http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/syria-a-brief-heads-up-on-whos-massacring-who/
Doubts raised as to responsibility for ‘Assad regime’ atrocities
I hear from Sloggers that German intelligence reckons some ninety terror attacks in Syria (for which the Assad regime has been blamed) can be attributed to jihadist groups, over the last six months, perpetrating the atrocities for purely propagandist reasons. The statistic was revealed after the German government responded to a Bundestag member’s question.
Have you seen that reported in the UK or US MSM? No, neither have I.
The Merkel government did, however, refuse to give answers to a question on the subject of the May 25 massacre “by forces loyal to President Assad” in the Syrian town of Houla. The answer was to remain classified, said a foreig relations spokesman, “by reason of national interest”. Germany expelled Syria’s ambassador immediately after the massacre, maintaining that the Syrian government was 100% responsible for the atrocity. This time, though, three MSM titles – Die Welt, the FAZ, and Bild – have run pieces suggesting that the real responsibility for the massacre lies with anti-government rebel forces.
We should not reject this out of hand as bonkers conspiracy theory: for nearly 50 years the Soviet Union blamed the Nazis for the Kataryn mass murder of hundreds of Polish officers during the Second World War. But when the Soviet empire collapsed, the papers pertaining to the incident revealed conclusively that it was a Russian atrocity.
I make no apology for using that particular parallel: the Nazi/Soviet 1939 pact that swallowed up Poland was a grubby, psycho deal betwen two forms of evil. I find it equally hard to choose between Assad’s pro-Iranian murder squads, and Jihadist terrorists who use schools as hostages…and then bleat to the world’s media about Israel bombing innocent children. Ethics-free propaganda is not exactly a new phenomenon. The reaction of most reasonable people (ie the Troll-free 90%) is that a plague should descend on both their houses.
In Bild, longtime German war correspondent Jurgen Todenhofer described this anti-Assad “massacre-marketing strategy” as being “among the most disgusting things that I have ever experienced in an armed conflict”
In turn, Alfred Hackensberger of die Welt noted that Taldo, the sub-district of Houla where the massacre occurred, has been controlled by rebel forces since December 2011: so how, he asks – given a flat plain stretching for dozens of kilometres surrounds the rebel stronghold – did dozens of Government troops arrive unseen to commit mass murder? And equally important, WTF would the point of such a suicide mission have been? All the victims, it seems were Sunnis: they were killed, local witnesses told Hackensberger, for refusing to support the rebellion.
France, Great Britain, and the US have made it abundantly clear that they want Assad out. As reported here last week, the US State Department under Hillary Clinton has bet the farm on the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s a foolish and venal decision aimed at increasing American influence in the region. But The Slog has consistently asked, “Will Assad’s successors be any better?” I hold no candle for Assad, I hold no candle for jihadists and their fellow travellers. What we are seeing here is a dual-purpose Islamic sect civil war and geopolitical energy race pretending to be the ejection of a dictator in favour of a new democratic dawn. It is complete bollocks.
and....
http://stratrisks.com/geostrat/7170
ource: Trend
Jordanian and Syrian forces traded gunfire along the shared border early Friday morning in what marked the latest escalation of tensions between Amman and Damascus, dpa reported.
According to a Jordanian security source, “brief” clashes broke out between the two armies in the Tal Al Sihab region after Syrian forces opened fire on a group of some 300 refugees attempting to flee into Jordan, mistakenly targeting Jordanian forces in the process.
Jordanian military forces returned gunfire, said the source, igniting a fierce 10-minute-long battle between the two sides.
Saudi Arabian news network Al Arabiya reported that two Jordanian soldiers were injured during the confrontation, a claim both the source and Jordanian officials denied.
Jordanian government spokesman Smaih Maaytah denied that any clashes broke out between the two sides, stressing that Syrian regime forces opened fire on refugees close to the Jordanian border, injuring several, including one child who died upon arrival at a hospital in the Jordanian border city of Ramtha.
Friday morning’s incident marks the first full-scale clashes between Syria and Jordan and comes one week after Amman announced a military state of alert in the border region.
Damascus has carried out a months-long military clampdown in the border region to prevent the flight of soldiers’ relatives into Jordan. Activists claim that keeping the family members in Syria remains the regime’s only leverage to prevent en mass military defections.
Although dozens of Syrians have been fatally injured in their attempts to cross into Jordan, the campaign has failed to slow down a refugee influx that has topped some 1,000 people per day.
The issue of refugees has become an emerging point of contention between Amman and Damascus, with Jordan having granted refuge to some 150,000 Syrians since the start of the conflict, including army defectors and opposition activists.
and........
http://stratrisks.com/geostrat/7186
ource: Daily Star
DOHA/DUBAI: Turkey has set up a secret base with allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar to direct vital military and communications aid to Syria’s rebels from a city near the border, Gulf sources have told Reuters.
News of the clandestine Middle East-run “nerve centre” working to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad underlines the extent to which Western powers – who played a key role in unseating Moammar Gaddafi in Libya – have avoided military involvement so far in Syria.
“It’s the Turks who are militarily controlling it. Turkey is the main co-ordinator/facilitator. Think of a triangle, with Turkey at the top and Saudi Arabia and Qatar at the bottom,” said a Doha-based source.
“The Americans are very hands-off on this. U.S. intel(ligence) are working through middlemen. Middlemen are controlling access to weapons and routes.”
The centre in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 100 km (60 miles) from the Syrian border, was set up after Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Saud visited Turkey and requested it, a source in the Gulf said. The Turks liked the idea of having the base in Adana so that they could supervise its operations, he added.
A Saudi foreign ministry official was not immediately available to comment on the operation.
Adana is home to Incirlik, a large Turkish/U.S. air force base which Washington has used in the past for reconnaissance and military logistics operations. It was not clear from the sources whether the anti-Syrian “nerve centre” was located inside Incirlik base or in the city of Adana.
Qatar, the tiny gas-rich Gulf state which played a leading part in supplying weapons to Libyan rebels, has a key role in directing operations at the Adana base, the sources said. Qatari military intelligence and state security officials are involved.
“Three governments are supplying weapons: Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia,” said a Doha-based source.
Ankara has officially denied supplying weapons.
“All weaponry is Russian. The obvious reason is that these guys (the Syrian rebels) are trained to use Russian weapons, also because the Americans don’t want their hands on it. All weapons are from the black market. The other way they get weapons is to steal them from the Syrian army. They raid weapons stores.”
The source added: “The Turks have been desperate to improve their weak surveillance, and have been begging Washington for drones and surveillance.” The pleas appear to have failed. “So they have hired some private guys come do the job.”
President Barack Obama has so far preferred to use diplomatic means to try to oust Assad, although Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signalled this week that Washington plans to step up help to the rebels.
Reuters has established that Obama’s aides have drafted a resolution which would authorise greater covert assistance to the rebels but still stop short of arming them.
