Special to WorldTribune.com

Excerpted from an article by Yossef Bodansky, Senior Editor, Global Information System

The intense fighting of late January and early February in Syria, coupled with the vastly improved manipulation of the jihadists there by Iranian intelligence … have already enabled Syria’s Bashar Assad administration to take control over the war in Syria.

For the industrialized West, this is the most important theater in the current upheaval in the Greater Middle East. The political working assumptions of the Arab governments are that: 1) Iran has already crossed the nuclear threshold; and 2) that Teheran has decided to maintain an Israel-style opacity in order not to aggravate an already tenuous situation. Both assumptions are factually correct.

The conservative Arab governments, particularly Riyadh and Doha, are cognizant of both Teheran’s Mahdivist commitment to the destruction of Israel in the context of liberating Islam’s three holiest shrines in Jerusalem, Mecca, and Medina, which inevitably means the toppling of the House of al-Saud; and Jerusalem’s reticence to unilaterally strike Iran despite the mounting threat.

Hence, the real Iranian threat lies in the Iranian dominance of the region’s oil and gas resources as well as their transportation to the industrialized West by pipeline and tanker.

The real impact of a de facto nuclear Iran lies in Iran’s hegemonic umbrella over the Arabian Peninsula and especially the Shi’ite-populated east where the bulk of the oil and gas reserves are located.

Iran effectively dominates energy-rich Iraq, and would not let go of Syria with its smaller oil reserves but crucial pipelines and ports, as well as Lebanon and its pipeline and port. And, of course, there are Iran’s own vast oil and gas reserves, as well as preferential access to these of Central Asia and the Caucasus. Hence, as far as the industrialized West is concerned, Teheran — rather than traditional Riyadh and Doha — is the real “owner” and “controller” of the Persian Gulf’s master spigot. In other words, the availability and price of oil now essentially depend on the goodwill of Tehran and to a far lesser degree on that of Riyadh and Doha.

Concurrently, there’s the mobilizing and radicalizing of the Arab street by all Islamist-jihadist trends and administrations in the name of anti-Israel jihad as the lowest common denominator that will buy some legitimacy to any one of these actors. Iran is both sponsoring and exploiting this trend via the Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and a host of Al Qaida-affiliated entities in order to sustain some legitimacy in an Arab World turning to the anti-Shi’ite Muslim Brothers.

And, above all, there lingers the question whether these fateful struggles be conducted under an Iranian nuclear umbrella or even a Saudi one (to be provided by Pakistan and the PRC).

The security situation in Syria is also affected by domestic dynamics. Modern Syria is essentially the balancing of three foci of power: 1) Security apparatus which relies on the ‘Alawite, Druze and Kurdish minorities; 2) Urban-economic elite which relies on westernized Sunni families, Armenian, and Christian minorities; and 3) Radicalized and tribal Sunni population in the rural areas and increasingly the urban slums.

The economic élite has consistently stayed out of the turmoil, thus facilitating the current crisis. The bombing in Aleppo on Feb. 10, signaled a change, whereupon the urban economic elite must get involved on the side which promises them more. This turning point is playing into the hands of the Assad administration.

The key to the current strategy of the administration is that Damascus divided Syria into three strategic zones on the basis of their importance for the survival of the Administration and the running of the post-war country. The military priorities and resource allocation are based on this division.

1. The minorities’ bloc which is comprised of the traditional lands of the minorities upon which the security apparatus relies. These are the ‘Alawite strip along the Mediterranean coastline between Lebanon and Turkey, the Druze area in the southwest, up to the Jordanian and Israeli borders, and the Kurdish area in the northeast, largely along the Turkish border but also part of the border with Iraq (where Syria’s oilfields are located). Presently, these areas are essentially quiet with the local population committed to supporting the Administration. The minorities’ knowledge that they would be slaughtered under a Sunni-jihadist regime only reinforces the commitment to Assad’s Damascus.

