Obama: “We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.” [Emphasis added]
Today, there are credible reports and video of a chemical attack on Aleppo emanating from the combined Islamist and FSA position. “Islamist” means groups commonly designated as terrorist, such as Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra Front. This attack, by the way, violates the current pause in the fighting or cease-fire or truce or whatever the agreement is called, as have some other attacks initiated by groups that signed on to the agreement.
Note: “The US and Turkey have been training the FSA and the US and Saudi Arabia have sent the FSA weapons.” It’s therefore with sarcasm that I ask if Obama’s red line is still in effect. That red line never made any sense to begin with, but then neither do U.S. efforts to remove Assad or to control the Middle East and Africa. The big picture painted by the U.S. is screwy and all the little portions of that picture are screwy as well.
On this portion of the overall mess, I ask how Obama can reprimand or control a faction he supports (FSA) that is closely joined to a faction he does not support? The two are joined at the hip, and it is widely reported that it’s the Islamist faction that’s the stronger and doing the most fighting against Assad’s forces.
Chemical weapons use by this anti-Assad temporary coalition simply throws a spotlight on a feature that already exists in U.S. policy in Syria, which is, in one way or another, the support of terrorist organizations. If the latter did dislodge Assad, they’d try to establish an Islamist state. They might even join ISIS formally. What would the U.S. then do? Why, it would keep right on attempting to control Syria.
Another fascinating part of this picture is that Obama publicly recognized almost two years ago that a “moderate” force could not dislodge Assad. He called it a “fantasy”. Nevertheless, both the Pentagon and the CIA have been engaged in separate programs in Syria. The CIA program has been specifically for “moderates”. The Pentagon’s program ended in failure.
This past November the U.S. again increased its intervention in Syria: “The U.S. and its regional allies agreed to increase shipments of weapons and other supplies to help moderate Syrian rebels hold their ground and challenge the intervention of Russia and Iran on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. officials and their counterparts in the region said.”
Recent Russian intervention is a revealing rationale for U.S. intervention in Syria. For the same reason, the U.S. has been intervening in Syria and the Middle East long before Assad invited in the Russians or Iranians. This statement is a clear and open admission that U.S. policy is aimed at dominance in the region and countering Iran and Russia. The U.S. has never abandoned the Cold War or its ways of thought or its antagonism toward Russia, even though the Soviet Union is long gone and Russia is not the Soviet Union.
The arms and supplies provided by the U.S. and Arab allies can be expected to flow in large part to the Islamist factions. The suppliers know that. That’s precisely what the U.S. wants, because those factions are anti-Iran and anti-Russia. The war on terror is not even on the list of U.S. priorities in Syria. Anti-Russian and anti-Iranian policies are at the top; bringing down Assad was part of that drive, if it could be done. The cost in Syrian lives and refugees has no priority either.
The U.S. is in the position of supporting a war that is driving millions of people from their homes, creating refugees, killing and injuring hundreds of thousands and destroying the country’s resources. To what end? Even if Russian and Iranian influence could be diminished or countered, what would this gain Americans? Whereas Syria is in the neighborhood of Iran and Russia and whereas Syria has requested their help, Syria is an ocean and a sea away from America. The attempt to control the region has produced an extreme Islamist resistance movement that has even declared a State and that has built a recruiting effort. How does this benefit Americans? Even the CIA and the Pentagon may tire of wasting their energies on the lost cause of controlling vast and distant regions and peoples of the world. Portions of Israel and its current government may welcome U.S. interventions in the region, but these beneficiaries are not Americans.
All we are seeing here is a President who has spoken as if he didn’t want to commit the U.S. to war in Syria (unless the red line that has special significance for him personally was breached), but who has continually gone along to this day with the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon.
Important elements of the U.S. government are staunchly anti-Russian and anti-Iran. Important elements favor a unipolar world. Running rampant is an expansive vision of U.S. security that demands that all differences among nations be seen and settled through a uniquely American lens. These positions explain many U.S. government policies and positions.
I’ll close with one example of this kind of thinking, and that is SOCOM [Special Operations Command]. Have a look at one of its documents. This U.S. special operations command is not bashful in patting its own back. It acts as if it’s God’s gift to mankind. It doesn’t have “soldiers”; it has “warriors”. That’s the term used by Admiral McRaven who is the Commander of SOCOM. What is a warrior: “A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior class or caste.” In other words, the U.S. is funding a separate warrior caste as if America were a tribal society.
SOCOM refers to its “global” ambitions. McRaven says “…we must build a Global SOF [Special Operations Force] network…” The first page of the document shows a spear covering the earth as seen from a satellite, with the statement “Forging the Tip of the Spear”. The world shall be girded about by the sword or spear wielded or embodied in this straddling force.
Every other country, region and people becomes an antagonist if they do not “agree” to become a partner or an ally.
At times, you would have a hard time knowing that SOCOM is supposedly to act on behalf of Americans. Consider a statement like this: “In the end, our success is ultimately rooted in how well we take care of our most precious resource — the SOF warriors and their families.”
This group that has so much pride and such wide ambition is taking over the war in Afghanistan, yes, that war that’s still going on after 15 years.
What is the problem in Afghanistan that the U.S. is supposed to alleviate by a continuous presence? What is the problem that intervention in Syria by the U.S. is supposed to alleviate? Why is Russian or Iranian influence regarded as a problem? If it is a problem, how is it alleviated by supporting anti-Assad factions that include terrorist factions? Why should any particular weapon, like chemical gas, be a trigger for U.S. intervention? Obama has never supplied satisfactory answers to these and other such related questions.
Whereas we might regard Russian missiles in Cuba as a problem, why do we regard our own missiles in Poland or Latvia as not a problem for the Russians? Why does Obama approve of such placements and threats to Russia? Why can the U.S. test missiles at will but Iran is chastised for doing so?
Obama and other U.S. leaders think that the U.S. is exceptional in the political-military sphere. That’s why. They think that exceptionalism justifies a political-military monopoly. However, any exceptionalism is to be traced back, in reality, to certain inventions of western civilization made in earlier centuries that have little to do with politics and much to do with scientific experiments and discoveries. Where would we be without the control over electricity and materials and molecules that we now possess? It is to be traced back to certain institutions of property and law that are increasingly threatened by governments that now think they’re exceptional.
1:47 pm on April 8, 2016