The White House’s wariness is shared by other Western powers. It reflects concerns about what might follow Assad in Syria and about the substantial presence of anti-Western Islamists and jihadi fighters among the rebels.
The presence of the secret Middle East-run “nerve centre” may explain how the Syrian rebels, a rag-tag assortment of ill-armed and poorly organised groups, have pulled off major strikes such as the devastating bomb attack on July 18 which killed at least four key Assad aides including the defence minister.
A Turkish diplomat in the region insisted however that his country played no part in the Damascus bombing.
“That’s out of the question,” he said. “The Syrian minister of information blamed Turkey and other countries for the killing. Turkey doesn’t do such things. We are not a terrorist country. Turkey condemns such attacks.”
However, two former senior U.S. security officials said that Turkey has been playing an increasing role in sheltering and training Syrian rebels who have crossed into its territory.
One of the former officials, who is also an adviser to a government in the region, told Reuters that 20 former Syrian generals are now based in Turkey, from where they are helping shape the rebel forces. Israel believes up to 20,000 Syrian troops may now have defected to the opposition.
Former officials said there is reason to believe the Turks stepped up their support for anti-Assad forces after Syria shot down a Turkish plane which had made several passes over border areas.
Sources in Qatar said the Gulf state is providing training and supplies to the Syrian rebels.
“The Qataris mobilized their special forces team two weeks ago. Their remit is to train and help logistically, not to fight,” said a Doha-based source with ties to the FSA.
Qatar’s military intelligence directorate, Foreign Ministry and State Security Bureau are involved, said the source.
The United States, Israel, France and Britain – traditionally key players in the Middle East – have avoided getting involved so far, largely because they see little chance of a “good outcome” in Syria.
“Israel is not really in the business of trying to ‘shape’ the outcome of the revolt,”, a diplomat in the region said. “The consensus is that you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. The risk of identifying with any side is too great”.
A former U.S. official who advises a government in the region and other current and former U.S. and European security officials say that there has been little to zero direct assistance or training from the U.S. or its European allies.
The former official also said that few sophisticated weapons such as shoulder-fired bazookas for destroying tanks or surface-to-air missiles have reached the anti-Assad forces.
While some Gulf officials and conservative American politicians have privately suggested that a supply of surface-to-air missiles would help anti-Assad forces bring the conflict to a close, officials familiar with U.S. policy say they are anxious to keep such weapons out of the hands of Syrian rebels. They fear such weapons could make their way to pro-jihad militants who could use them against Western aircraft.
The CIA and the Israelis’ main concern so far has been that elements of al-Qaeda may attempt to infiltrate the rebels and acquire some of Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons.
Sima Shine, a former chief Mossad analyst who now serves as an adviser to the Israeli government, told Reuters: “It’s a nightmare for the international community, and chiefly the Americans – weapons of mass-destruction falling into the hands of terrorists. In parallel to its foreign contacts, Israel is taking this especially seriously. After all, we are here, and the Americans are over there.”
She envisaged two circumstances under which Hezbollah, the Lebanese Islamist group, could obtain some of the chemical weapons stockpile.
“Assad goes and anarchy ensues, during which Hezbollah gets its hands on the weapons. There is a significant Hezbollah presence in Syria and they are well-ensconced in the military and other national agencies. So they are close enough to make a grab for it.
“Another possibility is that Assad, knowing that he is on his way out, will authorised a handover to Hezbollah, as a message to the world about the price of encouraging his ouster.”
However, British and U.S officials believe there is little or no sign of Assad being toppled imminently.
The situation, one senior European official said, is still likely to veer back and forth, like a tug-of-war between pro- and anti-Assad forces.
There is no indication, the official added, that Assad himself has any intention of doing anything but fighting on until the bitter end.
and.......
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/NG28Ad01.html
Syrian wheel of fortune spins China's way
By Peter Lee
The question before the People's Republic of China (PRC) leadership is how badly it misplayed its hand on Syria. Or did it? Certainly, the solution advocated by Russia and China - a coordinated international initiative to sideline the insurrection in favor of a negotiated political settlement between the Assad regime and its domestic opponents - is a bloody shambles.
As articulated in the Annan plan, it might have been a workable, even desirable option for the Syrian people as well as the Assad regime.
But Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey were determined not to let it happen. And the United States, in another case of the Middle Eastern tail wagging the American dog, has downsized itsdreams of liberal-democratic revolution for the reality of regime collapse driven in significant part by domestic thugs and opportunists, money and arms funneled in by conservative Gulf regimes, violent Islamist adventurism, and neo-Ottoman overreach by Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Erdogan.
By Peter Lee
The question before the People's Republic of China (PRC) leadership is how badly it misplayed its hand on Syria. Or did it? Certainly, the solution advocated by Russia and China - a coordinated international initiative to sideline the insurrection in favor of a negotiated political settlement between the Assad regime and its domestic opponents - is a bloody shambles.
As articulated in the Annan plan, it might have been a workable, even desirable option for the Syrian people as well as the Assad regime.
But Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey were determined not to let it happen. And the United States, in another case of the Middle Eastern tail wagging the American dog, has downsized itsdreams of liberal-democratic revolution for the reality of regime collapse driven in significant part by domestic thugs and opportunists, money and arms funneled in by conservative Gulf regimes, violent Islamist adventurism, and neo-Ottoman overreach by Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Erdogan.
But a funny thing happened last week. The Assad regime didn't collapse, despite an orchestrated, nation-wide assault (coordinated, we can assume, by the crack strategists of the international anti-Assad coalition): a decapitating terrorist bombing in the national security directorate, near-simultaneous armed uprisings in the main regime strongholds of Damascus and Aleppo, and the seizure of many of Syria's official border crossings with Iraq and Turkey.
The border adventures revealed some holes in the insurgents' game, as far as showing their ability to operate independently outside of their strongholds to hold territory, and in the vital area of image management.
Juan Cole of the University of Michigan laid out the big picture strategic thinking behind some of the border seizures on his blog, Informed Comment:
If the FSA can take the third crossing from Iraq, at Walid, they can control truck traffic into Syria from Iraq, starving the regime. The border is long and porous, but big trucks need metalled roads, which are few and go through the checkpoints. Some 70% of goods coming into Syria were coming from Iraq, because Europe cut off trade with the Baath regime of Bashar al-Assad. The rebels are increasingly in a position to block that trade or direct it to their strongholds. [1]According to an Iraqi deputy minister of the interior, the units that seized the border were perhaps not the goodwill ambassadors that the Syrian opposition or Dr Cole might have hoped for:
The top official said Iraqi border guards had witnessed the Free Syrian Army take control of a border outpost, detain a Syrian army lieutenant colonel, and then cut off his arms and legs.They reportedly also raised the al-Qaeda flag.
