week.
Okay.
So, I guess, well, let's start with the massacre because of course the way this is being played out, the hula massacre.
I don't know if that's how you say it.
The way it's being played in the media here is that, oh, geez, we might just, even though we really, really don't want to, Western powers might have to escalate their intervention in Syria in reaction to this, it's sort of their little junior Gulf of Tonkin type event, it seems, and yet at the same time, it seems like what really happened there was in question, where first it was all blamed on artillery bombardment and then it was shown that people were killed at close range.
So, the way I understood it, at least, only then was the pro-government militia invented that came in and must have done the work.
And then, of course, the Ba'athist side of the story is that, no, the terrorists did it, of course, and they didn't do anything.
So, please give us your take on that before we get into the rest of the bigger picture here, please.
I think the evidence is that the killings were carried out by the Shabiha, which is a pro-government militia.
It's mostly Alawites.
Hula is a series of villages in central Syria, which are Sunni, and they're surrounded by villages that are Alawite and Shia, and those are Christian villages, too.
There was quite a lot of fighting around there.
Hula is an anti-government center.
Those also are sort of, I think what came into it, were sort of sectarian vendettas, that on the morning of the, on the 20, on the Friday, the, when was it, two weeks ago now, the, 10 days ago, that there was a protest there, the government fired with artillery, the men sort of attacked the, from the village, attacked the checkpoints around.
Then, while this was happening, these militia moved into the villages, in particular, some of the houses there, and started this sort of sectarian slaughter.
Though, it said, it still would have verified this particular bit, but I've heard from various sources that the villagers in Hula were blamed by the Alawites that they, that somebody, an Alawite, a prominent Alawite had been killed, another story is that in one Alawite village, or 12 people had been killed in another village.
So when, when they sort of moved into massacre, they were ringing up relatives saying, we are getting revenge, and so forth.
So this was a sort of partly, you know, a struggle between pro and anti-government, but also it was a very much a sectarian struggle, I think, massacre, like we used to see so often in Lebanon in the past.
Now, Bloomberg News is reporting that the Syrians are saying that these are people who had refused to give in to the rebels' demands, and that including, that included a guy who was a candidate in the recent elections, who had been a pro-government candidate, and that was supposed to be the proof that it was pro-regime families, and, and people who refused to go along with the rebels, who were the ones who were targeted in this case.
Is that not credible to you?
Not really.
I mean, they produced this story sort of very late in the day.
I think it's much more likely that it was Alawite villagers who did it.
And I don't see, I mean, this is a Sunni area where they'd be massacred by Sunni.
I mean, this is all the sort of signs of sort of, you know, brutal sectarian killing, not just people who, you know, were, you might have a gun battle, but this sort of killing is usually sort of part of sectarian vendettas.
So, no, I don't, I don't, I, you just don't want to prove or disprove these things, but it's, I think it's very unlikely.
All right.
Well, and now this is really the tone of this article here, why war is marching on the road to Damascus and the independent, well, it starts, it's a city.
It feels like a city expecting the worst to happen.
And by the worst, that means sectarian war.
And you talk about how people are still trying to make it just the people versus the government, at least in their own mind, but that ultimately this really is already breaking down along sectarian lines.
You say it reminds you of Beirut at the start of their 15 year civil war.
Oh, Patrick, say it ain't so.
Come on.
Sure.
No, it's very, you know, it's, unfortunately it's, the atmosphere is very much like that.
And, uh, you know, the ingredients are something like that, that you have, uh, the, uh, a breakup of the state, you have sectarian tensions, but also you have within Syria, um, the, the different, uh, parties, the different groups, the different sects, all with their sponsors and patrons outside the country will supply them with, uh, money and weapons.
And that again, makes it even more difficult to end the conflict after one major, but you know, part of what's happening in Syria is a genuine popular uprising against the police state.
But part of it also is, uh, a, um, war of the, uh, the Sunni against the Shia, which has been going on since the Iranian revolution, it's led by, uh, Saudi Arabia within the area and, uh, the U S, uh, sorry, with, um, Saudi Arabia within the, uh, the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, as you might imagine is not, is one of the most sort of absolute monarchies in the world.
