The U.S. government seems to renew its attempt to overthrow the Syrian government by force. This will, as I wrote, likely intensify as soon as the election in the U.S. is over.
The U.S. has so far used two proxy forces to run the conflict. One is the military force in form of the so called Free Syrian Army provided via Turkey with money and weapons from Libya, Qatar and Saudi Arabia while the U.S. provides it with operational intelligence, the communication infrastructure and the media campaign. While the FSA had some success on the ground, especially in reducing Syria's air-defense, it is by now more famous for its Salafist radicalism and for mass killing its prisoners (video). It is not the force the U.S. would like to lead Syria.
The second proxy force the U.S. has been using is supposed to play the political role and to replace the Syrian government. The Syrian National Council, a hodgepodge of Syrian exiles, was thought to take this role and to develop into some exile government that could then be recognized by other states. But it turned that the SNC was neither inclusive nor united enough to put forward the political cover for the U.S. overtaking of Syria.
The U.S. has therefore now decided to throw the SNC out of the window and to create a new political proxy force that can be used instead of the SNC:
The Obama administration has spent the past several months in secret diplomatic negotiations aimed at building a new Syrian opposition leadership structure that it hopes can win the support of minority groups still backing President Bashar al-Assad.
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As envisioned by the Obama administration, the new Syrian leadership will include representatives of revolutionary councils and other unarmed groups inside the country. Territory along Syria’s northern border with Turkey that is effectively under rebel military control is to be organized into an administrative zone with nonlethal assistance from the United States, France and other like-minded governments.
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U.S. officials said they expected at least 50 opposition representatives, many from inside Syria, to attend the meeting and choose an executive council containing eight to 10 members. If all goes as planned, the Arab League will bless the process at an upcoming meeting in Cairo, officials said. They declined to name Syrian attendees, citing what they said were security concerns. U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford, who was withdrawn from Damascus for security reasons a year ago, plans to attend.
The anonymous members of this new, yet unnamed entity were selected by the U.S. government:
The U.S. government has recommended names and organizations it believes should be included in the new leadership structure, Clinton said, emphasizing the participation of representatives of Syrian opposition groups on the ground.
There is just a small problem with this idea. The Muslim Brotherhood SNC is still supported by Qatar and Turkey and is not going away. It just finished a three day conference in Instanbul and decided to reinvent itself as some murky parliament in exile:
More than 200 members of Syrian opposition groups issued a declaration yesterday in Istanbul promising “a general assembly” to rule liberated areas of Syria.
The idea of a parliament in exile is the same one the U.S. is proffering with its new entity:
"We call it a proto-parliament. One could also think of it as a continental congress," a senior administration official told The Cable.
One wonders who is copying whom in this.
There maybe a small chance that the SNC will be integrated into the new entity the U.S. is planing. But after Clinton remarks on the SNC one really has to doubt that possibility:
“We’ve made it clear that the S.N.C. can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition,” Mrs. Clinton said, referring to the Syrian National Council.
Instead of one disunited SNC supported by the U.S., Turkey, Qatar and the Saudis we will now probably see two disunited entities, one supported by the U.S. and the other by Qatar and Turkey while the Saudis will continue their support for the foreign Jihadists in Syria represented in none of the political proxy entities.
Does anyone expect that this will really work?
Turkey is meanwhile continue to slowly, slowly backtrack from its earlier positions. After lots of Turkish talk of and threats to install a security zone in Syria Erdogan now sounds much different:
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country was unable to unilaterally impose buffer zones on its border with Syria and relied on the United Nations to make such decisions.
Responding to questions in Berlin during a joint news conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel today, the premier said Turkey “has no authority or right to declare” a buffer zone or a no-fly zone to protect civilians inside Syria. “It is an issue which the UN Security Council can decide on,” he said.
Well, the UNSC will not allow for such a zone.
From the same report comes this interesting detail:
A U.S. military delegation, meanwhile, visited an air base in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir to prepare possible operations related to Syria, Hurriyet newspaper reported today, without citing anyone.
It is the third time that a rumor of such a U.S. visit has been published in Turkey. The Turkish military denies that U.S. military have visited Diyarbakir but the persistence of this claim, published in different Turkish media, makes me wonder what is really happening there.