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Washington’s ‘Plan B’ in Syria: Renewed military intervention to oust Assad?
Washington’s ‘Plan B’ in Syria: Renewed military intervention to oust Assad?
By Finian Cunningham | RT | December 16, 2015
US top diplomat John Kerry appeared to offer cooperation during lengthy talks in Moscow this week with President Vladimir Putin. Kerry said that...
"US policy was not trying to isolate Russia, neither was it seeking regime change in Syria".
Rhetoric aside, Kerry’s expressions of goodwill simply do not cut it.
During a walkabout in Moscow, the US Secretary of State chanced on a little Christmas shopping, with Kerry buying a Babushka stacking doll among other souvenirs.
The iconic Russian doll containing six shelled figurines could serve as a metaphor for Washington’s elusive rhetoric.
Following his three-hour discussion with Putin, Kerry said: “While we don’t see eye to eye on every aspect of Syria, we see Syria fundamentally similarly.”
US government-owned media outlet Voice of America added: “He [Kerry] said the US and Russia identify the same challenges and dangers, and want the same outcomes [in Syria].”
That, to put it bluntly, is simply not true. Washington and Moscow do not see Syria fundamentally similarly nor want the same outcomes.
Washington wants regime change, no matter what Kerry may declare. From the outset of the conflict in Syria in March 2011, the Obama administration has been demanding that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “must go”.
Indeed, it is well documented that Washington and its NATO partners have been seeking regime change against Russia’s long-time Syria ally going back to 2007 during the George W Bush presidency.
The whole foreign-backed war in the Arab country – resulting in 250,000 deaths and millions of refugees over the past five years – has been orchestrated for the precise purpose of destabilizing Syria.
Certainly, Kerry’s latest visit to Moscow marked a softening of the “Assad must go” line. Washington is now saying that the Syrian president may remain in office until a political transition is negotiated.
But at the end of the so-called transition, the US still wants Assad gone, as Kerry again noted. That is regime change no matter how you slice it.
Like Kerry’s coy claim that the US is not trying “to isolate Russia as a matter of policy,” the bottom line is that Washington has imposed unilateral economic sanctions on Russia as a result of provable US regime change in Ukraine in February 2014, and cajoled its European allies to follow suit.
Withdrawing unilaterally from arms control treaties and expanding NATO forces on Russian territory are hardly the actions of a party “not seeking isolation” of Moscow.
Washington sure wants regime change in Syria, just as former US General Wesley Clark disclosed back in 2007 – a policy that the American military-industrial complex formulated in 2001 following the 9/11 terror events.
There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the same US hegemonic ambitions for the Middle East and beyond have changed under Obama.
What has changed is that Russia’s dramatic military intervention in Syria two months ago has shredded the US-led plans.
This week, President Obama made a speech at the Pentagon in which he made the laughable claim that the US was leading the global fight against the Islamic State terror group.
“We are hitting them harder than ever,” he said.
Such claims by the US commander-in-chief are just downright delusional.
It is the Russian aerial bombardment in close cooperation with the Syrian Arab Army that has completely turned the military tables on Islamic State (IS) and other illegally armed groups.
Moreover, it is Russian airstrikes which have wiped out the oil smuggling and weapon supply routes to the jihadists from Turkey.
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These jihadists – whether they go by the shell names IS, Nusra, Army of Conquest or Free Syrian Army – are all part of the foreign-backed mercenary force that the US has deployed for sacking Syria.
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Washington’s losing streak in the covert military objective has forced the US to seek a political track to achieve the same end result of regime change.
That explains why Washington is now softening its rhetoric in order to inveigle Moscow into a political transition, euphemistically called a “peace process”.
Kerry said that the US and Russia have reached “common ground” on which Syrian opposition groups would be invited to peace talks in New York this Friday.
The aim is to create a political opposition to the Assad government ahead of negotiations for a transition beginning in January.
A preview of these “opposition” groups was given last week when Saudi Arabia invited more than 100 so-called leaders of political and militant factions.
