At Your Peril

Syria, Latakia: A handout picture released by the Syrian Arab News Agency on October 27, 2011, shows Syrians waving the national flag as they rally during a mass demonstration in support of President Bashar al-Assad, in the city of Latakia of north of Damascus. (AFP Photo / Ho-Sana)

The West is on notice. Syria will brook no interference. The regime's Syria, that is, the Syria of Bashar al-Assad and his loyalists. The countless Syrians of the Sunni persuasion, not so much. They have invited 'interference'. On the other hand, the Christian Syrians and the Alawites, would prefer the continued longevity of the Alawite-controlled government under President al-Assad.

The Christians, doubtless, fear their fate should the Sunni majority become the government of Syria. For, as their president warns, it it the Muslim Brotherhood, the terrorists, Western interference conspiring against the future of Syria that comprises a danger to be avoided at all costs. And if those costs include ongoing counter-measures, as in death-deliverance to protest organizers, so be it.

The President of Syria warns he is capable of producing an "earthquake" backlash within the Middle East that will embroil all the countries there, and draw into the dread occurrence Western powers. The entire region would resemble what would be left in the wake of an exploding volcano; molten lava, burning embers, a smoking wasteland.

"Syria", he warns, "is the hub now in this region. It is the fault line, and if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake. Do you want to see another Afghanistan, or tens of Afghanistans? Any problems in Syria will burn the whole region. If the plan is to divide Syria, that is to divide the whole region." Admirable oratorical imagination.

Clearly, food for sober thought, while the West ingests the message and trembles in fearful trepidation.

On the other hand, in his description of the uprising as a "struggle between Islamism and pan-Arabism" secularism, who can argue with him? That is the message of the Middle East. There are two clear choices: Secular dictatorships in an Islamic environment, or Theocratic tyrannies under strict Sharia law.

There are anomalies of course, and somehow it appears to have bypassed President al-Assad's notice that his mentor-state Iran while admittedly not an Arab country is an Islamist theocratic tyranny.