The Neoconservatives Are Brewing A Wider War In Syria — Paul Craig Roberts
February 14, 2016 | Original Here Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter
The Neoconservatives Are Brewing A Wider War In Syria
Paul Craig Roberts
While you are enjoying your Sunday, the insane neoconservatives who
control Western foreign policy and their Turkish and Saudi Arabian
vassals might be preparing the end of the world.
Any person who relies on Western media has no accurate idea of what is happening in Syria.
I will provide a brief summary and then send you to two detailed accounts.
The neoconservative Obama regime set-up the Syrian government headed
by Assad for overthrow. A long propaganda campaign conducted in
Washington’s behalf by the Western media portrayed the
democratically-elected Assad as a “brutal dictator who uses chemical
weapons against his own people.” Washington organized and supported a
front group posing as democrats and involved them in conflict with the
Syrian military.
With conflict underway, Washington began predicting that something
had to be done to overthrow Assad before he used “chemical weapons
against his own people.” Obama turned these predictions into a “red
line.” When Assad used chemical weapons against Washington’s puppets,
the US would invade Syria.
With the “red line” drawn, a false flag chemical weapons attack was
staged, or an accident occurred, that Washington used to say that Assad,
despite the US warning, had crossed the “red line.”
Preparations for an invasion began, but hit two roadblocks. David
Cameron, Washington’s puppet prime minister of Great Britain was unable
to deliver British support for the invasion as the Parliament voted it
down. This left Washington uncovered and vulnerable to the charge of
naked aggression, a war crime.
Russian diplomacy threw up the other road block by securing the removal of all chemical weapons from Syria.
Their invasion plan frustrated, the neoconservatives sent the
jihadists they had used to overthrow Gaddafi in Libya to overthrow
Assad. Initially known as ISIS, then ISIL, then the Islamist State, and
now Daesh, a term that can be interpreted as an insult. Perhaps the
intention of the name changes is to keep the Western public thoroughly
confused about who is who and what is what.
Washington now pretends that it is fighting the Islamist State, but
Washington is doing its best to frustrate the success of the
Russian/Syrian alliance that is defeating the Islamist State..
Washington’s support of the Islamist State is the cause of the war in
Syria. General Michael Flynn, the recently retired head of the US
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has stated publicly that it was a
“willful decision” of the Obama regime to support ISIS.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/10/former_dia_chief_michael_flynn_says_rise_of_isis_was_willful_decision_of_us_government.html
See also: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/iraq-war-isis-michael-flynn_us_565c83a9e4b079b2818af89c
The neoconservative insistence that “Assad must go” comprises a
threat to the security of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Hezbollah is the Lebanese force that has twice defeated Israel’s attempt
to annex southern Lebanon for its water resources. Hezbollah is
dependent on Syrian and Iranian support for its arms and financing.
Israel wants rid of Hezbollah.
The Islamic State that Washington is trying to create in Syria would
provide Washington with a means of destabilizing Iran and Russia by
exporting jihadism into those countries. The Russian Federation has
Muslim populations as do former provinces of the Soviet Union that now
cooperate with Russia. By bogging down Russia in internal conflicts,
Washington can move Russia out of the way of Washington’s exercise of
hegemony. Similarly, non-Persian populations in Iran could be
radicalized by jihadism and used to destabilize Iran.
In order to protect themselves, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah have come to the support of Syria.
The Russians are there legally at the invitation of the Syrian government. The US is there illegally.
Russian air power in support of the Syrian Army has turned the tide against the Islamist State.
The invaders are being driven out. The neoconservatives cannot accept this defeat.
Washington is preparing a Syrian invasion by Turkey and Saudi Arabia,
the purpose of which is to split Syria in half with Washington
controlling the eastern part with the oil fields.
Possibly this is a bluff to get Russia to accept a Syrian settlement
less favorable to Russian, Iranian, and Syrian interests. However, the
Russian government cannot risk that it is only a bluff. If a
US/Turkish/Saudi force were to arrive first in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor,
Syria would be dismembered.
The Russians can get there first by dropping in paratroopers. In
other words, what the insane neoconservatives are doing is giving the
Russian government a big incentive to introduce Russian ground troops
into the conflict. Once those troops are there, you can safely bet that
the insane neoconservatives will cause conflict between them and
US/Turkish forces. A wider war will have begun from which neither side
can back down.
Here is a description of the race to Raqqa: http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/02/the-race-to-raqqa-is-on-to-keep-its-unity-syria-must-win-.html
Here is The Saker’s take on the seriousness of the situation: http://thesaker.is/week-eighteen-of-the-russian-intervention-in-syria-a-dramatic-escalation-appears-imminent/
NATO Threatens To Send In Troops After Russia Stations Ground "Battalion" In Syria
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/08/2015 13:56 -0400
Caspian Sea headlines
Iraq
Reuters Turkey
Ukraine
As the propaganda “war” between East and West intensifies ahead of
what might ultimately transform into an actual war in the skies above
Syria, the world is transfixed with the scope of Russia’s week-old
military campaign in support of the Assad regime.
Thanks to the fact that the West selected Islamic militants as its
anti-Assad weapon of choice, Putin gets to pitch the entire effort as a
“war on terror” which means The Kremlin effectively has a license to
brag and sure enough, slickly-produced ISIS videos of beheadings have
now been definitively replaced by slickly-produced videos of Russian
warships launching cruise missiles at terrorist targets.