It's not that interested in spreading, uh, democracy and civil rights for the Syrian people, but it is very interested in, uh, uh, the, the Sunni taking over there from, uh, um, uh, the Alawites who are a sort of a Shia sect, and they're also interested in removing Iran's main ally, uh, which is Syria and the Arab world, which also the U S wants to do.
So you have sort of three struggles coming together.
Um, and that's one of the reasons why it's so explosive.
And that's one of the reasons it will be so difficult to have any resolution, which isn't extremely violent.
Well, you know, there are a lot of, uh, loud mouths on the Sunday morning news shows here with all of their solutions for how things ought to be, maybe carve out a little piece of Syria and declare it free Syria or create some humanitarian corridor or no fly zone, even though he's not using, uh, Assad's not using his planes to bomb people anyway.
Right.
But they just, they're trying to get their camel nose into the tent, uh, one way or the other, and none of them seem to realize the fire they're playing with, or they really don't care.
Like you said, if they can weaken Iran, uh, then fine.
Yeah, I think it's that, I think, you know, it's also rather extraordinary.
You know, actually I don't watch these shows very much because they always irritate me so much.
Um, you know, and it's extraordinary the way the bookers for these programs sort of, you know, pick people and never ask them, have you ever been to Syria?
You know, like that, uh, they're all produced as though these people had some capital of knowledge, but also how little is learned from Iraq and Afghanistan.
You know, if there's a, they declare a, a safe haven or something, this will be considered a declaration of war by the Syrian government, you know, so they'll attack it, you know, uh, is it a safe haven?
So the rebels can sort of set up shop there and receive arms supplies there.
Um, will this, uh, you know, so it isn't, wouldn't really be a safe haven.
It would really be a sort of a foreign takeover of part of Syrian territory.
All these things lead to more, not less violence.
Right.
Now we've got to hold it here and go out to this break.
It's the great Patrick Coburn from the London independent.
That's independent.co.uk.
Why war is marching on the road to Damascus.
You can also find them at alexcoburnscounterpunch.org.
We'll be right back after this.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Patrick Coburn from the independent.
It's the author of Muqtada, Muqtada al-Sadr.
And something about the future of the struggle for Iraq.
And that's what I want to ask you right now is whether you think that the Al Qaeda in Iraq, guys, the veteran, uh, jihadi warriors of the old resistance, uh, from the Iraq war, the last few years are the ones doing the suicide bombings in Syria now.
I think it's probable.
Yes.
So then these bombs have been going off in Damascus and Aleppo, uh, are exactly the same type of, uh, uh, things that we've seen in, uh, in Baghdad.
We saw one of the ones today in Baghdad, uh, 18 people were killed, you know, suicide drivers, uh, of a target rather carefully, uh, selected vehicles packed full of explosives, you know, knowing how to do this, having the people who will do it, having the explosives, all these other things.
This isn't something that, uh, you know, a bunch of local dissidents in some sub of Damascus could not get to be able to do.
So I think it's very much the same guys.
Well, you know, it's funny, you know, we were talking about kind of the media, um, the, the juvenile level of their debate about the future of our intervention, the presence of the present of our intervention there.
Um, the narrative of course, being what's taking so long to go and be Superman and save the day for the poor Syrian people, that kind of thing.
And, uh, one of these people on, uh, I believe it was CBS asked Hillary Clinton what's taking so long.
And she was coming up with excuses.
And so she happened to mention, I think she probably would, you know, wish she hadn't said this out loud, but she did say, well, you know, Zawahiri's come out and in support of this and Hamas has come out in support of this.
And so are we on the same side as Al Qaeda in Syria?
We need to be very careful.
And yet it looks like she's just going to go on.
Anyway, she is going on anyway, right?
Yeah.
They sort of, you know, the same sort of entanglements happen.
Um, I guess they probably feel that, uh, you know, that they got rid of Gaddafi, but, uh, that's a different story from, uh, Syria, you know, and that at the end, the outcome of that hasn't been too happy, you know, the militias took over, took over the airport in Tripoli today, uh, because they want their leader out of jail.
So, uh, but you know, it's in Syria, they sort of, sometimes they're overconfident.
Sometimes they see the dangers in front of them.
Uh, but you know, for the Syrian people, this is very bad news because, you know, once you have these civil wars that start, uh, even if they begin as popular uprisings, then you have, you know, foreign powers with their own very distinct interest, uh, using the local groups as pawns, uh, you know, supplying arms to those who they think are most, uh, sympathetic to the interests of the foreign power that is paying them.
