All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton, scotthorton.org is the website.
And our next guest is Giorgio Caffiero.
His new piece in foreign policy in focus, that's fpif.org, is called Serious Sectarian Echoes in Turkey.
Welcome to the show, Giorgio.
How are you doing?
Great, Scott.
How are you?
I'm doing good.
Good to talk to you again.
Hey, thanks so much for having me back on your show.
Let's see.
Giorgio, everyone, is a research assistant there at foreign policy in focus.
Very well informed, in-depth article here, Serious Sectarian Echoes in Turkey.
We're just talking with Pepe Escobar about, well, a lot of different aspects, of course, of the war in Syria.
And part of it was the blowback for the Erdogan government there already.
And most especially, I guess, with Assad in Syria playing the chess move to go ahead and tell the Kurd population, Kurdish population, which is, I guess, you know, geographically separated off a little bit, I guess.
He told them, go ahead and be autonomous as a way to check and fight back against Erdogan, you know, a way to make the Kurdish population of Turkey want to maybe join with the Syrians or, you know, a base for Kurdish fighters, PKK fighters in Syria on the other side of the border, that kind of thing.
And so, you kind of, you talk about that, but you go into all the different Shiite factions and all kinds of different who's who in Syria.
So I guess maybe I should just shut up and let you elaborate as much as you can.
I'll try to come up with as good follow-up questions as I can from there.
Sure.
Well, throughout the past year and a half, Turkey has played a pretty active role in efforts to undermine the Assad regime as much as possible.
However, the sectarian character of the Syrian civil war has had a rather complicated effect on some of the religious minorities in Turkey, particularly the Alevis, who constitute about 20-25% of Turkey's population, and about the half million Arab Alawites who live in Turkey.
These communities do not support the Turk, well, many of the people in these communities, I should say, do not support Erdogan's position vis-a-vis Syria.
They are very worried about radical Sunnis coming to power in Syria and the sectarian strife spilling over north of the border.
The Alevis in Turkey have been a marginalized group.
They practice a form of Islam, Shiism, which contrasts from the majority of Turks who practice Sunni Islam, and many of these Alevis are not in favor of the ruling Turkish party, which many of them believe is trying to impose a form of Sunni Islam on the entire country.
Well, and so one of the things also that Pepe was bringing up was the, which I don't know how long ago he was referring to, but an attempted coup or at least a supposed coup plot had led to the arrest of all of these generals who would have been the ones in charge of, you know, checking the PKK at this point.
Yeah, the situation in Syrian Kurdistan has taken some interesting turns.
As you mentioned a few minutes ago, the Assad forces have withdrawn from northeastern Syria, but the Free Syrian Army has not filled the power vacuum.
In fact, the Turkish faction affiliated with the PKK, the PYD, has taken control of a number of Kurdish-majority towns in northern Syria, and many have contended that Assad decided to hand power over to the Kurds as a little bit of a tit-for-tat response to the Erdogan government, which has fueled many weapons into the hands of Syria's opposition.
I think Assad's objective is to make Turkish intervention in Syria ever more costly for Turkey.
So why do you think that Erdogan is so hell-bent on doing this?
It doesn't seem like he would have had to have, you know, genius advisors or something to warn him that, you know, there will be consequences if you do this, and particularly if he's going to intervene this hard on the side of the rebels, and then they're going to go ahead and lose anyway.
I think there's a number of factors.
Primarily, Erdogan has made a calculation that he thinks it's just a matter of time until the Assad regime falls.
So regardless of what he thinks of Assad, he and his country wants to be on the right side of history.
Also, about 75% of Syria practices Sunni Islam.
It's only been the past 42 years they've been ruled by a minority.
Alawite regime and the form of political Islam that Erdogan stands for in Turkey is quite popular throughout the Arab world.
Right now, Ankara believes that it's possible a new government in Syria would be more friendly to Turkey in an ideological respect.
At the same time, a Sunni government in Damascus will certainly change Syria's relationship with Iran and weaken and decrease the amount of Iranian influence in the Arab world.
Turkey would certainly like to fill that void and really position itself as the new non-Arab leader in the Arab world.
I think it was Eric Margulies that said that Turkey was really the start of the Arab Spring.
