Joshua Landis at Syria Comment reproduces an interview with a Syrian human rights lawyer and opposition activist, Anwar al-Bunni. The entire post is worth reading, but I’m just going to excerpt part of it to focus on two issues: (1) the relationship between regime change in Iraq and the position of Kurds in Syria and (2) the relationship between the Syrian opposition and U.S. foreign policy. I’ll have some comments below.

This is an excerpt from the interview, “Anwar al-Bunni: Interview with Syria’s leading Human Right Lawyer, By Joe Pace“:

…We hear a lot that the Iraq war empowered Syrian Kurds, but in what way? How did events in Iraq enhance their influence?

The Kurds began playing a larger political role in Iraq, something which led the Arab opposition and the Syrian authorities alike to pay closer attention to the desires of the Kurds.

Prior to the Iraq war, the Kurds did not play a political role in Syrian politics. Their role was limited to demands placed upon the authority????????they didn????????t engage in dialogue with the rest of Syrian political society. But after the events in Iraq, the Syrian Arabs began to feel that maybe the Kurds would assume a larger political role in Syria as they did in Iraq. So they had to pay attention to their demands in order to contain them.

But how does a larger role for the Kurds in Iraq translate into greater influence for Syria????????s Kurds?

It was first and foremost a psychological effect because they began to feel as though there was protection; that they could depend at the very least on moral and emotional support from the Kurds in Iraq. This sort of support is of crucial importance, the mere face that someone is asking about them????????what they????????re suffering from, what they????????re saying, etc. This is more important than military or financial support.

Now they have a shelter. Before, if a Kurd needed to flee there was nowhere to go. He certainly couldn????????t go to Iraq or Turkey. Here they were attacking them, there they were attacking them???????But now they have a shelter and it has emboldened them. If something happens to someone here they can flee to Iraq.

So what did the regime do in order to contain this new Kurdish problem?

They tried to contain the Kurds by manipulating some of the Kurdish parties, and by promising them nationality in order to keep the parties in a relationship with the regime. ÄEd. – Many Kurds in Syria don’t even have citizenship.Å They created the problems in Qamashli in 2004 to weaken the Kurdish-Arab relationship and foster divisions between them. They tried to get the two sides to distance themselves from each other; of course, it didn????????t work because people realized that the government was playing them.

So has this newfound influence emboldened the Kurds to issue more demands for an independent or federalized state?

The world was previously oblivious to the Kurdish issue. And the government was contending that the Kurds wanted an independent state. But recently, people have begun to speak out and they are starting to realize that the Kurds have a legitimate complain. But at the same time, Kurdish extremism is unacceptable. They aren????????t going to overcome these old suspicions with ease. There is this ingrained suspicion that the Kurds want an independent state and what happened in Iraq scared the Arabs even more.

The authorities have relied on qawmiya (here: Arab nationalism) and its grandiose slogans to legitimate its existence. And they have endeavored to conceal Kurdish features from sight. They tried to Arabize them; they took Kurdish land, Arabized the names of Kurdish villages, deprived them of their citizenship, denied them access to government jobs. Of course, there are Kurds in places like Damascus who lead normal lives without any of those problems. The problem is primarily in the northern regions.

These tactics caused a backlash: people began to cling to their culture more, staking out more extremist positions. This is to be expected????????if you close the door of participation in front of someone, they????????ll find another partner to cooperate and communicate with. But among all of the Kurdish parties, not one advocates seceding from Syria…

Most of the Kurds support America????????s project of remaking the Middle East. They call Bush ???????father of freedom,??????? which I cannot imagine goes over too well with a lot Arabs. How does the Arab opposition react to this?

No, in Syria you????????ll find Arabs who say let Bush come here as well.

But it????????s a rarer sentiment among the Arabs than the Kurds.

No, it????????s not rare among the Arabs. That????????s what happens when you block all other avenues for change. The Kurds may get the most publicity because in some of their demonstrators they were praising Bush. But even in Qadmus, where the ethnic conflicts erupted, some of the Isma????????lis were calling for Bush to come. The same thing happened in Misyaf three months ago. So you shouldn????????t think of it as a Kurdish predilection????????it????????s the natural result of closing the doors in front of the citizenry. I heard an old man saying the other day, ???????let Israel come and rescue us from this state.??????? Israel! And he was speaking in a loud voice in the middle of the street. These sentiments are the byproduct of oppression.

But if there is a Kurdish party that openly supports the American project, does that create tensions between it and an Arab party who may share the same ideals but rejects American intervention?

Maybe in the beginning it was a problem. But now that many of the Arabs have begun to speak more openly in their endorsement of the American project, it????????s become less of a dividing line exclusively between the Kurds and Arabs.