"Then they executed 22 Syrian soldiers in front of the eyes of Iraqi soldiers." [2]
The forces participating in the operation at the Turkish border crossings were also an interesting bunch - and certainly not all local Syrian insurgents, as AFP reported:
By Saturday evening, a group of some 150 foreign fighters describing themselves as Islamists had taken control of the post.The operation also had a distinct whiff of Taliban-at-the-Khyber-Pass about it, as the fighters looted and, in some cases, torched more than two dozen Turkish trucks, to the embarrassment of the Erdogan government.
These fighters were not at the site on Friday, when rebel fighters captured the post.
Some of the fighters said they belonged to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), while others claimed allegiance to the Shura Taliban. They were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket launchers and improvised mines.
The fighters identified themselves as coming from a number of countries: Algeria, France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates - and the Russian republic of Chechnya… [3]
Aside from occupation of frontier posts by the kind of hardened foreign Islamist fighters that, before Bashar al-Assad's removal became a pressing priority, served as the West's ultimate symbol of terrorism run amok, things have gotten quite lively at the Syria/Turkish border.
It is alleged that, in order to fill the vacuum left by the departure of Syrian border forces to fight the insurgents in the heartland, the Syrian regime has turned over local security to Syrian Kurdish political groups, and Kurdish flags are flying all over Syria's northeast.
Not to be left out of the rumpus, the president of the virtually-independent region of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, announced that Syrian Kurd army deserters sheltering in northern Iraq have been organized into an expeditionary force that will, at the proper time, return home to keep order in the Kurdish areas of Syria.
Presumably the strongly pro-American Iraqi Kurds under Barzani can easily be induced to inflict mischief on Assad, but at the same time they will feel little incentive to minimize the Kurdish nationalist headache Erdogan has created for himself on Turkey's southeastern border. [4]
Now that the democratic opposition, the overseas agitators of the Syrian National Congress, and the insurrectionists of the Free Syrian Army have all taken their shot at the Assad regime and failed, at least for the time being, attention is once again turning to "the Yemen solution", a k.a. regime restructuring featuring the symbolic removal of an embattled strongman, lip service toward democratic reform, and the continuation of business as usual under a selected junta of more palatable regime strongmen.
Or, as the Syrian National Council put it on July 24:
Ironically (or predictably) the Yemen solution has short-changed the law-and-democracy friendly opposition we supposedly cared so much about, in favor of placing a new, tractable regime (best described as the old regime sans Saleh) in power.
This does not sit well with Tawakkul Karman, a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011for her brave pro-democracy and women's-rights activism in Yemen. She has been fruitlessly calling on the UNSC to direct the ICC to open a prosecution ofSaleh. After a visit to The Hague, she met with a reporter from AFP:
It is alleged that, in order to fill the vacuum left by the departure of Syrian border forces to fight the insurgents in the heartland, the Syrian regime has turned over local security to Syrian Kurdish political groups, and Kurdish flags are flying all over Syria's northeast.
Not to be left out of the rumpus, the president of the virtually-independent region of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, announced that Syrian Kurd army deserters sheltering in northern Iraq have been organized into an expeditionary force that will, at the proper time, return home to keep order in the Kurdish areas of Syria.
Presumably the strongly pro-American Iraqi Kurds under Barzani can easily be induced to inflict mischief on Assad, but at the same time they will feel little incentive to minimize the Kurdish nationalist headache Erdogan has created for himself on Turkey's southeastern border. [4]
Now that the democratic opposition, the overseas agitators of the Syrian National Congress, and the insurrectionists of the Free Syrian Army have all taken their shot at the Assad regime and failed, at least for the time being, attention is once again turning to "the Yemen solution", a k.a. regime restructuring featuring the symbolic removal of an embattled strongman, lip service toward democratic reform, and the continuation of business as usual under a selected junta of more palatable regime strongmen.
Or, as the Syrian National Council put it on July 24:
"We would agree to the departure of Assad and the transfer of his powers to a regime figure, who would lead a transitional period like what happened in Yemen," SNC spokesman Georges Sabra told AFP. [5]
The SNC's statement found a prompt echo from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to Xinhua:
But all of a sudden, it seems not everyone is singing from the same hymnal:
In practice the ICC is something of an unhappy mutant. Its fundamental premise of "universal jurisdiction" - the idea that bad guys could be prosecuted in the courts of any member country - was undermined by the United States and other countries not to keen to see their political and military supremos vulnerable to prosecution in some remote do-goodery or hostile jurisdiction.
The result was an unwieldy two-tier system. Those states with a masochistic desire to permit other nations to interfere in their criminal affairs ratified the treaty, becoming "states parties". Within this exclusive club, universal jurisdiction reigns.
States that merely signed the treaty - "non states parties" - are not subject to universal jurisdiction. Their miscreants can only be brought to justice by the consent of their own governments or if the UN Security Council decided that the overriding demands of international security merited the opening of a prosecution.
This was still not enough for the United States, which took the ungraceful step of "unsigning" the Treaty of Rome.
Yemen had placed itself in the exalted company of the United States by also "unsigning" the treaty in 2007, so a successor regime has no immediate recourse to the ICC and ex-president Saleh's fate is in the sympathetic hands of the United States and the rest of the UN Security Council. Just to be safe, the Yemeni transitional government went the extra mile of granting irrevocable immunity (binding on future, perhaps less friendly governments) to Saleh and his aides.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to plan a political transition in his violence-plagued country. "We do believe that it is not too late for the al-Assad regime to commence with planning for a transition, to find a way that ends the violence by beginning the kind of serious discussions that have not occurred to date," Clinton told reporters … [6]It is perhaps unnecessary to mention that for the last few months the groups steadfastly opposed to any "serious discussions" have been the anti-Assad coalition and the SNC, while Assad, backed by Russia and China, has been gamely attempting to cobble together a loyal opposition with sufficient heft to credibly discuss political reform.
But all of a sudden, it seems not everyone is singing from the same hymnal:
Earlier Tuesday, some Western media reported that SNC spokesman George Sabra said the main opposition group was willing to accept a transition led temporarily by a member of the current government if President Bashar al-Assad agrees to step down.
"This is an utter lie. Neither Mr. Sabra nor Ms. Kodmani has made these statements," SNC European foreign relations coordinator Monzer Makhous told Russia's Interfax news agency, referring to Bassma Kodmani, the SNC's head of foreign relations.
Makhous said the opposition would not agree to accept talks with the Assad government as "no persons associated with murders of the Syrian people could participate in the talks." [7]
It remains to be seen how the AFP or Secretary Clinton - or, for that matter, the unhappy spokesman Georges Sabra - respond to this rebuke.
One catches hints of a possible disconnect between Gulf-state intransigence (which has driven the "Assad must go" rhetoric of the last year and a half") and US and EU dreams of a quick, face-saving resolution along the lines of Yemen.
A "Yemen solution" would probably also be acceptable to Russia and China. Instead of Syria becoming a pro-Western/Sunni dagger aimed at the heart of Shi'ite Iraq and Iran, it would instead become a dysfunctional, expensive, and bloody liability for the West and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
In other words, just like Yemen.
