Leave, but stay - America’s ambiguous attitude toward Bashar Assad

On Wednesday, the American secretary of state, John Kerry, met with the United Nations envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, in Geneva. De Mistura must have been happy to hear Kerry praise his efforts and that Washington hoped the Russian peace plan for Syria “could be helpful.”

However, the experienced diplomat probably listened more intently to another thing Kerry said. “It is time for President Assad, the Assad regime, to put their people first and to think about the consequences of their actions, which are attracting more and more terrorists to Syria, basically because of their efforts to remove Assad,” the secretary of state remarked.

Media outlets immediately noticed that Kerry had made no explicit mention of the need for Assad to leave office, long the position of the Obama administration. Instead, he stepped back and resorted to that tiresome American habit of appealing to the reasonable in foreign officials — as if the man responsible for the carnage in Syria had any interest in “putting his people first.”

Last week Tony Badran speculated that Washington’s “stated priorities in Syria align it increasingly with Russia and Iran.” If so, Kerry’s statement in Geneva seems to be further evidence of this. But one is tempted to go further and speculate about the implications with respect to de Mistura’s mission.

As President Barack Obama made clear last October in a letter addressed to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the airstrikes directed by the international coalition against ISIS in Syria would not target Bashar Assad’s forces. In other words, Obama implicitly admitted that the United States recognized Iranian interests in Syria and would not seek to undermine them.

In this context, the Russian plan for Syria, along with Iran’s reported refusal to consider Assad’s removal, is not designed to find a consensual solution. The aim is to take advantage of the global preoccupation with terrorism to consolidate the Syrian president’s hold on power. Neither Moscow nor Tehran may be enamored of Assad, but with no clear alternative to preserve their interests, they will stick with him for as long as they need to.

It seems that Washington is now also beginning to shift on Assad. It may have no intention of endorsing the president, but it is definitely reshaping its rhetoric to show that it will not push for his removal or encourage regional countries to do so.

America’s differences with Turkey over Syria, for instance, have been profound. Ankara’s ambiguous relationship with ISIS, like the fact that a suspect in the Paris attacks last week fled to Syria via Turkey, can only widen the American-Turkish divide.

De Mistura must be watching all this closely, as it will affect the way he formulates his own plan for resolving the Syrian conflict. Until now the UN envoy has strayed away from a discussion of Assad’s fate, knowing it could scuttle his efforts. But if he begins to see that America, Russia and Iran, all key actors in Syria, do not view Assad’s exit as necessary, or even desirable, his proposals on some sort of transitional governing structure for the country could end up being more favorable to the Syrian regime.

But de Mistura also knows that Assad’s rising confidence will have a bearing on his own proposal for a ceasefire in Aleppo. The stronger the Syrian regime feels, the less flexible it will be on the ground. With the situation so fluid in Syria’s second largest city, the UN envoy’s scheme remains a long shot.

A Lebanese politician offered an interesting take on the Syrian situation, arguing that an eventual alternative to Bashar Assad may be his brother Maher. At first glance the proposal sounds ludicrous. If any individual is regarded as more responsible for the regime’s brutality in Syria than Bashar, it is Maher. That the opposition can never possibly accept him seems self-evident.

Indeed, but the Syrian opposition with whom the West wants to deal is largely marginalized today. And no one really much cares what the jihadists think, since they are uninterested in any solution short of an outright military victory over the regime.

What Maher would supposedly offer is reassurance to the Alawites, Iran and Russia. Bashar’s departure could also serve as victory enough for the opposition to split, with some factions entering into a dialogue to end the fighting. It’s not terribly convincing as a scenario, but with Bashar’s opponents divided and Iran, Russia and the United States adamant about his survival or equivocal about his departure, these attitudes may open the door to outcomes nobody imagined were possible.          

It’s a pity that the Obama administration, rather than regard the Assad regime as contributing to and complicit in the extremism generated by the Syrian war, sees it as more palatable than the alternatives. It takes enormous self-delusion not to grasp that Assad has attracted the jihadists like a magnet or to imagine that Russia can devise an acceptable path out of the Syrian mess that all will accept.

