Will US Grasp Putin’s Syria Lifeline?
The neocons’ obsession with “regime change” in Syria is driving
another one of Official Washington’s “group thinks” toward rejecting
Russia’s offer to help stabilize the war-torn country and stem the
destabilizing flood of refugees into Europe, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
September 23, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" - "Consortiumnews"-
Russian President Vladimir Putin has
thrown U.S. policymakers what amounts to a lifeline to pull them out
of the quicksand that is the Syrian war, but Official Washington’s
neocons and the mainstream U.S. news media are growling about
Putin’s audacity and challenging his motives.
For instance, The New York Times’
lead editorial on Monday accused Putin of “dangerously
building up Russia’s military presence” in Syria, even though
Putin’s stated goal is to help crush the Sunni jihadists in the
Islamic State and other extremist movements.
Instead, the Times harrumphs about Putin using his
upcoming speech to the United Nations General Assembly “to make the
case for an international coalition against the Islamic State,
apparently ignoring the one already being led by the United States.”
The Times then reprises the bizarre neocon
argument that the best way to solve the threat from the Islamic
State, Al Qaeda and other jihadist forces is to eliminate Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad and his military who have been the
principal obstacles to an outright victory by the Sunni terrorist
groups.
The dreamy Times/neocon prescription continues to
be that “regime change” in Damascus would finally lead to the
emergence of the mythical “moderate” rebels who would somehow
prevail over the far more numerous and far better armed extremists.
This perspective ignores the fact that after a $500 million training
project for these “moderates,” the U.S. military says four or five
fighters are now on the battlefield inside Syria. In other words,
the members of this U.S.-trained brigade can be counted on the
fingers of one hand.
But rather than rethink Official Washington’s
goofy “group think” on Syria – or provide readers a fuller history
of the Syrian conflict – the Times moves on to blame Putin for the
mess.
“No one should be fooled about Russia’s
culpability in Syria’s agony,” the Times writes. “Mr. Putin could
have helped prevent the fighting that has killed more than 250,000
Syrians and displaced millions more, had he worked with other major
powers in 2011 to keep Mr. Assad from waging war on his people
following peaceful antigovernment protests. … Mr. Assad would
probably be gone without the weapons aid and other assistance from
Russia and Iran.”
This “group think” ignores the
early role of Sunni extremists in killing police and soldiers
and thus provoking the harsh retaliation that followed. But the
Syrian narrative, according to The New York Times, is that the
“white-hat” protesters were simply set upon by the “black-hat”
government.
The Times’ simplistic storyline fits neatly with
what the influential neoconservatives want the West to believe,
since the
neocons have had Syria on their “regime change” list,
alongside Iraq and Iran, since the list was compiled as part of
Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s 1996 political campaign. The
Times’ narrative also leaves out the crucial role of Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, Qatar and other U.S. “allies” in supporting Al Qaeda and its
Islamic State spinoff.
Bush’s Unaccounted-for Cash
Further complicating Official Washington’s
let’s-blame-Putin Syrian narrative is the unintended role of
President George W. Bush and the U.S. military in laying the
groundwork for these brutal Sunni extremist movements through the
invasion of Iraq last decade. After all, it was only in reaction to
the U.S. military presence that “Al Qaeda in Iraq” took root in
Iraqi and then Syrian territory.
Not only did the ouster and execution of Sunni
leader Saddam Hussein alienate the region’s Sunnis, but Bush’s
desperation to avert an outright military defeat in Iraq during his
second term led him to authorize the payment of billions of dollars
to Sunni fighters to get them to stop shooting at American soldiers
and to give Bush time to negotiate a U.S. troop withdrawal.
Beginning in 2006, those U.S. payments to Sunni
fighters to get them to suspend their resistance were central to
what was then called the “Sunni Awakening.” Though the program
preceded Bush’s “surge” of troops in 2007, the bought-and-paid-for
truce became central to what Official Washington then hailed as the
“successful surge” or “victory at last.”
