Syrian National Coalition vs the West: who will ditch whom first?

Crescent International

Muharram 15, 1434 2012-11-29

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

To extract maximum advantage from the ongoing chaos, groups within the SNC might begin playing both sides for their own mundane interests.

Toronto,

November 29, 2012, 18:00 EST

As imperialist powers continue to exert pressure on the badly fractured Syrian proxy groups in order to maintain complete control over them, it cannot be ruled out that some members of the SNC might decide to defect.

Over the past week mainstream media has carried reports about how Western powers are pressuring the foreign-based Syrian opposition in order to avoid blowback and have them under tighter control. This Western campaign is being presented as an attempt by the West to avoid empowering al-Qaeda minded groups.

While there is some truth to this, the reality is that al-Qaeda’s ideological base and principal financier, the Saudi regime, is the most obedient slave of Western powers in the Muslim world. Therefore, manipulating and controlling al-Qaeda is not a major ptoblem for Western powers as it is projected.

The Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces (SNCORF, or Syrian National Coalition) is an artificial creation of foreign powers that brought various anti-Syrian factions with competing agendas under one umbrella. Publicly available data shows that over the past year the SNC has received $40.2m in funding from various foreign powers. The SNC includes old largely irrelevant Syrian opposition groups living abroad that were previously ignored by Western powers. Now these Western resurrected “Syrian” politicians are getting money thrown at them from all corners of the world. As the groups compete for influence and power among themselves, each will try to get the biggest share of the handouts from their foreign bosses.

As in all proxy cases, Western powers have their favorites in the SNC. Any group even loosely associated with Islam is clearly not a Western favorite in the long run even if its used in the short term. The world has seen what the US did to its best friends in Afghanistan that greatly contributed to the collapse of the USSR. Therefore, as the US and its subordinates begin to pick and choose which groups are its completely obedient servants, other groups within the SNC might decide to jump ship or at least flirt with the idea of becoming part of a more constructive Syrian opposition.

Bashar al-Asad’s reforms produced several Syrian domestic opposition organizations and groups. According to Asia Times “more than 170 religious and political leaders (including some opposition and government representatives) met in Tehran to discuss non-violent transition to democracy. Other opposition coalitions, like the National Coordinating Committees, boycotted the Tehran and Qatar meetings.”

Some members of the SNC might decide that by participating or imitating to participate in negotiations with the Syrian government or other legitimate Syrian opposition groups, this may act as a leverage to extract more favors from the US and its subordinates.

All current indicators show that the foreign sponsored Syrian groups have no future that the Western powers envisioned for them. They will not come to power in Syria and be allowed to turn Syria into a Western security bastion similar to Jordan. Right now the West is satisfied with keeping Syria in chaos. Therefore, to extract maximum advantage from the ongoing chaos, groups within the SNC might begin playing both sides for their own mundane interests.

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