In short, Moscow is on a roll both militarily (of course that’s not
difficult when you’re a superpower playing against a couple of JV
militias) and perceptually, which makes it possible to continually
ratchet up the pressure on anti-regime forces as the global applause
only seems to grow with each incremental escalation much to chagrin of
both the Pentagon and Washington’s Mid-East allies and as we said
earlier this week, "a very likely course of events is that despite
Russia's denials, the Pentagon will use the gambit of a Russian ground
campaign, credible or not, to get permission from Congress to send a
'small', at first, then bigger ground force of US troops in Syria to,
you guessed it, 'fight ISIS', but really to do everything to prevent
Russian troops from taking over key strategic positions."
On Thursday we get the latest set of headlines from Syria, starting
with NATO asserting that Russia has a ground battalion at the ready
supported by tanks. Here’s Reuters:
Russia's military build-up in Syria includes a
"considerable and growing" naval presence, long-range rockets and a
battalion of ground troops backed by Moscow's most modern tanks, the
U.S. ambassador to NATO said on Wednesday.
Speaking on the eve of a NATO defense ministers meeting to be
dominated by Russia's intervention in Syria's civil war, U.S. Ambassador
to NATO Douglas Lute said Moscow had managed a "quite impressive"
military deployment over the past week to its Syria naval base in
Tartous and its army base in Latakia.
"There is a considerable and growing Russia naval
presence in the eastern Mediterranean, more than 10 ships now, which is a
bit out of the ordinary," he told a news briefing.
"The recent Russian reinforcements over the last week or
so feature a battalion-size ground force ... There is artillery, there
are long-range rocket capabilities, there are air defense capabilities,"
Lute said.
A battalion is typically around 1,000 soldiers.
Western officials say that in strategic terms, Russia's new air
strike campaign in Syria appears designed to help reverse rebel gains
increasingly endangering Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, protect
Russian military assets in the country including its sole Mediterranean
port, and reassert Moscow’s place as a big international power competing
with the United States.
"The force that they have deployed down there is actually quite
impressive for a rapid deployment of a week or so," Lute said. "(It is)
all arms, combined arms, attack aircraft, it is the attack helicopters
and artillery, rocket artillery."
And that means NATO needs to indicate that it too is willing to
deploy troops via Turkey, where Ankara will simply acquiesce to anything
the West wants to do as long as Washington turns a blind eye to
Erdogan’s “war” with the PKK which is far more important domestically
than any conflict with ISIS or Russia because Erdogan is effectively
fighting to secure the “right” to change the country’s constitution and
thereby consolidate his power. Here’s Reuters again:
NATO said it was prepared to send troops to Turkey to
defend its ally after violations of Turkish airspace by Russian jets
bombing Syria and Britain scolded Moscow for escalating a civil war that
has already killed 250,000 people.
Officials at the U.S.-led alliance are still smarting from
Russia's weekend incursions into Turkey's airspace near northern Syria
and NATO defense ministers are meeting in Brussels with the agenda
likely to be dominated by the Syria crisis.
"NATO is ready and able to defend all allies, including Turkey
against any threats," NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told
reporters as he arrived for the meeting.
"NATO has already responded by increasing our capacity, our
ability, our preparedness to deploy forces including to the south,
including in Turkey," he said, noting that Russia's air and cruise
missile strikes were "reasons for concern".
As Russian and U.S. planes fly combat missions over the same
country for the first time since World War Two, NATO is eager to avoid
any international escalation of the Syrian conflict that has
unexpectedly turned the alliance's attention away from Ukraine following
Russia's annexation of Crimea last year.
The incursions of two Russian fighters in Turkish airspace on
Saturday and Sunday has brought the Syria conflict right up to NATO's
borders, testing the alliance's ability to deter a newly assertive
Russia without seeking direct confrontation.
This, of course, is nothing more than an attempt to create an excuse
to counter the Russians. The Russian warplanes that allegedly crossed
into Turkey’s airspace obviously were not intending to bomb Ankara, so
the only reason the West continues to focus on the story is to build a
narrative that justifies sending ground troops in via Turkey.
Meanwhile, the Iran-sponsored ground cleanup crew is apparently on the move and advancing quickly:
Syrian troops and allied militia backed by Russian air
strikes and cruise missiles fired from warships attacked rebels forces
on Thursday as the government extended a major offensive to recapture
territory in the west of the country.
Rebel advances in western Syria earlier this year had threatened
the coastal region vital to President Bashar al-Assad's control of the
area and prompted Russia's intervention on his side last week.
In a further show of force, the Russian defense ministry said
missiles fired from its ships in the Caspian Sea hit weapons factories,
arms dumps, command centers and training camps supporting Islamic State
forces.
Ground forces loyal to the government targeted insurgents
in the Ghab Plain area of western Syria, with heavy barrages of
surface-to-surface missiles as Russian warplanes bombed from above,
according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a
rebel fighting there.
It said rebels had shot down a helicopter in Hama province in western Syria. It was unclear if it was Syrian or Russian.
Syria said a major military operation was under way.
Yes, "ground forces loyal to the government" or, stripping away the
facade, "Shiite ground forces loyal to Tehran" who, once the campaign in
Syria is over, will cross right back into Iraq and continue the fight
against Sunni extremists only now they'll be backed not only by the
IRGC, but by the Russian army, and on that note, we close with the
following from AFP:
Russian President Vladimir Putin's bullish entry into the Syrian
conflict has worked wonders for his popularity in neighbouring Iraq,
where some await "Hajji Putin" like a saviour.
Sitting at his easel in his central Baghdad workshop, painter
Mohammed Karim Nihaya touches up a portrait of Putin he copied from the
Internet.
"I have been waiting for Russia to get involved in the
fight against Daesh," he says, referring to the Islamic State group that
last year declared a "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria.
"They get results. The United States and its allies on
the other hand have been bombing for a year and achieved nothing," the
bespectacled artist says.