It didn't get that much play and attention here in the United States at the time, I guess, in the media, but the old kind of secularist, bent military state there is gone.
Once they had a chance to elect their own, well, to have real elections and a civilian government there, it was Islamists that won.
I mean, Erdogan is no Zalihiri or anything, but he's also not the reliable old Turkish generals either, right?
Exactly.
In Turkey, he has sort of really won a struggle as a moderate Islamist fighting the secular Kamalist establishment and really doing a lot to limit the role of the military in politics and bring Turkey under civilian rule.
He certainly is admired by many on the Arab street for doing this.
Many on the Arab street have had enough with these secular Republican dictatorships.
I think Erdogan is really calculating that the Turkish model can become the next popular model after the Arab Spring.
Yeah, the Americans, you know, they preach free markets and democracy as they support dictators that torture people to death all over the place and just muddle all of these terms together where people associate the good part of Western values with the worst behavior of our Republicans and Democrats.
Well, it's certainly true that the U.S. has supported many governments in the Middle East that cannot exactly be described as democratic, that's for sure.
I mean, you look at a situation like Turkey where, you know, it always was considered that they're the bridge to the Middle East and they were going to join the European Union there for a long time, it was talked about, I guess that never happened, but they've been a NATO ally for 50 years and it was founded, you know, modern Turkey founded as a secular state like that, but it took a military dictatorship, a foreign-backed military dictatorship to make it that way.
And so, you know, then Hillary Clinton wants to tell people that, you know, their project is spreading democracy, how's anybody supposed to take that seriously?
Or even democracy or self-government that, you know, direct election, regular elections and the entire process seriously when it's, you know, soaked in the blood that Hillary Clinton's been letting around.
Yeah, and in my article I also talk about how a number of the Alevis in Turkey look at the faction, many of the factions in Syria who have received support from Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, a lot of these people practice a pretty radical form of Sunni Islam and they certainly do not buy the American line that our interests in Syria are related to improving human rights, as a lot of these actors in Syria may possibly not be as bad as Assad, but certainly do not preach any sort of democratic values.
Yeah, I mean, it really is crazy, you know, never even mind all the propaganda since the empire decided to try to co-opt the Arab Spring uprising there in Syria, but even before that everything I've ever learned of that country is that it's a ruthless police state and maybe the Sun isn't as ruthless as the father, maybe he hadn't been up until now as ruthless as the father, but, you know, that's a land of secret police and no real pretension of law, you know, dictators do whatever they want.
And then here you still have quite a large majority, I don't know if it's a super majority or not, but a pretty large majority of the country still supports this dictator, even when, as you say, the majority of the country are Sunni Arabs, still, people support the dictator, this guy who, you know, when George Bush would say, hey, torture this guy to death for me, he'd say, all right, and torture him to death for him, you know, they prefer him to what they fear is coming next if he falls.
Absolutely, much of the Assad's regime support comes from the religious minorities of Turkey, the Christians, the Alawites, the Shias, the Druze, who collectively constitute about one quarter of the Syrian population, and also there are a number of Sunni from the business class who've really benefited from Assad's neoliberal reforms.
Much of his opposition comes from Islamist factions who despise his brand of secularism, as well as many of the rural poor Sunnis who have been, who've certainly been affected very negatively by his economic policies in recent years.
Well, I'm so slanted against my own government's intervention here, I don't mean to sound like I'm on the side of a dictatorship against an uprising, I'm down for any kind of secession, I don't know if they really ought to even be battling to try to take Damascus and, you know, rather than just break off a small part if they can, if that's what their, if their own liberty is what they're really interested in, maybe that'd be a better strategy, something like that, but more and more it seems like these guys are just mercs, basically, you know, they're, whoever they are, as you call them, armed gangs, I think, or quoting somebody else calling them that, their salaries, quote unquote, are, not mine, right, that was from the official press release by the Qataris or something, that them and the Saudis are paying their way, and the CIA is organizing their arms, and how domestic is this uprising at this point at all, I'm starting to think that maybe the protesters, that was legit, but all the armed fighting has just been a bunch of sock puppetry.