American self-delusion is really the outcome of indifference. As the Paris attacks showed, no one is truly safe when a conflict like the one in Syria is allowed to spin out of control. The world is even less safe when Washington refuses to see the obvious.  

Israel’s shameless hijacking of French Jews

If there is anything pure, unadulterated, transcendent in Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s his vulgarity. The corpses were still warm last week when the Israeli prime minister alighted in Paris to tell French Jews that their real home was Israel.

This reminded many people of Ariel Sharon’s efforts to exploit anti-Semitic attacks in Europe in 2004. At the time Sharon had declared, “If I have to advocate to our brothers in France, I will tell them one thing: ‘Move to Israel, as early as possible.’ I say that to Jews all around the world, but there [in France] I think it’s a must and they have to move immediately.”

Sharon had added: “In France today, about 10 percent of the population are Muslims ... that provokes a different kind of anti-Semitism, based on anti-Israeli feelings and propaganda.”

Sharon’s remarks offended the French government at the time, and Netanyahu’s comments must have done the same. The prime minister posted this thought on Twitter: “To all the Jews of France, all the Jews of Europe, Israel is not just the place in whose direction you pray, the state of Israel is your home.”

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls took a very different tack, telling a group of French Jews, “France without the Jews of France is not France.” Against a message of religious in-gathering and separation, Valls offered one of openness and assimilation.

We now know that the French president, Francois Hollande, did not want Netanyahu to attend the march against terrorism last Sunday. He was afraid that Netanyahu’s presence would only draw attention to the Arab-Israeli conflict and Jewish-Muslim tensions, a divisive topic when the French were looking to affirm national unity. Netanyahu came anyway, because other Israeli political figures were attending and the prime minister saw he could score political points before Israel’s forthcoming elections.

Adding to the pettiness of the scene, the French had also advised the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, not to be there. Like Netanyahu he initially agreed, only to reverse himself when the French, seeing that Netanyahu would make an appearance, had to extend an invitation to Abbas. So, the Palestinian leader donned his fur cap and trudged to Paris.

It was all very cheap, lacking in class. Netanyahu seemed unconcerned by the interests of the people most affected by his statements, namely France’s Jews. Here they were, looking for reassurances as French citizens, and here was Netanyahu telling them to pack their bags. Yet some of them responded pointedly to his invitation for French Jews to move to Israel. At a Paris synagogue where the prime minister had just finished speaking, many in the audience began singing “La Marseillaise.”

Two thoughts come to mind, the first practical, the second philosophical. In practical terms why would French Jews really want to leave France for Israel? Simply because they are Jews, or because Israel’s future is one of hope, peace and tranquility?

If Netanyahu is counting on Jewish solidarity, he should wake up and realize that most people in the West, Jews or otherwise, remain reluctant to live in unmixed societies. The emancipation of Europe’s Jews under Napoleon was a historic moment in which they exited the ghetto and became full-fledged citizens of their countries. It opened the door for their gradual absorption into the societies where they lived, despite the differences.

Assimilation has long worried certain Jewish and Zionist publicists, who fear that it will lead to a loss of Jewish identity. Several years ago I was surprised to see that there was alarm among some American Jews with statistics showing that more young people in the community were marrying outside their religion. One would have thought this was a good thing. No one wants to see a community disappear, but in the West there is no risk of that. Most Jews have retained their Jewish identity despite integration, showing that it’s rarely an “either-or” proposition.

To surrender such an achievement to resettle in a country where the majority is Jewish, and where that majority continues to oppress a growing minority of Arabs, with no end or solution in sight, is a choice many French Jews probably have no desire to make. Europe not only offers greater long-term security, stability and social and cultural interaction under broad, consensual social contracts; it also allows Jews to pursue identities other than ones defined exclusively by religion or politics.