Besides the billions of dollars paid out in
pallets of U.S. cash to Sunni insurgents, Bush’s “surge” cost the
lives of another 1,000 U.S. soldiers and killed a countless number
of Iraqis, many just going about their daily lives until they were
blown apart by powerful American munitions. [See, for example, the “Collateral
Murder” video leaked by Pvt. Bradley/Chelsea Manning]
But what the U.S. intelligence community is only
now assessing is the collateral damage caused by the bribes that the
Bush administration paid to Sunni insurgents. Some of the cash
appears to have become seed money for the transformation of “Al
Qaeda in Iraq” into the Islamic State as Sunnis, who continued to be
disenfranchised by Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government, expanded
their sectarian war into Syria.
Besides the Iraqi Sunnis, Syria’s secular
government, with Assad and other key leaders from the Alawite branch
of Shiite Islam, also was set upon by home-grown Sunni extremists
and foreign jihadists, some of whom joined the Islamic State but
mostly coalesced around Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and other radical
forces. Though the Islamic State had originated as “Al Qaeda in
Iraq” (or AQI), it evolved into an even more bloodthirsty force and,
in Syria, split off from Al Qaeda central.
Intelligence Reporting
U.S. intelligence followed many of these
developments in real time. According to a Defense Intelligence
Agency report from August 2012, “AQI supported the Syrian opposition
from the beginning, both ideologically and through the media. … AQI
declared its opposition of Assad’s government because it considered
it a sectarian regime targeting Sunnis.”
In other words, Assad’s early complaint about
“terrorists” having infiltrated the opposition had a basis in fact.
Early in the disorders in 2011, there were cases of armed elements
killing police and soldiers. Later, there were terrorist bombings
targeting senior Syrian government officials, including a July 18,
2012 explosion – deemed a suicide bombing by government officials –
that killed Syrian Defense Minister General Dawoud Rajiha and Assef
Shawkat, the deputy defense minister and Assad’s brother-in-law.
By then, it had become clear that Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Turkey and other Sunni-ruled countries were funneling money
and other help to jihadist rebels seeking to oust Assad’s regime,
which was considered a protector of Christians, Shiites, Alawites
and other minorities fearing persecution if Sunni extremists
prevailed.
As the 2012 DIA report noted about Syria,
“internally, events are taking a clear sectarian direction. … The
salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces
driving the insurgency in Syria. … The West, Gulf countries, and
Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support
the regime.”
The DIA analysts already understood the risks that
AQI represented both to Syria and Iraq. The report included a stark
warning about the expansion of AQI, which was changing into the
Islamic State or what the DIA referred to as ISI. The brutal armed
movement was seeing its ranks swelled by the arrival of global
jihadists rallying to the black banner of Sunni militancy,
intolerant of both Westerners and “heretics” from Shiite and other
non-Sunni branches of Islam.
As this movement strengthened it risked spilling
back into Iraq. The DIA wrote: “This creates the ideal atmosphere
for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi [in Iraq],
and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of
unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the
Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the
dissenters [apparently a reference to Shiite and other non-Sunni
forms of Islam]. ISI could also declare an Islamic State through its
union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which
will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the
protection of its territory.”
Facing this growing Sunni terrorist threat — which
indeed did spill back into Iraq — the idea that the CIA or the U.S.
military could effectively arm and train a “moderate” rebel force to
somehow compete with the Islamists was already delusional, yet that
was the “group think” among the Important People of Official
Washington, simply organize a “moderate” army to oust Assad and
everything would turn out just great.
On Oct. 2, 2014, Vice President Joe Biden let more
of the cat out of the bag when he
told
an audience at Harvard’s Kennedy School: “our allies in the region
were our largest problem in Syria … the Saudis, the emirates, etc.,
what were they doing? They were so determined to take down Assad and
essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They
poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons
of military weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad,
except the people who were being supplied were Al Nusra and Al Qaeda
and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the
world.” [Quote at 53:20 of
clip.]
