Walid Phares: The Syrian-Jihadi Highway In Lebanon

Walid Phares, a seasoned intelligence columnist explains in the World Defense Review why it is consistent with Syria’s history to have tactical alliances with ideologically incompatible groups like Fateh Al Islam.

He begins by marveling at the “curious ‘debate’ (..) growing rapidly among a number of Western-based analysts about the “impossibility” of the existence of Syrian Jihadi-Salafist links”

He then invites “those who cannot fathom how a Baathist secular — and socialist — regime engages in alliances with Islamist forces, fights them, befriend one and represses another”, to review the history of Hafez Assad between 1970 and 2000:

For 37 years the Assad dynasty practiced [deception] as well as cross-ideological alliances. The regime supported the PLO between 1970 and 1976, before Assad ordered the bloody conflict with Arafat in 1976. Briefly claiming coordination with Right wing Christian parties in 1976–1977, Assad bombed the PLO in 1978. Then using Amal against the Palestinians, the regime supported its own “Palestinian” factions.

Allying himself with Iran and Hizbollah in 1982, the regime wanted to contain Hizbollah in Beirut in 1986. Fighting against the Lebanese (Christian) Forces since the 1970s, the Syrians backed a faction among them (Elie Hobeika) in 1986, fought another (Samir Geagea) until 1989, claimed to befriend the latter for a short time before ordering oppression of their partisans as of 1993.

Assad fought the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, but funded the Islamists in Lebanon and Palestine. His regime claimed it was secular while becoming the single strategic ally of Iran’s Islamist elite. In Lebanon and after the withdrawal of the bulk of his army, Bashar kept his entire apparatus: from Shia Hizbollah and Amal, some Druse factions, and a few Christian warlords, to a large range of pro-Sunni politicians and groupings. How can the Assad intelligence net achieve this?

And here’s a juicy bit for contemporary Lebanese observers:

And as of spring 2005, a main former anti-Syrian politician was added to the panoply of Syrian (and Iranian) political assets in the country: General Michel Aoun. However, perhaps the most advantageous “grabs” by the Baathist Mukhabarat were Sunni Islamists, who should have been ideologically on the other side of Assad, but who, with the attraction of a “deity” — dollars and power — have agreed to line up with a Taghut

For more, read the entire thing..