Philosophically, Netanyahu’s comments raised questions about the Jews’ future in the Middle East and the world. Israel is today a country increasingly criticized for its perceived unwillingness to resolve its conflict with the Palestinians. In the last 15 years Israel has built a wall around itself as a means of protection. In 2006, Hezbollah fired over that wall, as did Hamas on many occasions since then. Israel responded by developing an anti-missile defense. The Israelis will continue to adapt to new security challenges, but so will their enemies. The rockets will get better and the tunnels will become longer. Israel, as it insulates itself further, will never be fully secure until its neighbors have an interest in helping to make it secure.

Is this Israel the culmination of Jewish aspirations? Do the world’s Jews really want to be part of a state associated with conquest, hiding behind an iron wall of remorseless self-protection, as the Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Netanyahu’s spiritual father, dreamed? But Jabotinsky’s vision was static. It assumed Arabs would remain forever reconciled with Jewish military superiority and domination, and would not seek to reverse their own weaknesses.

Most people, including many Jews, can increasingly see this is an illusion. For Jews of the diaspora, their salvation and that of their children, is not to relocate to a country embodying such an illusion. Perhaps Netanyahu realized this when he heard La Marseillaise. He must have sensed that some French Jews didn’t appreciate the way their suffering was being manipulated to advance a political agenda, by a man who didn’t even have the decency to stay away from an event to which he was not invited.

Trouble ahead for Lebanon after double Tripoli attack

On Saturday night two suicide bombers detonated their explosives at a cafe in the predominately Alawite neighbourhood of Jabal Mohsen in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli. The blasts killed nine people and injured 36.

The double attack raised fears in Lebanon of a wave of bombings. It is unclear for whom the two men were operating. While the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front claimed responsibility, Nouhad Al Mashnouq, Lebanon’s interior minister, said ISIL was behind the bombings.

On Monday, Lebanese security forces staged an operation to remove Islamist prisoners from a bloc that they controlled at Lebanon’s Roumieh prison and transfer them to a more secure location where they could be better isolated. The prisoners had access to mobile phones and computers, and officials are saying the Jabal Mohsen attacks were organised from Roumieh.

The suicide bombings coincided with reports from Syria’s Qalamoun district, which abuts Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley, that ISIL has been gaining ground on the Al Nusra Front there. Whereas the Al Nusra Front appears to be focused on fighting the regime of Bashar Al Assad, ISIL is viewed as a group that seeks to expand its sway throughout the Middle East, therefore whose primary aim is to destabilise societies to bring this about.

While the speculation in Lebanon about a new wave of attacks is not based on any specific information, the concern is not unfounded. As ISIL and the Al Nusra Front gear up for a battle for control over Qalamoun, or alternatively decide on a modus vivendi there, Lebanon will certainly feel the repercussions.

In the battle for influence, terrorist actions can often be the best way to attract support. And if the two groups were to unify their efforts, the chances are, again, that they would seek to manipulate Lebanon’s sectarian contradictions to build a following.

Two things are complicating matters for Lebanon’s government. Both the Al Nusra Front and ISIL have held around three-dozen Lebanese soldiers and policemen for several months. They were captured during the battle for Arsal last August, and negotiations for their release have floundered until now.

A second problem is that the Syrian regime has reportedly been allowing ISIL combatants to cross over from the province of Raqqa into the Qalamoun district. It hopes this will lead to a destructive confrontation between them and the Al Nusra Front, ultimately playing to its advantage and that of Hizbollah.

But there is also a more cynical, and worrisome, interpretation. For months the Assad regime and Hizbollah have been seeking to push the Lebanese army into coordinating its actions in the border area with them. The Lebanese have resisted, realising this would be divisive domestically, as many people, especially Sunnis, are hostile to the Syrian leadership and Hizbollah.

By allowing ISIL members to enter Qalamoun, the Syrians could be putting the Lebanese government in an impossible situation: if it still refuses to coordinate with Syria and Hizbollah, the terrorist threat could expand. If it does agree to coordinate, discontent and sectarian tensions may rise at home.