2. The economic-strategic belt which is the area where the national economy (industry and commerce), as well as defense industries and strategic stockpiles, are located. Geographically, this is a relatively narrow strip between Damascus and Aleppo that includes the two key industrial cities Hama and Homs. This strip borders the ‘Alawite strip on the west and the Druze area on the south, but also borders the Turkey on the northwest and north, and the rest of Syria on the east.

3. The vast interior which is comprised of essentially the rest of Syria to the east of the belt and to the south of the Kurdish zone. This area enjoys access to parts of the border with Turkey and the porous borders with Iraq and Jordan. This area is inhabited mainly by Sunni Islamists and Arab tribes that cross over to Iraq and Jordan. This area is economically depressed because of endemic absence of water and lack of infrastructure (roads, electricity, etc.), and hence does not have great prospects for the future. Hence, this region has been the source of internal migration to urban slums in the main cities. These areas are implacably hostile to the administration in Damascus — that is, any regime in Damascus — because they are implacably destitute and are thus susceptible to radicalization.

The ultimate priority of the Assad administration — to secure the traditional regions of the key minorities — has already been attained.

The second priority — to control the economic-strategic belt — is being implemented ruthlessly. This approach is largely successful because rebel activities is now contained to several slums and neighborhoods rather than spreading into the rural areas.

However, with the jihadist elements holding firm and even escalating strikes from their parts of Homs and Hama, the administration’s efforts become more ruthless and desperate to the point of ethnic cleansing some of the die-hard slums and neighborhoods in Homs and Hama. The secondary mission of the administration’s security forces is preventing the relentless efforts by Turkey-based jihadist forces to reach Aleppo in order to provoke insurrection, as well as prevent a similar jihadist infiltration from northeastern Lebanon into nearby Homs and on to Hama. But the Assad administration is adamant on suppressing the jihadist insurrection in the economic-strategic belt at all cost, and will ultimately succeed if left to its own devices.

The third priority is reducing the level of Islamist-jihadist insurrection in the vast interior, as well as slowing down the flow of jihadist volunteers, weapons and funds from Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. The Administration’s strategy is based on holding onto some of the key cities in the east to better control the Iraqi border, mainly Dar az-Zawr and Ar-Raqqah, as well as Abu-Kamal on the Iraqi border and the military city of Tadmur in the center, and let everything else burn.

The more stable the Assad administration becomes, the more determined Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia become to involve the industrialized West — that is NATO — in the military intervention ostensibly to topple the Assad administration, but actually to reverse the Iran-Shi’ite axis.

The upheaval in Syria pits the resurgent Sunni Arab Islamism against the region’s aspirant non-Arab Islamist hegemonic powers: Mahdivist Iran and neo-Ottoman Turkey.

The main quandary is not whether Bashar al-Assad — the individual — remains in power; neither is it whether “his” administration survives the upheaval. Far more important is the crucial imperative to restore and preserve a viable Syrian state via meaningful political reforms, as well as economic recovery and modernization of the entire region. Toward this end, it would be crucial to draw Damascus and Syria away from the Iranian embrace and influence.

Thus, in addressing the turmoil in Syria, the West must be extremely careful not to throw out the baby (‘Alawite-Druze preeminence) with the bath water (ending the fratricidal violence). The undermining of the preeminence of the ‘Alawite-Druze in official Damascus in the name of a demography-based democracy, and the ensuing marginalization and destruction of the Fertile Crescent of Minorities, would cause cataclysmic upheaval throughout the greater Middle East.

Hence, Western leaders must resist the temptation to come up with instant-gratification panacea solutions just because there are ugly images of violence on the satellite TV news. The Arab Middle East, of which Syria is a crucial component, is currently going through a peak in a historic convulsion spanning a quarter of a millennium.

Ultimately, the Arab Middle East will have to find their own solution for their own problem. The West might be able to help alleviate the crisis, but the West might also unintentionally spark a cataclysmic eruption which would set the region aflame. Internalize what Albert Einstein said: “If I had one hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution.”

  Alawites, Arabian Peninsula, Bashar Assad, Druze, Fertile Crescent of Minorities, Hama, Homs, Islamist jihadists, Kurds, Shi’ite, Syrian crisis: It’s complicated and West needs to take the time to grasp what’s at stake