There are, however, problems with the Yemen precedent for Syria that go beyond the unwillingness of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to settle for anything less than a triumphal march into a conquered Damascus.
The key event in the "Yemen solution" was President Saleh getting blown up in his palace mosque. Although he wasn't killed, he was injured badly enough that he was removed from the scene for several months as he underwent medical treatment, allowing a new crew in the presidential palace to undertake the transition.
The anti-Assad coalition had worse luck with the bomb in Damascus; Assad was not present at the meeting, he is still the face of the Syrian regime, and his inconvenient presence makes it more difficult for the international community to claim victory in principle while allowing the regime to survive in practice.
There's another problem with the Yemen solution; although there are continued news reports, leaks, and analyses - and, most recently, a proposal by the Arab League - ballyhooing the idea that Assad can receive immunity from prosecution for crimes against humanity under the International Criminal Court if he agrees to leg it to Russia, there is no way for the coalition to provide a convincing guarantee to him, let alone his family and associates under the current state of affairs. The fact is, the entire purpose of the Treaty of Rome, which set up the International Criminal Court, was to prevent this sort of sordid deal-cutting.
One catches hints of a possible disconnect between Gulf-state intransigence (which has driven the "Assad must go" rhetoric of the last year and a half") and US and EU dreams of a quick, face-saving resolution along the lines of Yemen.
A "Yemen solution" would probably also be acceptable to Russia and China. Instead of Syria becoming a pro-Western/Sunni dagger aimed at the heart of Shi'ite Iraq and Iran, it would instead become a dysfunctional, expensive, and bloody liability for the West and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
In other words, just like Yemen.
There are, however, problems with the Yemen precedent for Syria that go beyond the unwillingness of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to settle for anything less than a triumphal march into a conquered Damascus.
The key event in the "Yemen solution" was President Saleh getting blown up in his palace mosque. Although he wasn't killed, he was injured badly enough that he was removed from the scene for several months as he underwent medical treatment, allowing a new crew in the presidential palace to undertake the transition.
The anti-Assad coalition had worse luck with the bomb in Damascus; Assad was not present at the meeting, he is still the face of the Syrian regime, and his inconvenient presence makes it more difficult for the international community to claim victory in principle while allowing the regime to survive in practice.
There's another problem with the Yemen solution; although there are continued news reports, leaks, and analyses - and, most recently, a proposal by the Arab League - ballyhooing the idea that Assad can receive immunity from prosecution for crimes against humanity under the International Criminal Court if he agrees to leg it to Russia, there is no way for the coalition to provide a convincing guarantee to him, let alone his family and associates under the current state of affairs. The fact is, the entire purpose of the Treaty of Rome, which set up the International Criminal Court, was to prevent this sort of sordid deal-cutting.
In practice the ICC is something of an unhappy mutant. Its fundamental premise of "universal jurisdiction" - the idea that bad guys could be prosecuted in the courts of any member country - was undermined by the United States and other countries not to keen to see their political and military supremos vulnerable to prosecution in some remote do-goodery or hostile jurisdiction.
The result was an unwieldy two-tier system. Those states with a masochistic desire to permit other nations to interfere in their criminal affairs ratified the treaty, becoming "states parties". Within this exclusive club, universal jurisdiction reigns.
States that merely signed the treaty - "non states parties" - are not subject to universal jurisdiction. Their miscreants can only be brought to justice by the consent of their own governments or if the UN Security Council decided that the overriding demands of international security merited the opening of a prosecution.
This was still not enough for the United States, which took the ungraceful step of "unsigning" the Treaty of Rome.
Yemen had placed itself in the exalted company of the United States by also "unsigning" the treaty in 2007, so a successor regime has no immediate recourse to the ICC and ex-president Saleh's fate is in the sympathetic hands of the United States and the rest of the UN Security Council. Just to be safe, the Yemeni transitional government went the extra mile of granting irrevocable immunity (binding on future, perhaps less friendly governments) to Saleh and his aides.
Ironically (or predictably) the Yemen solution has short-changed the law-and-democracy friendly opposition we supposedly cared so much about, in favor of placing a new, tractable regime (best described as the old regime sans Saleh) in power.
This does not sit well with Tawakkul Karman, a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011for her brave pro-democracy and women's-rights activism in Yemen. She has been fruitlessly calling on the UNSC to direct the ICC to open a prosecution ofSaleh. After a visit to The Hague, she met with a reporter from AFP:
Because Yemen has not signed the court's founding treaty, the Rome Statute, the only way the prosecutor could launch an investigation is if the United Nations Security Council tells him to.However, in the matter of ICC jurisdiction, Syria recapitulates Libya and C๔te d'Ivoire, not Yemen.
"This is unfair," Karman said on the steps of the court's headquarters. "They have to find a new way to bring everyone who is killing his people to here, to this building." [8]
Libya had signed but not ratified the treaty; so it took a UN Security Council resolution to place Muammar Gaddafi and his family and associates within the jurisdiction of the ICC while they were still in power.
Syria is in the same boat - a signer but not a ratifier. With the current regime in place, it would indeed take a UN Security Council resolution to get Assad and his associates on the hook for war crimes under an ICC prosecution, and that simply isn't going to happen.
However, if Assad were to leave power, a successor regime in Syria can issue a declaration submitting itself to ICC jurisdiction retroactively, in order to cover crimes against humanity committed by prior leaders back to the date of the court's establishment in 2002.
That, indeed, is what happened in C๔te d'Ivoire, when the current government has turned over the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, to the ICC for prosecution for crimes against humanity allegedly committed while he tried to cling to power following a lost election in 2010. [9] Given the intense rancor surrounding the bloody crackdown in Syria and the crimes against humanity that were undoubtedly committed, it would appear extremely difficult for the international coalition to offer a convincing assurance that a victorious opposition (which, in addition to rebels bought and paid for by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, also includes a large number of principled and righteously and rightfully incensed Syrians) would not, as its first order of business, call on the ICC to prosecute quite a few leaders of the previous regime for crimes against humanity.
This was a point made by Navi Pillay, head of the UN Human Rights Commission. Reportage at the time characterized Pillay as gratuitously adding complications that would make it harder to cut a deal with Assad, but she was simply making a statement of fact.
So the offer to allow Assad to go into exile with a promise of immunity is unlikely to sway him, his backers in Russia and China, or the military and security officers nervously regarding the red harvest of judicial and extra-judicial revenge that would follow any regime overthrow.
With the Syrian regime proving resistant to a quick collapse, and anti-Assad sentiment within the regime stifled by fear of victor's justice, what's Plan B?
It seems to be Send in the Clowns.
In other words, find an ex-regime figurehead who is at least superficially palatable to the Syrian populace and sufficiently obedient to the foreign coalition, and can also persuade the Assad regime that his first act will be to push a bill through the (presumably unrepresentative, hand-picked, and tractable) transitional legislature granting a graceful exit to Assad and amnesty to his associates (aside from some carefully-chosen scapegoats) from prosecution for their past crimes in the name of reconciliation. (It should be noted in passing that the ICC is not supposed to recognize this kind of legislated impunity and the victims of Assad and the Ba'ath regime would still have the right to apply to the ICC prosecutor to open a case, but presumably this can be finessed.) [10]
The initial candidate for the exalted role of transition leader is Brigadier General Manaf Tlass, who fled Syria amid widespread huzzahs a few weeks ago.