As the New York Times reported the formation of this front was deemed by Washington as a “prerequisite” for the future talks.
John Kerry welcomed the summit in Saudi capital Riyadh as “an important step forward”.
Although Al Qaeda-linked groups, IS and Al Nusra, did not attend the Saudi-sponsored and US-countenanced gathering, the NY Times admitted that delegates included “hardline Islamists”.
Those in attendance included Ahrar al Shams and Jaish al Islam.
The latter gained notoriety for holding civilian human shields in cages, as well as being linked to the chemical gas atrocity near Damascus in August 2013.
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Related: Sarin Gas US Accused Assad of Using Came From Turkey to ISIL
The Saudi-sponsored opposition that Washington is trying to line up against the Syrian government are braying for Assad’s immediate departure. John Kerry may say belatedly that US policy has shifted to permit Assad to remain in power for the duration of a transition, but it should be obvious that Washington is setting up a framework under the guise of a peace process in which Assad’s departure is put on the agenda.
But what gives the US and its NATO and Arab cronies any right to make such demands on Syria’s political future?
Washington does not seem to get it that its arrogant assertions about political change in Syria are null and void.
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Russia has time and again rightly pointed out that Syria’s political future is for the Syrian people to decide as a matter of sovereignty. Russia’s position is fully supported by Iran.
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As for Syria’s President Assad he has said that there will be no negotiations with the Saudi-sponsored political opposition, labeling them with reasonable justification as “terrorists”.
In a parallel development, Saudi Arabia also announced the formation of a 34-nation alliance of Muslim countries supposedly dedicated to fighting the “disease of Islamic terrorism”.
The newly formed bloc comprises in addition to Saudi Arabia: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Turkey – all countries associated with the funding and arming of extremist groups in Syria and elsewhere.
Strangely, or perhaps not, Iran, Iraq and Syria were not invited to join the bloc.
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter welcomed the new alliance. And the Saudis said that troops from the 34-nation coalition could be sent into Syria and Iraq to “combat” the IS network.
Washington also endorsed that, saying that it wanted more regional “boots on the ground” to help fight terrorism.
What that suggests is that if the political track does not go well for ousting Assad, then the US and its allies are giving themselves the license to openly intervene in Syria – ostensibly to fight terror groups, which they have covertly fomented.
Such a renewed military intervention can be seen as Plan B, where Plan A – the covert use of terror groups – has failed.
Sub for more: http://nnn.is/the_new_media | Marcus Weisberger reporting for Defense one writes: The Iraqis don’t want Western troops on the ground in their country to help retake cities captured by Islamic State militants, British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said.
By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | October 3, 2012
Ankara – It would seem to be quite simple. All that has to happen for the fighting to end in Syria is for those with guns in their hands to put them down.
So why isn’t it happening?
Again the answer is simple and not just seemingly.
Outside governments supporting the armed groups do not want them to put their weapons down.
It has been deliberately locked into a cycle of violence which its enemies hope will end in its destruction.
This strategy is the prime cause of the death and devastation over which the sponsors of this violence have been wringing their hands before the UN General Assembly.
Agendas vary slightly but the prime goal of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the governments of the US, Britain and France is not political reform but the destruction of Iran’s best friend in the region.
Syria is the central arch in a strategic relationship between Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.
The fall of that central arch would give western governments one of their greatest strategic victories in the modern history of the Middle East.
Syria is frequently described as collapsing or bleeding or plunging into ‘civil war’.
None is correct.
Syria is being collapsed, being bled and being plunged into devastation as the direct consequence of decisions taken outside Syria.
The collective calling itself ‘The Friends of the Syrian People’ has deliberately brought Syria to where it is now.
There are no small mercies in this situation but it could have been even worse, if these ‘friends’ had been able to launch an aerial assault under the aegis of the Security Council.
Had Russia and China not blocked them, Syria would be now be a total ruin, with an infinitely greater number of dead than the 20,000 or so already killed.
Their fallback position was the war of attrition being waged by their armed proteges'.
