Saeed Naqvi

The multitudes who trekked the tricky path for the Alaska Gold Rush mostly came a cropper. What fate awaits the punters who have made a beeline for the Syrian casino will become a wee bit clearer when President Trump ascends the Washington gaddi on January 20. The US, Israel, Tukey, HTS, a stream of European countries have their hats in the ring. Iran, Iraq, Lebanon are relatively passive.

Some unexpected names are in circulation again – Eric Prince, the founder of Blackwater, the world’s biggest contractor for mercenary armies. In 2017, during Trump’s first term, Prince had submitted a lengthy project report to privatize” the military management of Afghanistan.

At the very outset, the project should have been turfed out of hand as moronic, but the lamentable fact is that the document did find traction upto the White House, through the agency of Trump’s close adviser Steve Bannon before he was shown the door. The Pentagon ultimately put the project through the shredders.

The Afghanistan project may not have taken off. This does not mean that Prince has been grounded. He now lives in the UAE, has been active in disturbed places like Libya. How could Syria not be a magnet for a businessman filled with the Spirit of adventure and faith in American capitalism?

We have the testimony of the Wall Street journal that the Trump team is already in touch with Prince on a matter concerning Ukraine. Prince is being nudged to buy Motor Sich, a Ukrainian aircraft engine manufacturer to prevent a group of Chinese companies from acquiring all the sensitive goodies that go with Motor Sich.

American adventurers being asked to buy up Ukrainian assets? Is the loot on? The incoming President has already gone public: he wants to own the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada. Why not add Syria to the list?

Who sired Hayat Tehrir al Sham?

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Eric Prince may have known Abu Mohammad al Julani who mutated into Ahmed al Sharaa and is now the leader of Hayat Tehrir al Sham. HTS itself an amalgamation of various Sunni, Takfiri groups once Jabhat al Nusra which was in guerrilla combat with the official Syrian Army eversince the civil war broke out in 2011 just when the Arab Spring gathered pace in the Arab world.

The late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, coming out of convalescence from a German clinic, was stunned to find his friends Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia ousted by their people. To stave off popular resentment against his regime, he showered $136 billion on his people in cash payments and welfare schemes.

He then went about lobbying for a coalition for dismantling the Shia arc – Iran, Syria, Hezbollah (Southern Lebanon) and Hamas in Gaza, all under US auspices. Israel, the spider in all West Asian webs, is by western custom, never mentioned when plots are revealed.

There was a difficulty in the Shia arc from the beginning. It was a misnomer. Yes, Iran is Shia, but Syria is predominantly Sunni with a variant of Shias, the Alawis, a minority elite group who control military power. Islam in Syria and Iraq was tempered by Baath socialism founded in 1947 by Michel Aflaq (a Christian), Salah al-Din al-Bitar (Sunni) and Zaki al Arsuzi (Alawi/Shia). It was at core Arab nationalism, tied to socialism and anti Imperialism.

In 1952, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt was similarly structured. This concert of Arab nationalism and socialism with an anti imperialist slant was always going to be hugely inconvenient to a theocratic, Zionist state plus America.

The Israel national security state required a solid enemy, not socialism and nationalism but something more like rampaging Islamism, potential of terrorism built into it. 9/11 should be made out to be a credible possibility, the stuff that makes propaganda copy writers salivate.

Nasser with his secularism made way for Anwar Sadat, with his Muslim Brotherhood background. That became the perfect counterpoint – one theocracy in conversation with another. Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem was the seed from which sprouted the idea of Abrahamic accords.

From Sadat’s Islam, reared in the ranks of the Akhwan, to Ahmed al Sharaa who mutated from Abu Mohammad Ali Julani and who was a true blue terrorist until the other day, Israel is now surrounded by every possible variety of Islam.

The world opens up for Mercenaries.

Yes, to revert to mercenary supremo, Eric Prince who may well have monitored the career of a star mercenary like Sharaa. When Ashton Carter was the Secretary of Defence, he had assigned Lloyd Austin to train and equip Syrian militants to strengthen the opposition to Bashar al Assad. Could Sharaa be one of the youth he trained? The $500 million project flopped so badly that Lloyd Austin was severely grilled by a Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. How many of those you trained are still fighting in Syria?” a Senator asked him. Austin was tongue tied. On persistence questioning, he opened up. Four or five may still be fighting.”

During the chaotic American involvement in the Syrian civil war, troops trained by the US walked away with military hardware and joined Jabhat al Nusra, the brutal terrorist group. The clip of the Senate hearing was on e-span as was Defence Secretary Carter’s Press Conference.

Another chapter with Afghanistan?

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri broke his duck with Afghanistan at the right moment by meeting Amir Khan Muttaqi Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister in the neutral turf of Dubai. Indians did not quite clamber onto the same helicopter which ferried ousted President Ashraf Ghani to Dubai but the Indian embassy staff fled in double quick time. Without the US and Ghani crutches, Indians felt unsafe among Afghans.

When President Obama announced phasing out of troops, the argument against the move offered by General Stanley McCrystal says something of our standing among Afghans. India’s socio economic development creates problems. It detracts Pakistan from helping our war on terror.” That was a decade ago. But New Delhi was not convinced even then.

https://naqvijournal.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-syrian-gold-rush-difficult-counting.html