Given the events in Paris last week, Mr Al Assad must feel renewed confidence. With the West preoccupied with the jihadist threat, the Syrian regime can once again portray itself as an enemy of extremism. As Mr Al Assad has repeatedly implied: “If I’m removed from power, the jihadists will win.”

This message has made headway in gullible western capitals. A few months ago Barack Obama wrote to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to underline that the United States and Iran shared an interest in fighting ISIL. Mr Obama also reassured Mr Khamenei that the Syrian regime’s forces would not be targeted by coalition air strikes.

Given the Syrian regime’s skill at building up the terrorist threat to create conditions that allow it to survive politically, the Lebanese are right to be anxious. Nor has the international community been shaken by evidence that the Assad regime allowed ISIL to thrive in the first place, and for a long time avoided military action against the group.

After the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Syria was depicted as a gathering point for Europe’s most violent extremists. Hayat Boumeddienne, the suspected accomplice of Amedy Coulibaly, allegedly fled there this month. All this buys Mr Al Assad leverage, making it less probable today that western countries will insist that the Syrian president leave office.

The terrorism phobia in Lebanon has also been artificially heightened by Hizbollah, to reduce opposition to the militia’s involvement in Syria’s war. It may, similarly, serve to propel the army into a full-fledged confrontation with jihadist groups along the Lebanese border, with majority public support.

It is alarming that ISIL, the Assad regime and Hizbollah all have agendas that will exacerbate sectarian tensions in Lebanon. ISIL feels it only gains from sectarian polarisation. The Assad regime and Hizbollah want the Lebanese army to crush Lebanese Sunni networks assisting armed groups in Qalamoun, regardless of whether this damages Sunni confidence in the army.

That is why the Jabal Mohsen bombings were so disquieting. Caught in the middle is Lebanon’s government, which is trying to contain a situation that can easily slip out of control. But with Mr Al Assad and Hizbollah now riding the global antiterrorism wave, both see an opening to finally make real gains in Syria.

Going to extremes - The Charlie Hebdo massacre and Islam in Europe

The massacre on Wednesday at Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris should be of grave concern to Muslims worldwide.

Whenever crimes like these occur, there are always Muslims there to condemn it, to tell us that Islam is a religion of peace, “real Islam.” Unfortunately, religions tend only to be as healthy as those practicing them, and the reality is that many Muslim communities today are in a state of turmoil, whether in the Middle East, Asia or Europe.

But blaming “Islam” for what happened this week makes no more sense than blaming “Christianity” for every abuse inflicted by Christians on their own societies or others. And yet the blunt reality is that, as Europeans have watched the panoply of violence taking place in recent months, they have seen that in most cases the perpetrators happened to be Muslim.

From the rolling atrocities carried out by ISIS in Iraq and Syria or Boko Haram in Nigeria and Cameroon, to the hostage crisis in Sydney in December, to the Charlie Hebdo killings this week, it seems that crimes are being carried out in the name of one particular religion. And if this hijacking of Islam is unacceptable to believers — and most of them insist it is — then Muslims have a duty to reclaim what they consider to be their true faith.

This is more essential than ever with anti-Islamic sentiment rising in many European countries, illustrated most recently by the large Pegida demonstration in Dresden. Muslim communities in Europe are facing the risk of pariah status. While there are many more Europeans, perhaps a majority, who refuse to condemn all Muslims for the crimes of a few, it is up to Muslims to take the lead in averting such an outcome.

How might they do so? The representative of France’s Muslims, Dalil Boubakeur, pointed his coreligionists in the right direction in a statement he made on the steps of the Elysee Palace, after meeting with President Francois Hollande and representatives of France’s other religious communities. “We feel the need to do everything possible, each in [his or her] religious community [and] family, to mobilize the faithful [on behalf of a] feeling of conviviality, of [a desire to] live together, and at the same time of prevention,” Boubakeur stated.