Few countries could withstand the battering Syria has taken in the past 18 months.
In the name of ‘regime change’ horror has followed horror.
Aleppo has been turned into a replica of Beirut at the height of the civil war, with a large part of the medieval souk now burnt to the ground.
Yet the government has not collapsed and neither has the army disintegrated.
The message from this is that Syria has a government and not a ‘regime’ and an army – in which the ordinary soldiers are mostly Sunni Muslim – and not ‘Assad loyalists’.
Military defections have been few.
So have defections from the ranks of government despite the large amounts of money on offer.
Foreign Minister Walid Muallim was offered $100 million by the ruler of Qatar if he would defect but turned it down and went public with the bribe.
One of the last known of cases was the $20,000 a month for the next 20 years and a home in Doha offered to the Syrian consul in Mauritania.
He also refused.
Bashar al Assad was totally correct when he said a few days ago that the rulers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar think they can buy anyone.
If there is anywhere where ‘regime change’ is needed it is surely in these gulf states.
One of the last defectors was the head of security in Aleppo.
Before his departure and untimely end (he was assassinated a few kilometers short of the Turkish border by persons unknown) he had arranged for the infiltration of thousands of jihadis into the city.
Many are not even Syrian.
They have come to fight the jihad from all corners of the Muslim world.
There are Chechens, Afghans, Pakistanis, Tajiks, Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans (lots of Libyans), Saudis and Iraqis.
Aleppo has been targeted because it is close to the Turkish border, and the hope is that it can be turned into a ‘rebel’ capital in a ‘liberated’ zone stretching up to the Turkish border.
This could be done only over the dead bodies and against the wishes of the people of the city.
Whether inside the cells fighting in the name of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) or operating independently, the salafi jihadis inside Syria are tactically cooperating against the common enemy.
The FSA is little more than a convenient trademark.
Most of the armed groups have their own command structure and take no notice of the FSA.
Recently Riad al Assad crossed the border from Turkey to direct the struggle from inside Syria, only to stay a day and a night before going back because there was no point in him staying.
The political arm of the FSA is the so-called Syrian National Council, touted as an alternative government but dysfunctional from the start and now recognized as such even by its sponsors.
Put these two hard realities together and you have the formula for complete chaos.
There is no alternative government in sight.
There is no rational end in sight.
The armed groups cannot overthrow the government without the direct intervention of their outside sponsors and that possibility seems to be receding, although Qatar is still trying to talk it up.
All that lies ahead of Syria unless the violence can be ended and negotiations begun is more chaos, more destruction and more loss of life.
Not that chaos is to be discarded as an end in itself.
It will take Syria decades to recover from the damage already done whoever governs in Damascus.
If the decision is finally taken to attack Iran, Syria would probably be too stricken to come to its aid even if the government has not been overthrown; if Syria cannot help, then Hezbollah might have to stay on the sidelines as well, releasing Israel from the fear of a second front opening in the north.
This is how the governments orchestrating the campaign against Syria want the dominoes to fall.
The implications for the Palestinians are clear. Any gain for Israel is a loss for them and the overthrow of the Syrian government, followed by the collapse of the strategic relationship between Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, would be an enormous gain for Israel, releasing pressure on one front and giving it more time to complete its absorption of Jerusalem and the West Bank.
What most Syrians want is to be left alone to sort out their own affairs.
They want change but not at any cost.
They don’t want the west sticking its nose in their affairs and they don’t want armed gangs running amok in their country.
The west might have forgotten its own bloody record in the Middle East dating back to the beginning of the 19th century but Syrians have not.
They know how disastrously western intervention always ends in the Middle East.
Heads of governments who have been fueling the armed opposition have been lining up at the UN General Assembly to call for an end to the violence.
If they mean what they say, they would be throwing their weight behind the attempts of the non-violent domestic opposition to bring a mediated end to this conflict.
But they don’t and therefore must be seen for what they are – hypocrites who are pushing their own agenda at massive cost to Syria and its people.
– Jeremy Salt is an associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.
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