THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIV, Issue # 48, March 18, 2012
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE FATE OF SYRIA
By Raymond Ibrahim
WHY THE U.S.A. SHOULD NOT SUPPORT THE "OPPOSITION" TO THE ASSAD REGIME IN SYRIA: WHY THE OVERTHROW OF ASSAD WOULD NOT BE IN THE
U.S. NATIONAL INTEREST -- ASSAD'S "OPPOSITION" AS PART OF THE WORDWIDE ISLAMIST JIHAD -- THE FATE OF SYRIA'S CHRISTIAN MINORITY, SHOULD THE
ISLAMISTS SEIZE COMPLETE CONTROL OF THE COUNTRY -- THE SORRY PERFORMANCE OF U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IN HANDLING AMERICAN
FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
FULL STORY:
What is the alternative to Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria? Just consider which groups in Syria are especially for or against Assad — and why.
Christian minorities, who, as 10% of the Syrian population, have the most to gain from a secular government and the most to suffer from a state run by Islamic Sharia
law, have no choice but to prefer Assad. They are already seeing aspects of the alternative. A recent Barnabas Fund report, "Christians in Syria Targeted in Series of
Kidnappings and Killings; 100 Dead," tells how "children were being especially targeted by the kidnappers, who, if they do not receive the ransom demanded, kill the
victim." In one instance, kidnappers videotaped a Christian boy as they murdered him in an attempt to frame the government; one man "was cut into pieces and
thrown in a river" and another "was found hanged with numerous injuries."
Accordingly, it is understandable that, as an earlier report put it, "Christians have mostly stayed away from the protests in Syria, having been well treated and
afforded a considerable amount of religious freedom under President Assad's regime." After all, "Should Assad fall, it is feared that Syria could go the way of Iraq,
post-Saddam Hussein. Saddam, like Assad, restrained the influence of militant Islamists, but, after his fall, they were free to wreak havoc on the Christian community;
hundreds of thousands of Christians were consequently forced to flee the violence. Many of them went to Syria."
In short, should "rebels" get their way and topple the Assad regime, the same brutal pattern experienced by Iraq's Christian minorities — who have been likened to,
and killed off like, dogs, to a point nearing extinction — will come to Syria, where an anti-Assad Muslim preacher recently urged Muslims to "tear apart, chop up and
feed" Christians who support Assad "to the dogs." From last week alone, some 70 additional Christian homes were invaded and pillaged, and "for the first time in the
history of the conflict in Syria, an armed attack has been made on a Catholic monastery," partially in search of money.
And who are these "rebels" who see and treat Christians as sub-humans to be exploited and plundered to fund the "opposition" against Assad? Unfortunately,
many of them are Islamists, internal and external, and their "opposition" is really a jihad [holy war]; moreover, they are acting out anti-Christian fatwas that justify the
kidnapping, ransoming, and plundering of "infidel" Christians.
As in Libya, al-Qa'ida is operating among the Syrian opposition; Ayman al-Zawahiri himself "urges the Syrian people to continue their revolution until the downfall of
the Assad regime, and stresses that toppling this regime is a necessary step on the way to liberating Jerusalem." Both the influential Yusif al-Qaradawi and Hamas --
the latter supported by Assad's ally, Iran — back the "rebels." This overview should place the "opposition" -- who they are, what they want — in a clearer context.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama, who was remarkably reticent when Iranians seeking Western-style freedom tried to revolt against the oppressive Islamist
regime of Iran, made it a point during his recent State of the Union Address to single out Assad by name as needing to go (not that the Republican presidential
candidates seem to know any better. (See Andrew McCarthy's recent article where, drawing on America's other misadventures in Islamic nations, he shows how the
U.S.A. has little to gain and possibly much to lose by supporting the anti-Assad opposition -- National Review Online, March 3, 2012).
The lesson here is clear: while it is true that not all of Assad's opposition is Islamist — there are anti-Assad Muslims who do not want a state that will be run by
Islamic Sharia law — the Islamists are quite confident that the overthrow of Assad will equate with their empowerment. And why shouldn't they be? Wherever Arab
tyrants have been overthrown — Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, and so on — it is the Islamists who are filling the power-vacuums. Just ask Syria's Christian minorities,
who prefer the dictator Assad to remain in power — who prefer the devil they know to the ancient demon their forefathers knew.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Syria
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Raymond Ibrahim, a historian of Islam, Islamism and the Middle East, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom
Center, an Associate Director of the Middle East Forum, a guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College, and
the editor of The Al-Qa'ida Reader, a collection of tranlations of key texts and documents of the Islamist movement.
Ibrahim's translations of the religious texts and political propaganda comprising this collection help readers comprehend
the origins, development, history, and serious danger of the Islamist war doctrines of Usama bin Laden and Ayman
al-Zawahiri, the Founders of Al-Qa'ida.
The foregoing article by Ibrahim was originally published in Stonegate Institute, March 8, 2012, and can be found on the Internet website maintained by the
Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting
radical Islam, working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote constitutional democracy in the
Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian
threat.
(URL: http://www. meforum.org/3192/syria-christians-fate)
Republished with Permission of Raymond Ibrahim
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity