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Syria: U.S. Intelligence For Syrian Air-Force Bombing
Pepe Escobar writes in ATOL on the IS rampage in Syria and Iraq:
[H]ow convenient that a Briton beheading an American – what a "special relationship" plot twist! – fully sanctions the Return of Iraq Bombing ("for months", in Obama's words); more strikes; more drones; perhaps more boots on the ground; perhaps, in the near future, a Syria extension.
Indeed. But the mission creep, or maybe the planned escalation, was already ongoing before the beheading video of James Foley was published:
Monday, the President again broadened the bombing’s objectives. The airstrikes against ISIS still protect U.S. personnel and serve humanitarian purposes, he said, but now, it seems, those are general goals that ongoing bombing serves. The President also suggested that ISIS is a security threat to the United States. Not for the first time, he said that once the new Iraqi government forms, we will “build up” Iraqi military power against ISIS.
Only the speed of this slide down a slippery slope is surprising.
The U.S. is again fully at war in Iraq. But bombing in Syria, it seems to me, will be left to the Syrian air-force. For some days now it has attacked IS targets in Raqqa with precise ammunition, not with the usual "barrel bombs". Precise weapons need precise intelligence to designate precise targets. Two knowledgeable journalist from the region have suggested that the U.S. is providing such targeting data to the Syrian government. The Angry Arab reports:
The highly able and reliable correspondent of As-Safir in Paris claims that the US has been providing intelligence help to the Syrian regime regarding positions of ISIS in Syria.
That As-Safir correspondent is Mohammad Ballout. Elijah J. Magnier, AL RAI chief international correspondent, tweeted two days ago:
#BreakingNews: #USA #Syria: #SAF Mig-29 is bombarding on daily basis #IS selective targets in #Raqqa w guided missiles following #USA info
Reuters reports that Syrian hopes to find a detente with the "west" over the threat of the Islamic State:
Ghaleb Kandil, another Lebanese journalist with close ties to the Syrian government, said the West would be forced to deal with Assad sooner or later. In return for security cooperation, Assad would demand full political rehabilitation.
"The Syrian state is the only body with adequate intelligence about the terrorists," he said.
With the U.S. providing targeting data to the Syrian air-force at least some informal detente has already been agreed upon. More opportunities for a public reversal of the "western" position will appear soon.
Unlike Pepe Escobar anticipates, "a Syria extension" of U.S. air-force attacks is unlikely to happen as long as the Syrian air-force has and keeps its capabilities to act on anti-IS (signal-)intelligence the U.S. provides. Russia (and Iran) will take care that the Syrian air-force will have the material and personal capacities to achieve that.
“…b- as I’ve said before, you are wrong on this, especially the idea that some sort of compact with Assad exists. Things could hardly be worse.”
There are two articles in the Guardian today, perhaps more:
“UK should join US bombing of Isis, says ex-army chief
Lord Dannatt
“Lord Dannatt also says Britain should open talks with Assad in Syria, after Washington considers its next move..” That’s the headline on one.
And then there is this one by Mary Dejevsky-whoever she may be.
“Oh the fickleness of humanity and history! This time last year, the British parliament was recalled by the prime minister, who appeared confident that he would receive a mandate to join the US in air strikes on Syria – the immediate and urgent reason being the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad’s, use of sarin gas to crush the growing uprising against him. Of course, “we” had few illusions about either the unity or the ethics of those rebels, but the argument was that there were enough people we could do business with and the Assad regime was the greater evil.
“Fast forward a year, and authoritative word has winged its way across the Atlantic from the Pentagon – in the shape of a joint press conference by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the defence secretary, no less – that the only way to halt the advance of Islamic State (Isis) in northern Iraq is to bomb … Syria. But this time not the forces – official and unofficial – of Assad, but the Syria of his enemies. Because, hey, we have revised our view of the lesser evil….”
There’s the smoke, maybe there is a fire.
Like Malooga I was very sceptical of all the reports that the US was getting friendly with Assad again (see references to Maher Arar above). But these two stories, one for and one against an imperial policy change, indicate to me that something is happening. We shall see.
In either case the fact remains that there is and always has been considerable complexity in the formulation and execution of US Middle East policy. This is not to say that the Empire doesn’t know what it wants merely that there are disagreements as to how those objectives are best accomplished. This leads, over the years, to major changes of direction.
One day Saddam is ushered into office grasping a list of Communists to be assassinated, given him by the CIA.
A few years later he is promised Ali Baba’s cave if he will attack Iran. He is given the wherewithal to make his own poison gas.
And then, within months, the US and its allies are attacking him, then come sanctions and finally, the 2003 invasion.
But “finally” is the wrong word, because a decade later, after totuous twists and turns-now backing the shia, now backing the sunni, now promoting Bandar’s Foreign Legion, now bombing it, after a long hate campaign against the Syrian government change, if not hope, appears to be in the air.
And the questions now involve the Iranian position- we know what Hezbollah’s position will be, because they are (almost uniquely) principled actors, but much else, including perhaps the neo-con adventure in Ukraine, is up in the air.
Posted by: bevin | Aug 22 2014 13:27 utc | 105
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