Tlass has been literally grooming himself for his role as popular leader for months, growing out his military haircut into a heroic Byronic mane prior to his defection.
His photographic prop is a big cigar, presumably to reinforce the image of manly leadership, and he issued a post-defection statement describing how his patriotic qualms concerning the Assad regime's brutal counter-insurgency operations had led to his sidelining from the military chain of command (and fortuitously exonerating him from implication in the worst excesses of regime forces).
He is also, apparently, France's great hope for clout in Syria, as this priceless excerpt from the Christian Science Monitor reveals:
Now, Mustafa [his father] and Tlass's sister, Nahed Ojjeh, are living in Paris, where Ms. Ojjeh is a prominent socialite who once dated a former French foreign minister.
"France has a longstanding relationship with the Tlass family, going back to the 1980s. Manaf's sister … throws lavish dinner parties and infiltrated the French political and media elites," says Mr. Bitar. "When she became the mistress of a foreign minister, there was a national security risk for France, but the president then chose to turn a blind eye because he felt there was need for backchannel diplomacy between France and the Assad regime.
"Given these old ties, France today might be thinking of grooming Manaf Tlass and counting on him to play an important role in the post-Assad transition phase." [11]Manaf Tlass is the foppish scion of a family of mysteriously wealthy and allegedly fornicating emigres and, by Syrian army standards, also a lightweight, owing his rank to his father, who once served as Assad's Minister of Defense. Despite that, he is emerging as Saudi Arabia's favored candidate as figurehead for the new Syria. Perhaps this is because Tlass, with his embrace of non-Islamist financial and moral values, would present a reassuring secularist face to the West while at the same time serving as a compliant accessory to Gulf interests.
However, Qatar appears comfortable with another high-level defector, one who also happens to be Sunni (as is Tlass), but was an important cog in the Assad machine and has hands-on experience with the nitty gritty of restoring order in a violent and dangerous set of circumstances.
The man is Nawaff al-Faris, formerly Syria's ambassador to Iraq. According to an interlocutor communicating with the As'ad AbuKhalil's Angry Arab blog, Ambassador Nawaff is quite a piece of work, having earned his bones with the Ba'ath regime as battalion commander during the legendary Hama massacre of 1982, the action that routed the Muslim Brotherhood from Syria at the cost of around 20,000 lives in that one city:
"I know about this man, nawaf al-faris, the defecting ambassador of syria to iraq, from the ... the hama area. Hama people remember him well. He was commanding one of the battallions that committed atrocities there in 1982, and i heard it from hama and halab older people (now dead) that he personally threw 16 young boys youngest was 6, from the the rooftop of a building before their parents' eyes.
…he was very close to the regime, as much as the tlass clan, except that he commands a larger following among bedouins in the euphrates area…his flight through qatar, rather than turkey, means that the qataris have big plans for him in post-assad syria. you will hear his name again. a very very dirty and cruel man." [12]Nawaff might be a good choice in the eyes of Qatar, but installing one of the butchers of Hama would presumably not be the kind of Arab Spring triumph that the West is looking for in Syria. So perhaps the search will continue for a more suitable candidate, while hoping that the remorseless grind of violence, sanctions, and anger will finally crack the power of the Assad regime.
However, when we talk about "events spinning out of control in Syria" we can also take it as a reference to the international game plan for Syria. Indirectly enabling regime collapse through a disorderly collection of guerillas is no substitute for sending in a big, shiny army to occupy the capital and dictate events.
The longer regime collapse is delayed, the greater the risk that important elements of the insurrection might slip the leash, start fighting with each other as well as against Assad, and contribute to the creation of a failed state where Syria used to be.
Therefore, even as international support for the insurgency escalates, the anti-Assad coalition finds it particularly frustrating that China and Russia have refused to vote for escalated UN Security Council sanctions that, under the pretext of supporting the moribund Annan peace initiative, might expedite the collapse of the Syrian regime.
For all the principled talk by Russia and China concerning non-interference and the right of the people of Syria to control their destiny, it is difficult to escape the inference that they are not particularly unhappy with the current turn of events. After the West rounded on China and Russia for vetoing another round of sanctions against Syria, Beijing shrugged off the criticism.
People's Daily approvingly reproduced a Global Times editorial that stated:
China also opposes the UN Security Council openly picking sides in Syria's internal conflict. It insists that the Syrians should seek a political solution through their own negotiations.Bashar al-Assad is doing a pretty good job of staying in power and crushing the insurrection. The longer he is able to cling to power, the more shattered and divided Syria becomes - and the less useful it is to the West and the Gulf states as a proxy warrior in the battle with Shi'ite Iraq and Iran.
This is a bottom line that must be upheld so as to prevent the West from overthrowing any regime at will. [13]
Notes:
1. Syrian Rebellion Enters new Stage with Aleppo, Border operations, Informed Comment, Jul 22, 2012.
2. Syria rebels 'control all Iraq border points', AFP on Google, Jul 20, 2012.
3. Turkish truck drivers accuse rebel fighters of looting, AFP on Google, Jul 22, 2012.
4. Iraqi Kurds train their Syrian brethren, Aljazeera, Jul 23, 2012.
5. Syria rebels would accept transition led by regime figure, Hurriyet Daily News, Jul 24, 2012.
6. Clinton urges Syria's Assad to plan political transition, Xinhua, Jul 25, 2012.
7. Syria opposition denies reports on forming coalition government, Xinhua, Jul 24, 2012.
8. Yemen's Nobel laureate calls for ICC trial for Saleh, Tehran Times, Nov 29, 2011.9. Gbagbo's ICC Transfer Advances Justice, Human Rights Watch, Nov 29, 2011.
10. Yemen: Amnesty for Saleh and Aides Unlawful, Human Rights Watch, Jan 23, 2012.
11. As blast rattles Syrian regime, defecting general reemerges in France, Christian Science Monitor, Jul 18, 2012.
12. Meet the defector: the Syrian ambassador Nawwaf Al-Faris and the Hamah massacre of 1982, Angry Arab News Service, Jul 12, 2012.
13. West wrong on Chinese public's Syria view, People's Daily, Jul 23, 2012.
Peter Lee writes on East and South Asian affairs and their intersection with US foreign policy.
http://www.infowars.com/putins-geopolitical-chess-game-with-washington-in-syria-and-eurasia/
Putin’s Geopolitical Chess Game with Washington in Syria and Eurasia
F. William Engdahl
Infowars.com
July 27, 2012
Infowars.com
July 27, 2012
Since reassuming his post as Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin has lost no minute in addressing the most urgent geopolitical threats to Russia internationally. Not surprisingly, at the center of his agenda is the explosive situation in the Middle East, above all Syria. Here Putin is engaging every imaginable means of preventing a further deterioration of the situation into what easily could become another “world war by miscalculation.” His activities in recent weeks involve active personal diplomacy with Syria’s government as well as the so-called opposition “Syrian National Council.” It involves intense diplomacy with Erdogan’s Turkey regime. It involves closed door diplomacy with Obama. It involves direct diplomacy with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.
