Juan, you are a valuable and a deeply insightful voice fur reason, decency, civility and a critical source for understanding the middle East and modern America..
If I recall correctly, Syrian Christians wanted to be neutral from the beginning, happy to be part of a privileged cast which, Assad left alone. Sooner or later, the Alawite regime will fall or retract to the Alawi mountains and the Syrian Christians will not have a strong political standing in the future Syria. Every day of delay to ending the conflict is an opportunity to make al-Nusra and its affiliates stronger. At this point, I believe Syrian Christians need to be part in the struggle for a free and democratic Syria by joining nationalist and moderate factions.
Is there really a prospect for a negotiated solution now or in the near future with the Asad regime as strong as it is currently? Unfortunately, I don't think so. Rather than negotiate, Asad resorted to using WMDs and before used Scud missiles to inflict mass civilian casualties and will use any mean that may give him a hope of survival. A military strike is crucial to achieve three main objectives:
1- Punish Asad for violating international conventions against the use of chemical weapons and hopefully prevent such future attacks,
2- tip the balance of power to the rebels which might be instrumental in spurring negotiations.
3- Maintain America's credibility, since President Obama declared that the use of Chemical weapons is a red line, he must take direct action.
Finally, I keep reminding everybody that Syria's real tragedy is the lack of a unified national opposition. As a result, extremist factions will continue to gain the upper hand and soon we will have another Afghanistan in our hands if we don't already.
Juan,
What do you think about this survey, it says that 63% of Egyptians are against the coup! http://www.ecmeg.com/?p=50
I think Elbaradei will lose lots of his credibility by cooperating with this interim government. I am also not sure if being the VP for foreign affairs is the really crucial role he needs to play? He needs to work on reconciling the political players and not be an international propaganda face of the new army backed government.
You speak wisdom. Making a blank statement like "Islamist are poison" only serve to inflame the current sad situation and compromise your partiality. All the political actors in Egypt are responsible for what is happening today and all need to clear the streets and sit together to work on a solution. Friends and family members are unfriending each other on Facebook and divisions are appearing all over the place. Egypt will be 10 times worst than Algeria, God forbid. Also, all parties need to reject the Army's intervention. The army is never the answer, its a monster which nobody can control. Today, the army shot the Islamists, tomorrow it will shoot the liberals.
I really don't like your labeling of Morsi as a fundamentalist just to emphasize your dislike of his Islamist orientation. I follow your blog daily, but I realy would love to see more fairness in representing the views of the Islamist and its weight in the street. To me, Morsi represent moderation, while the Salafist definitely represent fundamentalism and yet other groups represent even more extremist views. More importantly, your analysis doesn't shed enough light on how fractious the opposition is and if a new election were held today, it may bring another Islamist to rule the country and other Islamist to control the parliament. The liberals dream of producing a secular constitution, which even if they did agree on such a document will be hard pressed to find enough support for it in the general population. The Islamist need their chance to see if they actually can rule the country and find practical means of translating Shariah texts into a modern body of laws. This experience will be the best way to moderate their views and to give the Egyptian conservative population a first hand experience on what Shariah implementation really means (also give the rest of the Muslim world a very valuable test case.) Egypt is in chaos and everybody really need to mature, a process which will take years.
The article's concludes by hoping for a magic solution of its own, separate religion from politics and the Arab and Muslim world will move forward! Why exactly this will happen and how? What does this separation means? Secularists appear to conveniently leave such questions unanswered. The Islamist led governments in Tunisia and Egypt barely started to function and there is a lot unknown at the moment as to how they will actually act as politicians. I agree that, clerics whose training and job is to answer purely religious questions and provide moral and spiritual council may not best suited government work or politics in general. However, regular citizens, inspired by a certain religious moral code have the right to advocate for their views in and outside the government. Every body of law is inspired by local customs, experiences and moral values. Why shouldn’t the laws in Muslim majority countries be the same?
Peace to all.
Juan, you are a valuable and a deeply insightful voice fur reason, decency, civility and a critical source for understanding the middle East and modern America..