Yeah, the conflict is certainly internationalized over the months, initially in March of last year, it was about many domestic reforms, there were a lot of people who came to the streets and said, you know, this leader doesn't have legitimacy to be an unelected dictator just because of the fact that his father was an unelected dictator, right, and have a more open society, more political freedom, but other countries, primarily the Sunni Gulf states, Turkey, and on the other side, the Russians, the Iranians, the Chinese, and the Hezbollah, became very active in the Syrian conflict to pursue their own national interests that really have nothing to do with the dignity or the human rights of the actual Syrian people, and now there is really essentially a cold war being waged in Syria on the backs of the Syrian people, and I think it's important to note that all of the sides who have been fueling the violence in Syria, in addition to the regime and the armed opposition, have a lot of blood on their hands and bear much responsibility for the tragic past 18 months.
Yep, well and again, at the top level, Obama could have said to the rebels, hey look, you should negotiate, and instead, he's let them set the terms that they will not negotiate until Assad leaves, that's it, and so now you even have one of Assad's front men saying we're even willing to negotiate that question if you'll meet with us, but no, the answer is, and because this is American policy, I'm not giving the credit to the rebels, it's Obama's policy, that they don't have to negotiate with the Assad regime in any sort of power sharing or any kind of limitation on power exercising or any sort of thing, if they want to demand that Assad has to leave, then good, he should leave, and so all that means is prolonging the fighting, because he's saying no, I don't want to leave, and so far he hasn't had to, so what's he going to do?
Give up power?
Come on!
No, it seems that both the regime and the armed opposition have made the calculation that it's in their interest to continue fighting.
The regime thinks that just through continued brute force, they can eventually shut down the opposition.
The opposition understands it's less armed than the regime, but it's a war of attrition and that time is on their side and that the regime will inevitably crumble if they can just continue the fight.
I think both sides are mistaken.
As we recall, during the years leading up to the Arab Spring, Assad was respected tremendously throughout both Sunni and Shia circles in the Arab world.
Even if he maintains power in Syria, he will never be respected after what he's done to his own people.
Likewise, when the opposition decided to take up arms, from the perception in the international community, there became a little bit of legitimacy to the Syrian government's claims that it needed to use such brute force to defend itself.
While I'm not going to make a moral case against people taking up arms to overthrow a very tyrannical regime, I think political scientists have provided data that shows that regimes are more likely to change when their opposition uses non-violent tactics.
I think the decision of the opposition to take up arms was a grave miscalculation.
I think they could have done more to damage the regime if they remained non-violent during the early stages of the Arab Spring in Syria.
It is unfortunate, as you say, that all these great power politics are being played out on the backs of the people of Syria from whichever faction.
When we talk about support for the regime based on fear for the future, well, it doesn't have to be that way.
What if it really was kind of a peaceful-ish regime change?
Maybe a lot more people would agree with it.
If they really thought they were going to get something like a rule of law and regular elections and fair trials and end to so-called emergencies that justify a secret police force and all these kinds of things and actually have a real Arab Spring revolution, then maybe they could have done that.
Unfortunately, it just sucks to be Syrian this year, basically, because it's like being Polish in the middle of the 20th century.
You're stuck between Russia and Germany.
You're screwed.
I'm sorry.
What are we going to do for you?
You happen to be in the wrong spot.
In this case, you can't have a revolution in Syria without it being an American-Saudi-Qatari and, on the other side, Russian and Iranian and whoever playground there.
Absolutely.
Syria really sits at the center of the Arab world.
Iran's capacity to bring weapons into southern Lebanon for the Hezbollah has been greatly facilitated by the Assad regime.
Likewise, Russia's military presence in the Mediterranean is facilitated by the Assad regime, which has hosted the Russian naval base at Tartus.
Also, the Saudis and the Turks would like to break that Shia axis that stretches from Iran to the Mediterranean by putting a Sunni government in Syria, which would ideally be hostile to Iran, or at least certainly not friendly to Iran.
From the Syrian people's perspective, it's just very unfortunate that they sit in the crossroads of a very unstable region that all these different actors and governments are fighting over.
What's the word from the Iraqi refugees hiding out in Syria now?
Are they going home?
When the Iraq war was very violent about 5, 6, 7 years ago, many Iraqis went into Syria.