Syria itself, contrary to what most western media portray, is a long-standing multi-ethnic and religiously tolerant secular state with an Alawite Muslim President Bashar Al-Assad, married to a Sunni wife. The Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam which doesn’t force their women to wear head scarves and are liberal by Sunni standards, especially in the fundamentalist places like Saudi Arabia where women are forbidden to even hold a driver’s license. The overall Syrian population is a diverse mix of Alawites, Druze and Kurds, Sunnis, and Armenian Orthodox Christians. Were the minority regime of Al-Assad to fall, experts estimate that, like in Egypt, the murky Sunni (as in Saudi Arabia) Muslim Brotherhood organization would emerge as the dominant organized political force, something certainly not welcome in Tel Aviv and certainly not in either Russia or China.[i]
According to an informed assessment by Gajendra Singh, retired Indian diplomat with decades of service in the Middle East and a deep familiarity with the ethnic mix inside Syria, were the minority Alawite regime of Al-Assad to fall, the country would rapidly descend into a bloodbath that would make estimates of 17,000 killed to date a mere prelude. Singh estimates, “A defeat of Assad led regime will lead to slaughter of Alawites, Shias, Christians, even Kurds and Druzes. In all, 20 % of a population of 20 Million.”[ii]
That would be some 4 million Syrians. That ought to be food for thought for those in the West cheering on a murky dubious opposition “Syrian National Council” that is dominated by the ominous Muslim Brotherhood, and an armed opposition “Free Syrian Army” that has been reported even by the New York Times as rife with factional armed splits. Moreover the conflict were it to descend into a Libya-like internal bloodbath, would spill over across the Syrian border into Turkey. Syrian coastal area has a significant Alawite population and a large number of Alawites live in the adjoining Turkish provinces of Hatay and Antakya.
To sort out fact from fiction inside Syria is daunting as media are limited and opposition spokesmen have been repeatedly caught lying about events. In one recent instance, a UK journalist claimed he was deliberately led into a potential death trap by rebel opposition forces to score propaganda against the Damascus regime. The UK Channel 4 News’s chief correspondent, Alex Thomson, told AP that Syrian rebels set him up to die in no man’s land near the Lebanese border, saying they wanted to use his death at the hands of government forces to score propaganda points.[iii] And in one brazen example of political manipulation, BBC was recently caught publishing a photograph it claimed was of a massacre at Al-Houla on 25 May 2012, in which 108 persons are known to have died including 49 children. It turned out the picture had been taken by Italian photo journalist, Marco Di Lauro in Iraq in 2003.[iv]
The stakes in this geopolitical chess game are nothing less than survival first of Syria as a sovereign nation, whatever its flaws and defects. More, it ultimately involves the survival of Iran, Russia and China as sovereign nations together with the other BRIC states Brazil, India and South Africa. Longer term, it involves the matter of survival of civilization as we know it and avoidance of a world war that would decimate the world population not by tens of millions as seventy years ago but likely this time by billions.
The Syria stakes for Moscow
Russia’s Putin has drawn a deep hard line in the sand around the survival of Al-Assad and Syria as a stable state. Few ask why Russia is warning of possible world war if Washington persists to demand immediate regime change in Syria as Hillary Clinton is doing. It is not because Russia is intent on advancing its own imperialist agenda in the Middle East. It’s in little shape militarily and economically to do so even if it had wanted. Rather, it is about preserving port rights to Russia’s only Mediterranean naval port at Tartus, the only remaining Russian military base outside the former Soviet Union, and its only Mediterranean fueling spot. In event of a showdown with NATO the base becomes strategic to Russia.
Yet there is more at stake for Russia. Putin and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, have made clear were NATO and the USA to launch military action against Assad’s Syria, the consequences would be staggering. Reliable sources in Damascus have reported the presence of at least 100,000 Russian “technical advisers” in the country. That’s a lot, and a Russian freighter carrying rebuilt Russian Mi-25 attack helicopters is reportedly bound for Syria, while several days earlier a Russian naval flotilla sailed for Tartus led by the Russian destroyer, Admiral Chabanenko.
An earlier attempt to send the rebuilt helicopters back to Syria which had earlier purchased them, was blocked in June off Scotland’s coast when it sailed under a non-Russian freighter flag. Now Moscow has made clear it will tolerate no interference in its traffic with Damascus. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, announced that “The fleet will be sent on task to guarantee the safety of our ships, to prevent anyone interfering with them in the event of a blockade. I remind you there are no limits,” he soberly added.[v] In so many words, what Moscow is announcing is that it is willing to face a 21st Century version of the 1962 Cuba Missile Crisis if NATO foolishly persists in pressing regime change in Damascus.
As it has openly emerged that the so-called democratic opposition in Syria is being dominated by the shadowy Muslim Brotherhood, hardly an organization renowned for multi-ethnic democratic tendencies, a victory for a US-backed Muslim Brotherhood regime in Syria, Moscow also believes, would unleash a wave of Muslim-led destabilizations across Central Asia into republics of the former Soviet Union. China is also extremely sensitive about such a danger, only recently confronted with bloody riots of Muslim organization in its oil-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Province, quietly sponsored by the US Government.[vi]
Russia has joined firmly with China since both nations fell into a catastrophic trap over abstaining in the UN Security Council from vetoing the US Resolution. That US resolution opened the door to NATO destruction of not only Mohammar Ghaddafi, but of Libya itself as a functioning country. This author has spoken personally in Moscow and in Beijing since the Libya debacle asking well-informed persons in both places how in effect they could have been so short-sighted on Libya. They both clearly have since concluded that further advance of Washington’s agenda for what George W. Bush called the Greater Middle East Project is diametrically opposed to the national interest of both China and Russia, hence the iron opposition to the NATO agenda in Syria for regime change. To date Russia and China, Permanent veto members of the UN Security Council, have three times exercised their veto over new US-sponsored sanctions against Syria, the latest on July 19.
Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insist on a strict adherence to the proposed peace plan of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Unlike what Washington prefers to generously read into it, the Six Point Annan Plan calls for no regime change, rather for a negotiated settlement and end to the fighting on both sides, a ceasefire.
Washington’s Janus-faced duplicity
Aligned on the side of violent regime change in Syria are a bizarre coalition that includes, in addition to Washington and its European “vassal states” (as Zbigniew Brzezinski called European NATO members),[vii] most prominently Saudi Arabia, hardly a regime anyone would accuse of being a paragon of democracy. Another lead role against Damascus is being played by Qatar, home to US military as well as the blatantly pro-NATO propaganda channel Al-Jazeera. In addition, the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, is providing training and space to prepare armed mercenaries and others to flow over the border into neighboring Syria.