Those are worthy objectives, but they are easier said than done. Muslim communities are as pluralistic as non-Muslim communities, and radical groups, along with their preachers, are never easy to marginalize. Worse, extremists often hold the upper hand because of their ability to intimidate the majority.

And yet Boubakeur is correct in saying that French Muslims must focus on propagating coexistence while also working actively to prevent the perpetuation of crimes. In this regard, there was a particularly poignant message in the fact that both the policeman coldly executed by the gunmen while lying on the ground and a Charlie Hebdo proofreader were Muslim. It is often Muslims who suffer the most from Islamic extremism.

The great transformation in the secular West came when religion was banished to the realm of personal belief and taken out of public life. Many Muslims accept this, but many do not. Perhaps that’s because Islam has historically been as much a project for governance as a guide for personal behavior.

The Charlie Hebdo massacre was a logical extension of the assumption that religion is somehow superior to the rules of society, so that murder in response to religious satire is somehow regarded as justifiable. Most Muslims likely reject such a principle, but until they can impose the legitimacy of a separation of church and state on even the most recalcitrant members of their communities, deep problems will persist.

Part of the difficulty is that the European ethos contains an ambiguity. On the one hand it mandates freedom of opinion, so that Muslims are allowed to think more or less as they please; on the other, demanding that Muslims shut their religion, an essential part of their identity, away in a suitcase and unequivocally embrace secularism seems to limit such freedom.

Respect for the law can erase this ambiguity, but not everyone navigates the fine line in the same way. Just as freedom of expression allows one to insult religion, it can allow others to insult those doing the insulting. Nor is it only Muslims who miss the nuances. Throughout Western societies there are countless people who will defend freedom, for as long as that freedom doesn’t lead to attacks against what they hold dearly.    
                                   
The irony in the case of France is that it appears to be a country where relations between the religious communities are good. A Pew Research Center poll conducted last year found that 72% of the French held a favorable opinion of Muslims, making France the European country with the least critical attitude toward Muslims. The unfortunate talent of the far-right in France has been to persuade people of precisely the contrary.

That is not to say that all is perfect between France’s different communities, but it does mean that there is something to build upon and that the narrative of communal relationships need not be characterized by perpetual antagonism and hostility.

It also means that moderates in the Muslim community must be proactive in putting extremists on the defensive and upholding the secular values at the heart of European societies. At the same time non-Muslims must stop exploiting communal differences in destructive and demagogical ways, to satisfy their prejudices or advance political agendas.

The lessons are perhaps not that difficult to grasp. However, as communal tensions and incomprehension rise in Europe, they will be infinitely more difficult to implement. 

Behind the Russian peace plan for Syria

Earlier this week, Khaled Khoja, the new head of the Syria opposition in exile, rejected a Russian proposal to attend talks in Moscow to end the Syrian conflict. Khoja was right to doubt Russian intentions, but officials in Moscow are probably thinking in very different terms.

There has been confusion over precisely what Moscow wants for Syria. We know the Russians seek to hold meetings in Moscow with members of the Syrian regime and opposition groups, who presumably, when the time is right, would then talk with each other.

Some media outlets, including the pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar, have suggested the format will be similar to what was discussed prior to the Geneva conference a year ago: the formation of a transitional government with executive powers that would pave the way to a new constitution and a presidential election. Al-Akhbar affirmed that during this period President Bashar Assad would retain control over the army and security apparatus.

However, observers have remarked that Russia is actually moving away from the Geneva format on Syria. The idea of a transitional government, no matter how logical it may seem given Syria’s realities, implicitly suggests a move away from Assad. Reportedly, this has not been well received by Iran and Hezbollah. The new Russian initiative may be an effort to hit two birds with one stone: to address Iranian displeasure and shape a diplomatic initiative that adapts to the new situation in Syria, where the focus lately has been on defeating ISIS.

