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Syria: After CW Removal, Obama May Again Go For Regime Change
The NYT has a long piece on the development of Obama's policies towards Syria. While some on his staff pressed for outright open war on Syria others were going along the "let them kill each other" line. Their idea was and is to let both sides fight each other until no one is left standing. To this purpose the stream of weapons and ammunition to the mercenaries fighting the Syrian government was switched off when the mercenaries were in advantage and switched on again when the government seemed to win.
That position has somewhat changed after the agreement by Syria to get rid of its chemical weapons. The Obama administration had to give the preference to the Syrian government. But what happens after those chemical capabilities and weapons are dismantled, which is likely to be soon the case?
The world's chemical weapons watchdog says it is confident that Syria will meet an important early milestone in its disarmament, the 1 November deadline for destroying all equipment used in the production and mixing of poison gases and nerve agents.
With the equipment destroyed Syria will still have some mustard gas and the precursor chemicals for Sarin. But whoever will get hold of those will no longer have the capability to use them effectively in any serious fight.
If there is therefore no longer any fear that the dangerous stuff might fall into bad hands Obama's former strategy to "let them kill each other" may come back and U.S. support for the mercenaries may return.
Dan Drezner for one sees this coming:
Once the chemical weapons infrastructure is removed — and the evidence to date suggests that this is proceeding apace — then I don't see what keeps the administration from ratcheting up pressure on the Syrian regime. If Assad can't secure his position over the next 3-6 months, then he's facing a potentially more precarious situation afterwards.
When the deal over the chemical weapon removal was done there was talk about a Russian security guarantee to Syria. We do not know if such a guarantee has indeed been given or what form it might take. But I, like Drezner, believe that it may well be needed as soon as Syria's chemical weapons are gone.
While – 30 years after the Marines barracks bombing in Beirut – the U.S. should have learned about such useless interventions and the danger of attacking Syrian forces it definitely has not done so. There is always the chance that it will commit another such blunder.
Of course, the regime change campaign against Syria will continue. The US is addicted to war, particularly to the sponsorship of terrorism. And many of the agencies of the government are beyond control, which is the other side of the coin of deniability, so, even if the government wanted to rein in its forces it would be difficult for it.
As to “deniability” it needs to be borne in mind that this no longer applies to anyone but the hoi-poloi, the media watchers who follow the line dictated by the state. So far as “Presidential deniability” is concerned the concept is totally obsolete. Reagan is dead and Obama is not suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Such is the power of the Panopticon that there can be no real secrets to the White House. Obama understands precisely the relationship between Bandar, AQ, the Defense Department and the array of government contractors who supply, train, pay and promote “jihadists” in the war against shi’ism.
But the context in which the assault on Syria is taking place has greatly changed.
Firstly, the war has become much wider: the daily carnage in Iraq, directly attributable to imperialist power, is very serious. Then there is the war in Yemen, another Saudi sponsored affair which is unlikely to end well for the US and its friends. And the unrest in Bahrain and the neighbouring eastern province of Arabia is not disappearing in the face of repression. While Saudi mercenaries roam the world looking for targets the Kingdom itself is facing real instability in the form of a rising from below conjoined to a succession fight between factions in the Royal family. For years the Saudis and the kleptocratic emirs of the GCC have blamed Iran for any dissension in their medieaval Disneylands. Now the pressure on the shi’ites is such that for Syria or Iraq not to back opponents of the GCC is irrational. All the more so because the real victims of these regimes go far beyond the shi-ites including the Sunni masses, and the enormous numbers of semi-slave guest workers, many of whom are not even muslims, who are deprived of human rights and are helpless, often impoverished, witnesses to the wasting away of the wealth which ought to make them secure and comfortable.
Secondly the imperial structure is beginning to creak: the reconditioned British Empire (Under New Management for more than 70 years!) is returning to its isolationist anglo origins. France, Germany and other long time NATO allies are severely embarrassed by the crude and tactless provocations that Mr Snowden has revealed. And they are under pressure from local capitalists, angry at the way that the Five Eyes have used the war on terror as an excuse for espionage and financial manipulation. These governments will be looking for ways to show their independence and assert their sovereignty. It is not a good time for Libyan style adventures: leading from behind doesn’t work without useful idiots like Sarkozy, Berlusconi and Cameron happy to do the dirty work.
And then there is the real change in the world beyond the Empire, beyond Europe, beyond NATO. The two big stories here are China and Russia: China’s financial and commercial momentum is phenomenal, and it undermines the US position as international arbiter more with every passing day: its currency swaps constitute a great danger to the critically important reserve role of the dollar. US hubris has almost done for its domination of global finance, with Iranian sanctions not the least of the inconveniences a global economy in decline has to bear, just to please Uncle Sam and his mad Israeli client. Asia is pivoting rapidly away from the US and the old Cold War strategy of garrisons and bases only serves-ask an Okinawan- to enhance China’s attractions. While backing Abe’s neo-imperial Japan and its renunciation of pacifism is not calculated to improve the US image in south east Asia.
Russia is alive to the changes that have taken place to the extent that it has been the crucial catalyst this year. It was Russia which gave Snowden the platform he needed to present his case without the constant din of US threats which turned his pre-asylum period into a circus in which his message was lost in the clash between the terror warriors and the constitutionalists. It wasn’t long ago that the British government was smashing hard drives in the Guardian offices and Congressional leaders were calling for rendition attempts, while Evo Morales’s plane was actually grounded, boarded and searched at Obama’s insistence. Now, with Snowden safely living in the suburbs, there is calm and the vexed question of Frau Merkel’s cell-phone can be discussed in all its aspects.
More importantly, it was Russia which defused the Syrian crisis. The real story is yet to be told but there has to have been more to it than Kerry’s “gaffe” and Lavrov’s agile diplomacy: the US does not care whether it looks hypocritical or criminal. If it did there would be a Palestinian state , but it doesn’t and the West Bank is quickly becoming integrated into Israel.
The real story seems to be that, indeed, Russia is ready to arm the forces resisting US proxies in the middle east. And fighting against people able to defend themselves with modern weapons is a habit that the US has never cultivated. nor, at this late stage, is it likely to do so.
So, though, no doubt, the warmongers, zionists, neo-cons and other antique cults will continue to push for war against Syria and while there is always a good chance, given their command over public opinion, that they will succeed in escalating the conflict, the big difference that, as Georgia found out when it attacked South Ossetia, the result is no longer pre-determined. War could be very dangerous not, in the short term to the US but to its creatures in the Gulf and Israel.
All of whom understand that, at the first suggestion of vulnerability, hitherto neutral or friendly forces, such as Egypt for example, and perhaps Turkey (possibly even Jordan’s Hashemites) would move with lightning speed to “stabilize the situation “, plunder the kleptocrats and extract revenge for decades of humiliation from Tel Aviv, or Haifa as the old maps call it.
Posted by: bevin | Oct 24 2013 16:10 utc | 30
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