An attempt by the Erdogan government to send a Turkish Phantom air force fighter jet into Syrian airspace flying provocatively low, apparently in order to incite a “Gulf of Tonkin” incident to fan flames of NATO intervention a la Libya two weeks ago, fell flat when Turkey’s general staff issued a statement saying: “No traces of explosives or flammable products were found on the debris recovered from the sea.” Erdogan was forced to shift his line to cover face, no longer using the phrase, “shot down by Syria” and instead referring to “our plane that Syria claimed to have destroyed.”[viii] NATO has established a command and control center in Iskenderun, in Turkey’s Hatay province, near the Syrian border months ago to organize, train and arm the “anything but” Free Syrian Army.[ix] The Obama Administration, not wanting a full Syria war before US elections in November, reportedly also told Erdogan to “cool it” for now.
Most westerners who take their knowledge of world affairs religiously from the pages of the Washington Post or CNN or BBC are convinced the Syrian mess is a clear cut case of “good guys” (the so-named Syrian National Council and its rag-tag makeshift “Free Syrian Army”) versus the “bad guys” (the Al-Assad dictatorship with its armed forces). For more than a year western media has run footage, some as noted, not even filmed in Syria, claiming that innocent, unarmed opposition civilian pro-democracy populations are being massacred ruthlessly in a one-sided butchery by the regime.
They never explain how it would serve Assad to alienate his strongest asset to survival, namely the support of a majority of Syrians against what he has accurately named foreign intervention into sovereign Syrian affairs.
Indeed numerous eyewitness journalist accounts from inside Turkey and Syria including RT have alleged that from the beginning the “peaceful democratic opposition” had secretly been provided with arms and training, often inside camps across on the Turkish side. Professor Ibrahim Alloush from Zaytouneh University in Jordan told RT,
“Weaponry is being smuggled into Syria in large quantities from all over the place. It is pretty clear that the rebels have been receiving arms from abroad and Syrian television has been showing almost daily shipments of arms being smuggled into Syria via Lebanon, Turkey and other border crossings. Since the rebels are being supported by the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] and by NATO it is safe to assume that they are getting their financing and weaponry from the same sources that are offering them political cover and financial backing.” [x]
One veteran Turkish journalist whom this author interviewed in Ankara in April, just back from an extensive tour of Syria, gave his eyewitness account of the capture of a small band of “opposition” fighters. The journalist, fluent in Arabic, was astonished as he witnessed the head of the rebels demand to know why their military captors spoke Arabic. When told that was their native language, the rebel leader blurted out, “But you should speak Hebrew, you’re with the Israeli Army aren’t you?”
In short, the mercenaries had been blitz-trained across the border in Turkey, given Kalashnikovs and a fistful of dollars and told they were making a jihad against the Israeli Army. They did not even know who they were fighting. In other instances, mercenaries recruited from Afghanistan and elsewhere and financed by Saudi money, including alleged members of Al Qaeda, make up the “democratic opposition” to the established regime of Al-Assad.
Even the ultimate US establishment newspaper, The New York Times, has been forced to admit that the CIA has been pouring arms into the Syrian opposition. They reported, “C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers. The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.”[xi]
The International Committee for the Red Cross now classifies the conflict as a civil war.[xii]Peter Wallensteen, a leading peace researcher at the University of Uppsala and the director of the Uppsala
Conflict Data Program, stated that, “It’s increasingly an internationalized civil war, and as we know from previous history, the more internationalized, the longer the conflict will be…there is a civil war, but now so many weapons are coming from the outside, that there is actually an internationalized civil war.” [xiii]
According to Mary Ellen O’Connell, a respected legal scholar and professor of law and
international dispute resolution at the University of Notre Dame, “The International Committee of the Red Cross statement means that the Assad regime is facing an organized armed opposition engaging in military force, and it has the legal right to respond in kind. The Syrian military will have more authority to kill persons based on their being part of the armed opposition than when Assad was restricted to using force under peacetime rules.” [xiv] The rebel opposition groups claim it means just the opposite.
While the US State Department makes pious pronouncements of their supporting “democracy” and demanding Al-Assad step down and recognize the dubious and factionalized opposition of the Syrian National Council, an exile group dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, Russia is working skillfully on the diplomatic front to weaken the Western march to war.
Putin’s shrewd diplomacy
Now, no sooner did Vladimir Putin again take the office as Russia’s President on May 7 than he embarked on a complex series of diplomatic missions to defuse or hopefully derail Washington’s Syrian game plan. On July 16 Putin hosted a Moscow visit of Kofi Annan where he repeated Moscow’s unflinching support for the Annan Peace Plan. [xv]
Because of the considerable media distortions it’s useful to read the actual text of the six-point Annan plan:
(1) commit to work with the Envoy in an inclusive Syrian-led political process to address the legitimate aspirations and concerns of the Syrian people, and, to this end, commit to appoint an empowered interlocutor when invited to do so by the Envoy;
(2) commit to stop the fighting and achieve urgently an effective United Nations supervised cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties to protect civilians and stabilise the country.
To this end, the Syrian government should immediately cease troop movements towards, and end the use of heavy weapons in, population centres, and begin pullback of military concentrations in and around population centres.
As these actions are being taken on the ground, the Syrian government should work with the Envoy to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties with an effective United Nations supervision mechanism.
Similar commitments would be sought by the Envoy from the opposition and all relevant elements to stop the fighting and work with him to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties with an effective United Nations supervision mechanism;
(3) ensure timely provision of humanitarian assistance to all areas affected by the fighting, and to this end, as immediate steps, to accept and implement a daily two hour humanitarian pause and to coordinate exact time and modalities of the daily pause through an efficient mechanism, including at local level;
(4) intensify the pace and scale of release of arbitrarily detained persons, including especially vulnerable categories of persons, and persons involved in peaceful political activities, provide without delay through appropriate channels a list of all places in which such persons are being detained, immediately begin organizing access to such locations and through appropriate channels respond promptly to all written requests for information, access or release regarding such persons;
(5) ensure freedom of movement throughout the country for journalists and a non-discriminatory visa policy for them;
(6) respect freedom of association and the right to demonstrate peacefully as legally guaranteed.[xvi]
There is no demand in the Annan Plan for Bashar al-Assad to step down before any ceasefire, contrary to what Hillary Clinton repeats after insisting the US also backs the Annan Plan. The Annan Plan calls for a diplomatic solution. The US clearly does not want a diplomatic solution. It wants regime change and evidently widening war across the Shi’ite-Sunni divide of the Muslim world.