From the perspective of the opposition in exile, this represents a potential minefield. Given the exiles’ limited influence inside Syria, any effort to integrate them into peace negotiations must be viewed with considerable suspicion. Making Khoja and his comrades part of a process could fragment Assad’s enemies further and heighten discord within the already largely discredited exiled opposition. This would ultimately ensure that Assad is recognized internationally as the only game in town.

Given international fears of the jihadi groups in Syria, such an objective seems reachable. The United States has no real policy when it comes to Syria, despite President Barack Obama’s promises to train and arm “moderate” rebel units. And last October Obama wrote Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to underline that both Iran and the U.S. had parallel interests in fighting ISIS, and to reassure him that coalition airstrikes would not target Assad’s forces.

As the Russians have watched American incoherence and gauged the depth of regional rivalries over Syria, not least the clashing agendas of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, they have seen an opportunity. At the same time the United Nations has appointed an envoy, Staffan de Mistura, who has limited his ambitions for a solution, preferring to start with efforts to freeze the conflict in certain locations before building on this, without addressing the more contentious issue of Assad’s fate.

The Russians realize there is fatigue in the Middle East and internationally with the seemingly intractable Syrian conflict. Assad knows what he is doing when his forces engage in the massive displacement of populations. As is its way, the Syrian regime has created a regional humanitarian problem so enormous that governments no longer are insisting on his exit, so keen are they to bring an end to the Syrian nightmare. Moscow will exploit this mood to impose its diplomatic preferences.

Khoja’s rejection of the Russian proposal was not surprising. But circumstances will continue to change, and the weaker the so-called moderates become, the more likely they may be to embrace a diplomatic initiative to save themselves. And once that happens, the Russians would be in a better position to bring the exiled opposition, along with the so-called internal opposition, together with the regime in a resolution project, giving Assad new legitimacy. Those opposing such moves could then be denounced as “extremists” in league with the jihadis.

The more pertinent matter is how long the regime can last. While we appear to be in a military stalemate, Assad’s forces have been seriously depleted, obliging them to forcibly conscript young men. Even in the Alawite community the enthusiasm for fighting on behalf of Assad is next to nil. The Syrian army is not winning decisive engagements, and it appears that even its efforts to surround rebels in Aleppo have been unsuccessful.

The Russians must sense that their diplomacy is not likely to make much headway in the near term. But that’s not their aim. By putting it into circulation now, they have shifted attention away from the Geneva format, which the Syrian regime doesn’t like and which the Russians were unwilling to impose on Assad when the Geneva conference was held almost a year ago.

The Russians are also positioning themselves as prime interlocutors on Syria, and have been careful to make it appear that they are working in parallel with de Mistura. In that way, as circumstances change and the international community decides to move resolutely toward a peace plan for Syria, the Russians will be better placed to put their favored plan forward, perhaps in coordination with the U.N.

The Russians apparently understand something the Obama administration doesn’t: that for any anti-ISIS campaign to be successful, the Syrian conflict must be brought to an end. The Russians are seeking to use this logic to keep the regime in place, knowing that efforts to remove it, rapidly or slowly, will probably be opposed by Iran. With America unconcerned, the Russians have an opening, even if their plan is delayed weeks, months or years. What’s important is that it become the only plan on the table.

In death, as in life, ‘Syria’s man’ proves Assad’s folly

The death last week of the former Lebanese prime minister, Omar Karami, had an interesting subtext. Mr Karami was a prominent ally of Syria, and his political fortunes after 2005, when he last served in office, were a useful illustration of the decline of the Syrian regime and its capacity to tarnish friends.

Mr Karami gained national political prominence following the assassination of his brother Rashid in 1987. The brothers hailed from Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city. Rashid was one of the country’s leading Sunni politicians, the son of the important independence-era figure Abdel Hamid Karami and a pro-Nasser Pan-Arabist who served eight times as prime minister.

Omar Karami became prime minister in 1990, heading Lebanon’s first post-civil war government. The end of the conflict was effectively based on a Syrian-Saudi understanding. It gave Syria free rein in Lebanon, but would eventually pave the way for the arrival of Rafik Hariri as head of government in late 1992, partly to protect Saudi stakes in the country.

