Britain Joins U.S. in Suspending Non-Lethal Syria Aid Meanwhile FSA Commander Flees

Britain has joined the United States in suspending non-lethal aid to Syria. The U.S. announcement came on Wednesday after fighters from the Islamic Front, a recent coalition of six Islamist groups, overtook a base and warehouse belonging to the western-backed Supreme Military Council over the weekend. A British Foreign Office spokesman said they would not make any equipment deliveries while they are investigating events that occurred over the weekend. A Free Syrian Army (FSA) spokesman, Loay al-Mikdad, said he hoped the United States and Britain would reconsider the decision, saying FSA commanders would contact them to clear up the "misunderstanding." U.S. officials have reported that the Islamic Front’s seizure of the headquarters forced FSA commander General Salim Idris to flee Syria. He reportedly traveled to Turkey and then flew to the Qatari capital of Doha. Meanwhile, 13 international news organizations have written a letter urging Syrian opposition fighters to stop kidnapping journalists, and release those currently held. The organizations included the BBC, New York Times, and Associated Press. An estimated 30 journalists are currently being detained, with seven abductions in the past two months. The letter warned, "As long as kidnappings are permitted to continue unabated, journalists will not be willing to undertake assignments inside Syria, and they will no longer be able to serve as witnesses to the events taking place within Syria’s borders."

Headlines  

• U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will return to the Middle East Thursday in shuttle diplomacy efforts to push the peace process forward, with this trip focusing on Palestinian security arrangements.
• EU auditors have said the European Union should stop paying salaries of thousands of Palestinian civil servants in the Gaza Strip who have not worked for up to six years.
• In a trip aimed at proving to Gulf partners that the United States remains engaged in the region, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel lifted a gag rule on the highly classified Combined Air and Space Operations Center in Qatar. 
• Egyptian riot police fired tear gas and water cannons at hundreds of pro-Morsi protesters near the defense ministry, meanwhile 29 pro-Muslim Brotherhood students were referred to the Cairo Criminal Court.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a rare phone conversation with Gaza’s Prime Minister Ismail Haniya and called for a "speedy removal" of Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip. 

Arguments and Analysis

‘Turkey: "Surreal, Menacing…Pompous"‘ (Christopher de Bellaigue, New York Review of Books)

"A vindictive authoritarianism is taking hold of Turkey. To the prime minister’s supporters this is regrettable but necessary; many I have spoken to think that the protest at Gezi Square was organized by foreign agitators, and that the protesters should have been crushed more harshly than they were. In a democracy, these people believe, the will of the majority is determined at the ballot box and then carried out. This, they say, is what had been happening quite successfully until the liberals, realizing they were too few to win an election, turned to seditious activities instead. The idea that the beliefs of liberal minorities should be legally protected and might actually have an influence on policymaking has not been accepted by the government, which claims to speak for the majority.

But the architect of Turkey’s polarization isn’t the liberals; it’s Erdogan. He has read into successive election victories a license to involve himself in every aspect of the nation. His abrasive, physical style of oratory betrays no self-doubt. Opening his arms to his audience, bringing his hand over his heart, he criticizes the lives of his subjects, and his views are rarely less than vigorous. All drinkers are alcoholics; every family should have three children; wholemeal flour is best (‘our children will be stronger … the bonds of trust between us will increase’); abortion is murder and Caesarean sections should be avoided. Twitter is a ‘menace’ and those opposed to road-building should go and live in a forest. The prime minister appears to dislike expertise when it disagrees with him. ‘You have nothing to teach us about sociology,’ he told a politely dissenting social scientist.

As much as the tear gas, water cannons, and plastic bullets, it was Erdogan’s contemptuous way of addressing the Gezi demonstrators that hardened feelings against him. Liberals are skeptical of a leader who commands slavish adulation from his followers — a former adviser to the prime minister told me there is no ‘mechanism of self-criticism’ in Erdogan’s entourage. The government is touched by paranoia; Erdogan’s chief adviser has accused foreign powers of using telekinesis to try to kill his boss. The government creates an aura that is surreal, menacing, and insufferably pompous."

‘Leftist reservations‘ (Akram Ismail and Elham Eidarous, Mada Masr)

"Prior to January 25, Egyptians had been living under emergency law, unable to express their dissent except through fragmented cases of disturbance. There was also no single movement that was able to translate this societal dissent into a project capable of lobbying for the people’s collective will. The revolution came as a conscious adventure by the people to change their miserable reality, impose their will, and produce an alternative scenario for their future.

The revolution was also not a conspiracy as some claim, even if its demands matched the interests of some regressive forces, including the military, which joined the revolutionary chorus twice. The first was after January 25 to end the expected inheritance of the presidency by Hosni Mubarak’s son, Gamal, and the second was following the June 30 popular uprising to end the Brotherhood’s senseless rule.

Other foreign interests have at times coincided with the revolution’s demands. This was the case with the United States and Qat
ar in the case of January 25, and Russia and Saudi Arabia, who supported the ousting of Mohamed Morsi following June 30. We have to acknowledge the fact that it is not totally abnormal for such interests to coincide, in order to be able to curb the side effects of such incidences on the revolution, instead of making naive romantic claims about how the revolution is being ‘hijacked.’

The revolution was not able to achieve formal power. It succeeded, however, in opening a different political space by disrupting the state and opening the doors for the reforming of the state-societal relationship. Society was able to recreate itself in this highly critical moment amid revolution. The doors were also opened to the creation of a political sphere that reflects the people’s diverse political inclinations. However, this sphere is still young and rather conservative, confined to urban centers and restricted primarily to the middle classes."

–Mary Casey & Joshua Haber