Ok, then what about oppositional parties in general that differ on the role of American intervention?

Of course, it????????s a point of contention. But, in general, its one of many points of contention. It????????s a primary point that the nationalist Arab opposition clings to. There is a segment that cannot comprehend the concept of external powers playing a role in internal reform.

We used to lambaste America for supporting those dictators. But now America is saying that it supports democratic leadership. And they still criticize. What do they want? What do they want America to do? When America supported despots they criticized her. Now America has admitted to making mistakes and says it supports freedom and democracy. So what do they want the Americans to do? What do they want the position of the largest country in the world to be? Should America be silent on everything?

Then why do you think they continue to stand against America?

For two reasons. First, they have been raised to dislike America, and especially because of its past mistakes, it has no credibility. No one believes that America has the people in its interests. The second reason is its position on the Israeli-Arab conflict. It has yet to usher a solution to the conflict and that????????s an extremely sensitive point for Arabs. Then there is the Iraq war which left some 400,000 people dead. And then what? They expect that America will then withdraw and leave the people to die.

The only thing they are certain of is that America is looking to protect its own interests. Defending human rights and democracy consists of pressuring the regimes in order to secure their own interests????????it is not done in the defense of the people. So no one has faith that they can rely on America.

I won????????t rely on America but I am going to exploit American pressure to realize my goals. Don????????t be part of the American project, but you should still position yourself to benefit from it. Allow America to put pressure on the regime and reap the benefits. Don????????t participate in America????????s project, but don????????t fight it. They don????????t understand this equation.

You say that the opposition benefits from foreign pressure. How? Hypothetically, what would happen if foreign pressure came to a halt?

We????????d all be imprisoned. It????????s that simple. ÄEmphasis addedÅ

The European Union has more credibility in the region and it????????s taken a more reasonable stance towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So people are willing to rely on them more than America. And I made this point to Ambassador Scobey before she returned to Washington: America is in dire need of credibility in the realm of democracy and human rights. How am I supposed to believe that America supports democracy and human rights when they are supporting Husni Mubarak for his fifth term or Zaid Eddin Ibn Ali for his third term when he is oppressing people in his country? There????????s no balance in the policy. They need to be promoting human rights everywhere, not just in Syria but then disregarding human rights violations elsewhere.

It has lost its credibility. But the more credibility the US gains, the larger its potential role becomes…

Here are my comments on the subject:

• Freedom is contagious. We saw this in Eastern Europe following the fall of the Iron Curtain, we’ve been seeing it following last year’s Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, and now we are seeing it emanate out from Iraq. For decades – since independence in the mid-20th century – Arab countries have been dominated by autocratic regimes which closed down all avenues of expression except hatred of Israel and, to an extent, Islam. It should not be surprising that anti-Semitism and Islamism are therefore powerful attractions in newly free societies like Iraq, but the very fact that Iraqis are now negotiating freely and making their own decisions is having ripple effects elsewhere.
• I think that al-Bunni’s comments on the role of U.S. foreign policy contain qualified validity. I do think we need to do more on Egypt; specifically, we need cut Egypt’s $2 billion in yearly aid significantly, if not entirely. But U.S. officials are speaking out on Egypt as much as could reasonably be expected.
• But comparing Egypt and Tunisia to Syria or Baathist Iraq is a weak analogy: neither of the former two countries are even remotely as oppressive as the current regime in Syria and the former one in Iraq.
• Furthermore, al-Bunni’s comments illustrate a common problem, and that is in overestimating what the United States can do, or what it is responsible for. Egypt was a stable autocracy before it ever received any aid from the U.S., and Tunisia has never received significant aid from the U.S. Tunisia is today what we might call a “soft autocracy,” and it maintains power through its own means. The U.S., like every other country, gives diplomatic recognition to Tunisia and has good economic relations with it. Egypt is the only non-democratic Arab country which receives significant aid from the U.S.
• It must be noted that European countries have never pressured Egypt or Tunisia or any other Arab country toward reform. It is not simply a preference of diplomatic over military means; France in particular, which is popular in the Arab world, has done much to hold up dictatorial regimes.
• Al-Bunni also has unreasonable expectations in regard to what the U.S. can or should do with regard to Israel. I once had a conversation with a Lebanese acquaintance who suggested that the U.S. could do more by supporting sanctions against Israel. I was shocked – to put sanctions on a free society defending itself against the most relentless terror campaign in modern history would be unthinkable. Yes, America supports the right of the Palestinians to live in a free, sovereign and viable state, but ending the terror campaign is a pre-condition for this.

Contributed by Kirk H. Sowell of Window on the Arab World, and More!