Uh, you know, this is, uh, beginning of a whole nightmare for Syria.
Um, of course you have some, you know, in Damascus, I talked to people say, oh, it will, you know, it'll be a short thing that Assad will fall, that, uh, it may get worse, but you know, then it'll be all over.
Um, you know, it could be good if this did end soon, but I don't see any signs of it.
You know, the government still is still strong.
The opposition has strength isn't going to go away, but it has all the buildings are, you know, the building blocks are very bloody stalemate.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
That's the way it seemed here too.
I thought that what, three months ago now, two and a half months ago, something like that, uh, was the big battle of Homs, which, uh, my understanding was the Syrian government won and that that was a big turning point on the side of the government there.
Well, there was that.
Yeah.
But there was also, you know, that the UN security council, um, you know, that didn't, um, there wasn't a vote in favor of the intervention or something like intervention.
Um, the, you know, the government's military superiority shouldn't have been in debt.
Maybe the guys holding prompts or Chipotle prompts thought it was, but, uh, you know, this was, um, always going to be, uh, uh, going to end one way.
I still, I still would end one way.
Uh, if there's any sort of military contrapuntation, but the fighting is getting more intense.
Uh, uh, the, uh, weapons are flowing into the country paid for by Saudi Arabia and others probably.
So yeah, you have all the ingredients for a very sort of prolonged, nasty, vicious war.
You're saying it was always going to go one way.
In other words, the only way that there's going to be, uh, the fall of the Boffits regime there is if there was either a vote on the security council for a real war and NATO goes around them and starts a real war, but foreign powers would have to do it.
The people of Syria, you're saying have no chance really against us.
Probably not against, you know, against, uh, a, um, the government has presently constituted.
But one of the problems is you see, the, you know, at the moment we have the, the copia and plan, which is meant to be a ceasefire, which is meant to be applied first on the 12th of April.
Obviously there isn't a ceasefire, but this has elements in it, you know, like, uh, allowing popular protest, uh, humanitarian aid, um, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the city, release of detainees.
Um, but it also has as sort of, as a target, uh, overthrowing the government, getting rid of the government.
Or, um, now, you know, if you want a government to modify its behavior or agree to reform, uh, you have to give it a reason to do that.
If you say, basically, we want you to drop dead, you know, the Syrian government saying, well, why should we do anything but do things that are just geared to weaken us as for the ceasefire?
You know, it's in the government interest.
It's not in the rebels interest to do that.
But so I think that there's a set of hypocrisy about this.
And certainly if, uh, the Syrian government is meant to, uh, uh, be pushed out of power, that it's not going to introduce these reforms.
Right now, if it was just, you know, all things being equal and all foreign powers silent for a week or whatever, and it was really just up to the people of Syria, is it about a 50 50 split in support of the regime or 60 40?
Or how do you call it?
I think it's, you know, the government is, this has been a police state.
The guy's running at the top, you know, made a great deal of money.
You know, one time this may have been a regime which had popular support, um, you know, but particularly since they sort of started, uh, privatizing industries, a bit like Egypt in that way, or Libya.
Once they started privatizing industry, I pushed back to like the IMF and so forth.
Uh, you know, what, what, what did they, they privatized, uh, public institutions or public companies and then they were all taken over by the relatives or close friends of Bashar al-Assad or Muammar Gaddafi or the Mubarak's, you know?
So they lost, uh, support by doing this.
Uh, and they created a sort of a very sort of vicious crony capitalism.
I'm sorry.
I was talking over you, Patrick.
Could you give me your number?
Did you say a number you think it is the split percentage wise?
Um, I think that, uh, I don't, I think the government has support, but maybe it's about sort of 20% of the people say 30%.
One person said to me 30%, but he was a Christian, said 30%, 30%, uh, for 30% against.
And the other 40% would kind of like to get on with their lives, you know, would kind of like the government change, but it's really worried what's going to happen.
Another much more militant guy was saying to me, no, it's 5% for the government, another 10% support the government.
And then you have the 50% who were against the government.
Uh, and then the rest is on the sidelines.
You know, it's a bit sort of, it gives a, it gives an impression of precision about how people are divided.