If I recall correctly, Syrian Christians wanted to be neutral from the beginning, happy to be part of a privileged cast which, Assad left alone. Sooner or later, the Alawite regime will fall or retract to the Alawi mountains and the Syrian Christians will not have a strong political standing in the future Syria. Every day of delay to ending the conflict is an opportunity to make al-Nusra and its affiliates stronger. At this point, I believe Syrian Christians need to be part in the struggle for a free and democratic Syria by joining nationalist and moderate factions.
Is there really a prospect for a negotiated solution now or in the near future with the Asad regime as strong as it is currently? Unfortunately, I don't think so. Rather than negotiate, Asad resorted to using WMDs and before used Scud missiles to inflict mass civilian casualties and will use any mean that may give him a hope of survival. A military strike is crucial to achieve three main objectives:
1- Punish Asad for violating international conventions against the use of chemical weapons and hopefully prevent such future attacks,
2- tip the balance of power to the rebels which might be instrumental in spurring negotiations.
3- Maintain America's credibility, since President Obama declared that the use of Chemical weapons is a red line, he must take direct action.
Finally, I keep reminding everybody that Syria's real tragedy is the lack of a unified national opposition. As a result, extremist factions will continue to gain the upper hand and soon we will have another Afghanistan in our hands if we don't already.
Weakening the side that is using mass weapons of destruction and kills indiscriminately is a meaningful end goal by itself.
Thank you PERSON for raising this issue. The trials have been deeply flawed from the beginning.
Juan,
What do you think about this survey, it says that 63% of Egyptians are against the coup! http://www.ecmeg.com/?p=50
I think Elbaradei will lose lots of his credibility by cooperating with this interim government. I am also not sure if being the VP for foreign affairs is the really crucial role he needs to play? He needs to work on reconciling the political players and not be an international propaganda face of the new army backed government.
You speak wisdom. Making a blank statement like "Islamist are poison" only serve to inflame the current sad situation and compromise your partiality. All the political actors in Egypt are responsible for what is happening today and all need to clear the streets and sit together to work on a solution. Friends and family members are unfriending each other on Facebook and divisions are appearing all over the place. Egypt will be 10 times worst than Algeria, God forbid. Also, all parties need to reject the Army's intervention. The army is never the answer, its a monster which nobody can control. Today, the army shot the Islamists, tomorrow it will shoot the liberals.
I really don't like your labeling of Morsi as a fundamentalist just to emphasize your dislike of his Islamist orientation. I follow your blog daily, but I realy would love to see more fairness in representing the views of the Islamist and its weight in the street. To me, Morsi represent moderation, while the Salafist definitely represent fundamentalism and yet other groups represent even more extremist views. More importantly, your analysis doesn't shed enough light on how fractious the opposition is and if a new election were held today, it may bring another Islamist to rule the country and other Islamist to control the parliament. The liberals dream of producing a secular constitution, which even if they did agree on such a document will be hard pressed to find enough support for it in the general population. The Islamist need their chance to see if they actually can rule the country and find practical means of translating Shariah texts into a modern body of laws. This experience will be the best way to moderate their views and to give the Egyptian conservative population a first hand experience on what Shariah implementation really means (also give the rest of the Muslim world a very valuable test case.) Egypt is in chaos and everybody really need to mature, a process which will take years.
The article's concludes by hoping for a magic solution of its own, separate religion from politics and the Arab and Muslim world will move forward! Why exactly this will happen and how? What does this separation means? Secularists appear to conveniently leave such questions unanswered. The Islamist led governments in Tunisia and Egypt barely started to function and there is a lot unknown at the moment as to how they will actually act as politicians. I agree that, clerics whose training and job is to answer purely religious questions and provide moral and spiritual council may not best suited government work or politics in general. However, regular citizens, inspired by a certain religious moral code have the right to advocate for their views in and outside the government. Every body of law is inspired by local customs, experiences and moral values. Why shouldn’t the laws in Muslim majority countries be the same?
Peace to all.
Was Alkhayyam really that drunk or in love with drinking all the time or does he use the state of drunkness in a metaphorical sense?
Thanks.