In other words, much of the U.S.-led anti-Islamic
State coalition actually has been involved in financing and arming
many of the same jihadists that the coalition is now supposedly
fighting. If you take into account the lost billions of dollars that
the Bush administration dumped on Sunni fighters starting in 2006,
you could argue that the U.S.-led coalition bears primary
responsibility for creating the problem that it is now confronting.
Biden made a similar point at least in reference
to the Persian Gulf states: “Now all of a sudden, I don’t want to be
too facetious, but they have seen the lord. … Saudi Arabia has
stopped funding. Saudi Arabia is allowing training [of anti-Islamic
State fighters] on its soil … the Qataris have cut off their support
for the most extreme elements of terrorist organizations, and the
Turks … [are] trying to seal their border.”
But there remain many doubts about the commitment
of these Sunni governments to the cause of fighting the Islamic
State and even more doubts about whether that commitment extends to
Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and other jihadist forces. Some neocons have
even
advocated backing Al Qaeda as the lesser evil both vis a
vis the Islamic State and the Assad regime.
Blaming Putin
Yet, the Times editorial on Monday blamed Putin
for a big chunk of the Syrian mess because Russia has dared support
the internationally recognized Syrian government in the face of
vicious foreign-supported terrorism. The Times casts no blame on the
United States or its allies for the Syrian horror.
The Times also hurled personal insults at Putin as
part of its equally one-sided narrative of the Ukraine crisis, which
the editorial writers have summarized as simply a case of “Russian
aggression” or a “Russian invasion” – ignoring the behind-the-scenes
role of neocon Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in
orchestrating the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s elected President
Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.
In Monday’s editorial, the Times reported that
President Barack Obama “considers Mr. Putin a thug,” though it was
President Obama who boasted just last month, “I’ve ordered military
action in seven countries,” another inconvenient fact that the Times
discreetly leaves out. In other words, who’s the “thug”?
Yet, despite all its huffing and puffing and
calling Putin names, the Times ultimately concludes that Obama
should test out the lifeline that Putin has tossed to Obama’s Syrian
policy which – with all its thrashing and arm waving – is rapidly
disappearing into the quicksand. The editorial concluded:
“Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in London
on Friday, made it clear that America would be looking for ‘common
ground’ in Syria, which could mean keeping Mr. Assad in power
temporarily during a transition. The Russians should accept that Mr.
Assad must go within a specific time frame, say six months. The
objective is a transition government that includes elements of the
Assad regime and the opposition. Iran should be part of any deal.
“America should be aware that Mr. Putin’s
motivations are decidedly mixed and that he may not care nearly as
much about joining the fight against the Islamic State as propping
up his old ally. But with that in mind there is no reason not to
test him.”
Kerry’s apparent willingness to work with the
Russians – a position that I’m told Obama shares – is at least a
sign that some sanity exists inside the State Department, which
initially mounted an absurd and futile attempt to
organize an aerial blockade to prevent Russia from flying in any
assistance to Syria.
If successful, that scheme, emanating from
Nuland’s European division, could have collapsed the Syrian regime
and opened the gates of Damascus to the Islamic State and/or Al
Qaeda. So obsessed are the neocons to achieve their long-held goal
of “regime change” in Syria that they would run the risk of turning
Syria over to the Islamic State head-choppers and Al Qaeda’s
terrorism plotters.
However, after the requisite snorting and pawing
of hooves, it appears that the cooler heads in the Obama
administration may have finally asserted themselves – and perhaps at
The New York Times as well.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the
Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the
1980s. You can buy his latest book,
America’s Stolen Narrative,
either in print
here or as an
e-book (from
Amazon
and
barnesandnoble.com).
You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its
connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The
trilogy includes
America’s Stolen Narrative.
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