It's really impossible to, uh, verify on the ground or indeed for anybody to know.
But I think, you know, there is, there are people who are going to fight for the government and fight pretty hard.
You're going to have, you know, you have the minorities, the Christians, the Alawites, the, uh, the Druze, the Kurds and so forth who, uh, worry about what's going to happen if the government falls.
Are they going to end up like, you know, like the Christians of Baghdad who basically have been destroyed by, yeah, all in Syrian refugee camps right now.
Sure.
Although they, you know, they fled but their communities have been destroyed.
They've been there for 2000 years, you know, so people really don't worry about that.
Uh, then rebels out there are Christians who are against the government and civil.
I think that's true, but I think it's good.
It's all getting more and more bloody and more and more sectarian, you know?
Well, yeah.
I mean, obviously anybody could hate Bashar al-Assad and even want to see him overthrown, but also be very fearful about what might come next.
Yeah, that's true.
And then the balance of fear of how much you dislike the present and how much you expect from the future is going to change according to events.
Sure.
All right.
Now there's been more and more violence in Lebanon.
And according, I guess to McClatchy headlines, which I put some stock in their reporting, um, they're saying this is really all about what's going on in Syria is now breaking out in the suburbs of Beirut.
Can you comment on that?
Sure.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, it really, it really supports the point I was making of a growing sort of militarization and growing sectarianism, uh, of the Syrian crisis.
You know, it's spread to Tripoli.
There's a lot of fighting in Tripoli.
There's some fighting in Beirut.
Um, it's been in Alawites and Sunni in Beirut, Sunni and Shia.
Uh, you know, this is spreading.
This is having an impact in Iraq as well.
Uh, they don't, that's a Shia government.
They don't like what they see.
So, you know, this is, uh, this whole crisis has the potential to spread well beyond the borders of Syria.
Now, I mean, I, I don't mean this in a way that it would mitigate their responsibility or anything like that, but I wonder whether you think that the people running the U S state department are just blind, deaf and stupid, or they really don't care if they set the Levant on fire or, or what are they going for here?
A permanent war?
I don't really know.
I don't know if they know.
Um, the, I mean, you know, to what point you demonize, uh, Assad, you sort of set things up for a civil war, you know?
I mean, Iraq and Libya, Saddam Hussein Gaddafi fell because of outside intervention in Libya.
It was kind of pretend that it was the rebels, but they wouldn't have lasted 48 hours without a NATO support.
In fact, they were sort of a minor support for NATO really.
Uh, if you don't have that in Syria, then the government's going to stay in power.
Um, but I think at the moment, you know, it looks like is a sort of a mix or just enough foreign support to keep the rebels in business and fighting, but the government will stick to it for the moment.
Yeah.
Well, and then see, that's where we're back to where we started here with the incident, you know, whether it's this massacre or the next one, or some kind of a black Swan sort of thing comes and comes the excuse for further intervention that, well, now we really just have to do something about it.
And of course, you know, that's the way I always like to pretend that we always, all those who argue for it, you know, seem to be the same type of thing, people who argued for intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Right.
I mean, it's quite, it's rather amazing to watch, you know, CNN or watch British television or something.
And you see the same old guys, you know, arguing in the same old way that, you know, let's get stuck in there.
Um, I've never really been held to account for what they did previously or the consequences of what they did previously.
Right.
Especially on the Iran issue where all of the worst Hawks on Iran were the very worst Hawks on Iraq, which was the best thing that anyone ever did for the Ayatollah was get rid of Saddam for him and help the Shiites take over all the land between Baghdad and Basra, as you describe in your book.
Sure.
Yeah.
And I think that, uh, you know, how far did they think these things through?
Well, I don't think they didn't really think things through.
I mean, um, you know, Afghanistan, Iraq, what to administer, U.S. administrations think about?
Well, I suppose most governments spend most of their time thinking about getting reelected, you know?
So how far did they actually think of a long-term consequence for Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians?
And I think it's pretty low down in their priorities.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, listen, I've already kept you over time.
I better let you go, but I want to thank you very much for your time again on the show, Patrick.
Good to talk to you.
Everybody.
That is the great Patrick Coburn at The Independent.
That's independent.co.uk.
The latest is why war is marching on the road to Damascus.
We'll be right back.