As anyone who turns on the TV these days knows, Iraq is not exactly a stable, safe country, but these Iraqis in Syria are now traveling back to Iraq because they believe it's in their interest to be there rather than in Syria.
That's how bad the situation in Syria has become.
They're living in refugee camps there, so it can't have been that great.
But yet, millions of them, right?
This is a giant whole...
This ought to be a whole other news story out of Iraq.
I haven't seen it, but maybe you know where I can read about these people coming home.
Absolutely.
There's been a lot of articles up recently.
The Iraqi government is really drained on a lot of resources, and obviously that country has enough of its own problems.
The conflict in Syria will just exacerbate all the problems in Iraq right now.
All right.
Tell me more about the Alevis, and then there was another group here too that you talked about, another break-off group.
Was it just the Alawites, the same as in Syria inside Turkey?
And what's their positions inside Turkey?
Yeah.
Well, both these groups, the Turkish Alevis and the Arab Alawites, practice a form of Islam that derives from the Shia sect.
So both within Turkey and in Syria, these groups live as a minority in Sunni-dominated countries.
Both groups have been marginalized by their Sunni neighbors for many, many years.
And one of the tactics of the Assad regime, which is made up primarily of Alawites, is used for several decades, is this sectarian card where they earn the trust and respect of the Alawites because they've protected them from large intolerant elements of Sunni society.
And the Turkish Alevis in Turkey can't look at their government the same way that their counterparts in Syria can, because even under the secular leadership of Ataturk and the following Kemalist leaders, they've been very marginalized in Turkey.
So there's a tremendous amount of respect that a number of Turkish Alevis and Arab Alawites in Turkey have for the Assad regime.
And they have seen in recent months, many Syrian refugees have come into the refugee camps in southern Turkey, brought with them many anti-Alawite prejudices.
And so these Turkish minorities are very worried about the implications of the Assad regime collapsing and possibly the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood taking control of Syria and possibly forming a close alliance with the Turkish government.
They feel they'd be pretty marginalized under such circumstances.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I guess maybe I am a little bit neocon or a little bit utopian.
I would like to see Jeffersonian values, the ones that Hillary Clinton claims to be spreading when she's burning people to death.
I would like to see those spread throughout the world.
I would like to see a giant Rodney King moment in Syria where he says, you know what?
I don't care what religion you are or what holiday you celebrate or whatever.
Let's just do business and be friends and who cares?
And not have to go through a hundred years religious war over there and whatever sectarian tribal thing.
We ought to be able to sell them on the ideas that, you know, like freedom of religion, for example, and respect for individual rights instead of all this just ethnic tribalism, these kinds of things.
But we can't because, again, our government invokes all these principles as it simply wages war and supports torturers and makes a mockery, the most cynical mockery of the principles that they claim.
And so instead, it's just the same old world, you know, going on.
And our one chance to really impress people with our system is better because we really believe in these kind of Jeffersonian principles.
It's already over.
It's already wasted.
And now we're just stuck on same old stupid earth where everybody's fighting over whose tribe they're in.
Yeah, it's very unfortunate.
A lot of governments, including the United States, have definitely exploited some of the sectarian tensions in the Middle East for their own national interests.
That's absolutely correct.
Yeah, it's too bad.
Those neocons, they seized their moment and then they just completely blew it.
And now, you know, I don't know, the Democrats can't do, ever do anything except add insult to injury.
So here we are with them too.
Although I don't know if maybe this is a little too off topic, but do you expect that things would be much worse if Mitt Romney was the president right now, for example, would he had just already started a war?
It's very difficult to tell.
There's a lot of information that, you know, the president has access to, the public doesn't.
I think both the Obama administration or Romney administration be very cautious about coming further involved in Syria.
There have been confirmed reports about Al-Qaeda affiliates being part of the opposition too.
So I would like to think that either President Obama in a second term or President Romney would exercise a lot of caution before providing more support to the opposition in Syria.
All right, everybody, that's Giorgio Capiero from Foreign Policy and Focus, fpif.org.
Thanks again for your time.
Appreciate it.
And we'll see you all tomorrow, noon to 2 Eastern, here on No Agenda Radio.
