Is U.S. Supporting Brotherhood Activities in Syria?

By Jonathan Winer

An important article in The New Yorker by Sy Hersh describes in detail a redirection of U.S. counter-terrorism policy away from focusing on extreme Sunni forces in the Middle East in order to redirect it against Iran and Syria.

In Hersh's words:

"To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."

There are many striking assertions in the article. One that leaps out is the suggestion that the Saudis are now supporting the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood against the Assad government in Syria, with U.S knowledge and acquiesence. As Hersh reports:

"The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, 'The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.' He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House."

The empowering of Iran regionally is merely one of any number of ugly unintended consequences with which we must now grapple as a result of the war on Iraq. At first blush, it might seem like tough pragmatic power politics for the U.S. to support aid by the Saudis to elements of the Brotherhood in Syria. But we have seen this movie before, and the last time, it did not have a happy ending.

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