Moscow and Beijing just as clearly want to draw the line and prevent chaos spreading from Syria. On July 19, again Russia and China, both veto members at the UN Security Council blocked a new US-backed resolution on Syria they insisted was designed to open the door to a Libya-like military intervention into Syria. The resolution had been drafted by British Foreign Secretary William Hague, and would have opened the door for a Chapter 7 resolution of the UN Security Council on Syria. Chapter 7 allows the 15-member council to authorize actions ranging from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military intervention.[xvii] The Hague resolution demanded that the Syrian government in 10 days pull out all its heavy weapons from urban areas and return troops to barracks. Nothing was said about disarming the “Free Syrian Army.” Washington claimed it would only be interested in economic or diplomatic sanctions, not military. Of course. Hmmmm…
Putin has more than a little leverage to use with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. Erdogan was in Moscow just prior to the July 19 UN Security Council vote to discuss Syria with Putin.[xviii] Turkey is the second-largest buyer of Russian natural gas, some 80% of its natural gas coming from Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom. [xix] Turkey’s entire “energy hub” strategy of playing a key role in gas flows from Eurasia, the Middle east to Europe depends on gas from Russia and Iran. One year ago a $10 billion pipeline deal was signed between Iran, Iraq and Syria for a natural gas pipeline from Iran’s huge South Pars field to Iraq, Syria and on to Turkey, eventually connecting to Europe.[xx]
Putin had also gone to Tel Aviv on June 21 to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.[xxi] Russian influence inside Israel is not minor. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union some six million Russians, mostly Jews, have emigrated to Israel over the past two decades. Ultimately Israel cannot be overjoyed at the prospect of a Muslim Brotherhood-run Syrian opposition coming to power in neighboring Syria. While few details emerged of the content of the talks, it is clear that Putin delivered the message that a “destroyed, disoriented and broken up Syria would not help Israel. Syria has the second, most well-organized Muslim Brotherhood organization after Egypt,” according to former Indian Ambassador K. Gajendra Singh.[xxii]
Then on July 11, Putin and Lavrov invited Abdel Basset Sayda, the new head of the US-backed opposition organization, Syrian National Council, to Moscow for “talks.” Sayda, who is from the Kurdish Syrian minority and has lived twenty years in Swedish exile, is a curious figure as opposition spokesman, from the Kurd minority in Syria, a man with little or no active political experience, clearly chosen mainly to hide the dominant Muslim Brotherhood profile of the SNC. Russia reportedly made it clear to Sayda they would continue to block any attempts to oust Assad and that the opposition need seriously adhere to the Annan Plan and negotiate a settlement. Sayda for his part made clear no negotiations until Assad is gone, a stance that is feeding the bloodshed.[xxiii]
There are signs in all the bloodshed and escalation of violence that Putin reached some quiet deal as well with Obama to keep war off the table until Obama is past the November elections. Russia recently agreed to reopen supply lines for US military supplies in Afghanistan at the same time Washington orchestrated an “apology” for the recent killings of civilians in Pakistan with its drones.[xxiv]
Veteran roving journalist Pepe Escobar recently summed up the situation in all its grim reality:
“Turkey will keep offering the logistical base for mercenaries coming from “liberated” Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Lebanon. The House of Saud will keep coming up with the cash to weaponize them. And Washington, London and Paris will keep fine-tuning the tactics in what remains the long, simmering foreplay for a NATO attack on Damascus. Even though the armed Syrian opposition does not control anything remotely significant inside Syria, expect the mercenaries reportedly weaponized by the House of Saud and Qatar to become even more ruthless. Expect the not-exactly-Free Syrian Army to keep mounting operations for months, if not years. A key point is whether enough supply lines will remain in place – if not from Jordan, certainly from Turkey and Lebanon.” [xxv]
F. William Engdahl is the author of ’Myths, Lies and Oil Wars’.
[i] David Harding, How a meeting of the Muslim Brotherhood offers new hope to Syria’s rebels, The Daily Mail, 18 July 2012, accessed in http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2175295/How-meeting-Muslim-Brotherhood-offers-new-hope-Syrias-rebels.html#ixzz20zdHkpBv
[ii] Gajendra Singh, Syria: An update on internal, regional and international standoff, 18 July, 2012, email to author.
[iii] Raphael Satter, UK journalist Syria rebels led me into death trap, Associated Press, June 8, 2012, accessed in
[iv] Richard Lightbown, Syria: Media Lies, Hidden Agendas and Strange Alliances, Global Research, June 18, 2012, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31491
[v] Tom Parfitt, Russian ship with helicopters for Syrian regime sets sail again, The Telegraph, 13 July, 2012.
[vi] F. William Engdahl, Washington is Playing a Deeper Game with China, Global Research, June 11, 2009, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14327
[vii] The vassal quote by Zbigniew Brzezinski: ”…To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial (American-ed.) geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.”, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And It’s Geostrategic Imperatives , 1997, p. 40.
[viii] Adrian Blomfield, Syria: Turkey jet crash may have been accident, The Telegraph, 12 July, 2012, accessed in
[ix] Pepe Escobar, Why Turkey won’t go to War with Syria, July 8, 2012, accessed in http://www.voltairenet.org/Why-Turkey-won-t-go-to-war-with
[x] RT, Syrian opposition getting ‘daily shipments’ of arms, 08 February, 2012, accessed inhttp://www.rt.com/news/syria-opposition-weapon-smuggling-843/
[xi] Eric Schmitt, CIA Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition, The New York Times, June 21, 2012, accessed in http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all
[xii] Mariam Karouny and Erika Solomon , Syrian forces surround rebels fighting in capital, Reuters, July 16 2012, accessed in http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/16/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8610SH20120716
[xiii] Victor Kotsev , Chaos in Syria overshadows rebels’ hopes, Asia Times, July 18, 2012, accessed in http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NG18Ak02.html
[xiv] Ibid.
[xv] AFP, Russia’s Putin to meet Annan for Syria talks, 15 July 2012,http://www.brecorder.com/top-news/109-world-top-news/67866-russias-putin-to-meet-annan-for-syria-talks-.html
[xvii] Voltaire Network, Russia, China veto UN resolution on Syria for third time, 19 July 2012, accessed in http://www.voltairenet.org/Russia-China-veto-UN-resolution-on
[xviii] Rian.ru, Putin Meets Turkey’s Erdogan Ahead of UN Syria Vote, 19 July 2012 accessed inhttp://www.turkishweekly.net/print.asp?type=1&id=138726
[xix] F. William Engdahl, The Geopolitical Great Game: Turkey and Russia Moving Closer, accessed in http://www.voltairenet.org/The-Geopolitical-Great-Game-Turkey
[xx] Pepe Escobar, op. cit.
[xxi] AFP, op. cit
[xxii] K. Gajendra Singh, Will Putin’s Israel Visit Calm Middle East Tempest?, June, 2012, accessed in http://tarafits.blogspot.in/2012/06/will-putins-israel-visit-calm-middle.html
[xxiii] RT, Syrian National Council in Moscow for first-ever talks, RT.com, 11 July, 2012, accessed in
[xxiv] Pepe Escobar, op. cit.
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