Iraq and Syria: cross infection

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/30/iraq-syria-cross-infection

Version 0 of 1.

The Saudis think Barack Obama has gone soft on Bashar al-Assad and Iran – "a weak pussycat" is one phrase in use – and that although they would prefer to stay behind the bead curtains, someone, they claim, has to step forward with arms for the Syrian rebels. The rebels themselves are now so split that the term has to be used selectively. Jihadi groups have rolled into town across northern and eastern Syria, and intense clashes have broken out with rebel brigades in the past three weeks.

The fragmentation of the opposition does not stop there. Brigades once considered to form the bulk of the fighting force last week broke with the western-backed coalition based in Istanbul. They continue, however, to accept arms from the Syrian supreme military council. If they stopped doing that, they would really have split off, but they have little other choice. Thirteen of them, however, have formed a new alliance that excludes the most powerful al-Qaida-linked group in Syria.

As the civil war degenerates into a multisided conflict, the question is now put: could what happened in Anbar in 2007 be repeated in Syria in 2013? Could the model of Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq who helped drive al-Qaida out, in a movement known as the awakening (al-Sahawa), be used as a template for the same thing in northern Syria? The parallel is there, but it is still a long way from being a blueprint.

For a start, the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has done much to reverse the work of the awakening, which he never trusted and always thought worked as a stalking horse for the jihadis. When the Americans stopped paying the salaries of the Sunni brigades in Anbar, they were supposed to be integrated into the Shia-controlled armed forces, but that never fully happened. Today Anbar is up in arms. It does not take much to trigger an anti-government demonstration, the latest one in Samarra caused by an assault by security forces on the house of Rafi al-Issawi, former finance minister and a Sunni politician. Ahmed Abu Risha, one of the leaders of the awakening, told the Guardian that what happened in Anbar in 2006 and is starting again with random bombings today could be repeated in Aleppo. This time, one theatre of war could be used to feed and supply another.

The second difference is that if militias rise up, a nation state has to intervene to support them. And there is increasingly less chance of the Americans fulfilling that role as Mr Obama probes the possibilities of a grand bargain with Iran. He now has little other option. This has provoked the suspicion that Syria will be traded away as a result. The rebels still have to come to terms with the probability that they could end up in a sectarian landscape, like Iraq or Lebanon. It could be a long time before Syria feels like a liberated country.

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.