Omar Karami served in the interim before Hariri took office. He was toppled in May 1992 after popular protests against the declining economic situation. The fact that many of Syria’s allies participated in the protests suggested Damascus had sacrificed Karami. After parliamentary elections organised by the interim government that summer, Hariri took over, gradually overwhelming traditional Sunni politicians.

Not surprisingly, then, Omar Karami’s return as prime minister came at a moment when relations between Syria and Hariri had virtually reached breaking point. President Bashar Al Assad had forced Hariri and his bloc to vote in favour of extending the term of Lebanon’s president Emile Lahoud, who was Hariri’s bitterest political enemy.

Moreover, Syria held Hariri partly responsible for the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which called for a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and the disarmament of Hizbollah. Worse, the former prime minister intended to challenge pro-Syrian candidates in the parliamentary elections of 2005, and was more than likely to defeat them.

To many observers, this is what led to Hariri’s assassination in February 2005, effectively turning Lebanon’s Sunnis against Syria. Omar Karami found himself uncomfortably in the middle, having threatened Hariri before his assassination, even if no one seriously believed he was involved in the crime.

Karami resigned as anti-Syrian protests grew, then sought to form a new government. This proved impossible and the prime minister stepped down for good. As a sign of how low he had fallen, he was not a candidate in the parliamentary elections, knowing that he would be humiliated by his pro-Hariri adversaries. It was a stunning reversal for a Karami in Tripoli.

The final humiliation came in 2011, when Karami was momentarily touted as a replacement for prime minister Saad Hariri who was ousted by Hizbollah and its allies. But the symbolism in bringing back a pro-Syrian who was in office when Rafik Hariri was killed was too stark even for Hizbollah. There was some consolation when Omar Karami’s son Faysal became a minister in 2011, perpetuating the political line, but things were changing in Tripoli. In January 2013, Faysal’s convoy was attacked, prompting the aunt of a Christian politician allied with the Karamis to exclaim: “What are things coming to when the Karami boy is shot at in Tripoli?”

But Omar Karami’s problem was not the breakdown of deference but his association with Mr Assad. In Tripoli, support for Syria’s uprising is strong and memories of Syrian rule are bad. The Alawite regime in Damascus had always kept the mainly Sunni city on a tight leash, to ensure it would not affect sectarian politics inside Syria.

In Lebanon, where the Syrians imposed their hegemony for 29 years, they failed to leave anything lasting. Aside from Hizbollah, which has an independent political base, most pro-Syrian politicians and parties were marginalised after the Syrian withdrawal in 2005.

Under Mr Assad, Syria seriously mismanaged its Lebanese alliances, alienating many of its oldest partners. In order to impose Mr Lahoud for several more years, Mr Assad lost Hariri and the Druse leader Walid Jumblatt, both pillars of the Syrian order in Lebanon. This was foolish when the Syrians could have easily brought in another president as loyal as Mr Lahoud.

The episode spoke volumes about Mr Assad’s insecurities. Where the Syrian president enforced his will through threats, his father Hafez used violence in a discerning fashion. Hafez Al Assad was ruthless, but he was also cautious and respected the complexities of the Lebanese system. He knew that building coalitions in support of his agenda was always better than force.

Omar Karami paid a price in 1992 when his government fell, but there were compensations. He was a political fixture in Tripoli, and remained a perennial alternative to Hariri. It was his misfortune that Hariri was murdered on his watch, and his predecessor’s demise precipitated his own political end.

Karami was buried with the customary expressions of regard for a former official. Yet few had truly forgotten. He came from a distinguished political family, but will continue to be remembered, and denigrated, as Syria’s man.

America idle - The dangers of Obama’s lethargy toward Syria

A few months ago I was in Washington at a roundtable session to discuss American policy toward Syria. I argued that President Barack Obama would soon have to alter his approach there in order to be consistent with the one he had adopted in Iraq.

