| New York Times | - |
BEIRUT,
Lebanon - The jubilation among opponents of Egypt's deposed Muslim
Brotherhood president in Cairo was matched Thursday in the halls of
power in Syria's capital, Damascus, where President Bashar al-Assad declared that the Egyptian events ...
Syrian Leader Is Jubilant At Morsi’s Fall
By ANNE BARNARD
Published: July 4, 2013
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The jubilation among opponents of Egypt’s deposed
Muslim Brotherhood president in Cairo was matched Thursday in the halls
of power in Syria’s capital, Damascus, where President Bashar al-Assad
declared that the Egyptian events signified the fall of “political
Islam” and a vindication of his government’s fight against the two-year
Syrian uprising.
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Ouster of Egyptian Leader Draws Divided Response (July 5, 2013)
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New Leader May Only Be Figurehead, Experts Say (July 4, 2013)
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Military Reasserts Its Allegiance to Its Privileges (July 4, 2013)
Even as the Egyptian Army was busy rounding up the Brotherhood’s entire
leadership, Syrian state news media were quick to seize on an
inescapable fact: the most prominent of the leaders brought to power by
the Arab popular revolts that inspired the Syrian uprising had suffered
an ignominious downfall, yet Mr. Assad, after meeting his own opponents
with uncompromising force, was still standing.
Mr. Assad, in an interview with the pro-government newspaper Al Thawra,
said the fall of Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, proved that Islamist
groups like the Brotherhood were unfit to rule, and drew pointed
comparisons to the movement against him in Syria, in which Islamists
play a prominent role.
“Whoever brings religion to use for political or factional interests
will fall anywhere in the world,” Mr. Assad said, in a declaration that
might not sit well with Syria’s crucial allies: the theocratic
government in Iran and the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah in
Lebanon.
He said he was confident that only foreign military intervention could
topple him. “The countries that conspire against Syria have used up all
their tools,” he said, adding, “They have nothing left except direct
intervention,” which he called unlikely.
It was a politically dismaying day for Mr. Assad’s Syrian opponents, as
Mr. Morsi has been an increasingly vocal supporter of the Syrian
uprising.
Mr. Assad and his allies have long argued that his rule is far
preferable to Islamists’ taking power, and that most of the Arab revolts
were conspiracies bound to wreak havoc on citizens’ lives. The mass
protests against Mr. Morsi and the army’s ouster of him allowed Mr.
Assad to claim that many Egyptians — whose largely peaceful rebellion
against the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak helped to inspire
the Syrian revolt — agreed with him. “You cannot deceive everyone all
the time,” he said, “particularly the Egyptian people who have a
civilization dating back thousands of years and clear pan-Arab
nationalist thought.”
The dynamics in Egypt, though, are more complicated. While many
demonstrators were secular liberals opposed to Islamist rule, many
others were themselves Islamists angry that Mr. Morsi had not gone
farther in pushing a religious agenda.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, citing “an official source,” said that
Mr. Morsi’s ouster proved “the incapacity of the forces of political
Islam to manage the state.” The agency added, “Egypt has always been an
example to follow throughout its great history, as we believe that it is
important that other nations would follow this transformation to foil
these futile attempts which are sins against Islam, nation, history and
mankind.”
The symbolism was awkward for the Syrian opposition, as some of its most
prominent Arab backers, including Saudi Arabia and even Qatar, seen as
generally backing the Brotherhood, congratulated the interim president
installed by the Egyptian Army.
A day earlier, anti-Assad activists had mocked Syria’s information
minister, Omran al-Zoubi, for urging Mr. Morsi to realize that “the
overwhelming majority of the Egyptian people want him to go,” a
statement they called absurd coming from a government that has used
airstrikes and artillery to quell a persistent uprising.
The Syrian National Coalition, the main exile opposition group, was
meeting in Istanbul on Thursday, trying to agree on a coherent
leadership and convince Western backers that it could be trusted with
heavier weapons. One of the opposition’s challenges has been internal
wrangling between the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and its allies with
other factions who have accused them of monopolizing power.
The Muslim Brotherhood fought a bloody insurgency against Mr. Assad’s
father, Hafez al-Assad, in the 1980s, culminating in a government
crackdown that leveled much of the city of Hama and killed tens of
thousands. That history is one reason that Mr. Assad has been able to
hold on to a significant popular base.
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