The argument went something like this. The Americans have affirmed that the only way to defeat ISIS is to reintegrate Iraqi Sunnis into the political and military life of their country, and in that way give them a stake in combating ISIS. The same rationale must therefore apply to Syria. Just as the Obama administration followed this reasoning by helping to remove the sectarian and divisive Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki from office in Iraq, so too must it do so with President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

The people in the room, most of them well informed on the mood in the Washington power structure, listened politely. Then virtually all expressed doubts that Obama would do anything about Syria. Now, several months into the American military campaign against ISIS, it is becoming evident that they were right. The administration has no intention of being consistent.

On the contrary, increasingly it is looking as if the administration quietly regards the Assad regime, and with it the Iranians, as allies in the fight against ISIS. If there were any doubts, they were significantly dispelled in November, when The Wall Street Journal revealed that Obama had sent a letter to the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The contents of the letter have not been made public, but a person briefed on it told the Journal, “It states that the U.S.’s military operations inside Syria aren’t targeted at Mr. Assad or his security forces.”

Many interpreted this as implicit recognition by Obama of Iranian interests in Syria. In an article last September I had speculated that the anti-ISIS campaign could lead to Assad’s removal from power. In retrospect, I see that precisely the opposite has become true.

The Obama administration fears that a collapse of the Assad regime would only create a vacuum that the jihadists alone could fill. This is hardly unrealistic, now that the so-called “moderate rebels” the US has promised to assist have turned into a figment of the administration’s imagination.

But there are also problems with this conclusion. For starters, it assumes the Assad regime will necessarily survive. Yet the reality is that the regime is weakening and has been unable to win decisive encounters, with or without its Hezbollah allies. It is also having trouble conscripting soldiers and has resorted to dragooning young men, even from the Alawite minority.

When Alawites are no longer willing to fight for an Alawite-led regime, you know things have reached a crisis stage. Worse, Assad’s main backers, Iran and Russia, are facing much more severe economic pressures due to the decline in oil prices. Given reports that Syria’s economy is in a tailspin, with subsidies having been cut, at one stage something has to give.

Some are suggesting Russia already may be playing hardball. A Russian diplomatic source was quoted by Al-Monitor as saying that when a high-level Syrian economic delegation visited Moscow in October and requested a $3 billion loan or line of credit, the Russians refused. While this could have been leverage to force Assad to go along with a Russian diplomatic initiative to resolve the Syrian crisis, it was also an implicit admission that Moscow’s ability to finance Assad’s war effort is limited.

Iran is Syria’s greater funder, but it is no less vulnerable to the collapse in oil prices. While there are no indications that its leadership has changed its attitude toward defending Assad, there are signs of division in Tehran over what to do about Syria.

For example, in November, Mohammed Ali Sobhani, an advisor to the Foreign Ministry and a former ambassador to Lebanon, was particularly critical of the Assad regime. “Had the government calmed people and played its role, we would not have faced the current political and sectarian [conflict] in Syria,” Sobhani told Nameh News. That is, evidently, not the position of Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards, but that Sobhani felt he could make such a devastating comment publicly suggests the debate in Tehran over Syria is ongoing, and escalating.

So, can Obama be certain that Assad is solidly in place? And if he is not, is Washington ready to face the repercussions of the Syria regime’s sudden downfall? Were the jihadists to take over Damascus, the fall of Mosul would pale in comparison.

That is precisely why Obama has no real choice but to formulate a comprehensive strategy for Syria. If it involves backing a diplomatic initiative, in conjunction with Russia and the United Nations, so be it. If it involves working with Turkey to create a no-fly zone, and use it to ultimately overthrow Assad, better still. But doing nothing while remaining completely absent from all diplomatic initiatives is the worst possible alternative.

There is a big difference between avoiding the conflict in Syria and refusing to formulate a credible approach to Syria. The first is perhaps understandable; the second is utterly reckless. Obama’s astonishing lethargy until now has made a bad situation worse. It’s time for this most futile of presidents to wake up.