Syria and Iran War watch - July 9th.......

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NG10Ak02.html

THE ROVING EYE
There will be hell to pay for NATO's Holy War
By Pepe Escobar

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is running out of rhetorical ammunition in the US's Holy War against Syria. Perhaps it's the strain of launching a NATO war bypassing the UN Security Council. Perhaps it's the strain of being eaten for breakfast routinely by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Hillary has just called on "Western powers" and their Arab stooges - the NATOGCC compound [1] that passes for the "international community" - to "make it clear that Russia and China will pay a price because they are holding up progress" regarding weaponized regime change in Syria.

In non-newspeak, this means, "If you block our new war, there will be payback".

Howls of laughter in the corridors of the Kremlin and theZhongnanhai notwithstanding, this shows how desperate the NATOGCC compound is to force regime change in Syria as a stopover in cutting off Iran's privileged connection with the Arab world. And this while Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan - leading NATO's eastern flank - itches to attack Syria but can't find a way to sell it to Turkish public opinion. 

Into this incandescent context plunges WikiLeaks - releasing a batch of very embarrassing emails against the Assad system and the NATO rebels as well. A possible side effect will be to inspire waves of so-called progressives all across the West to start supporting the Holy War on Syria. A realistic effect will be to show how unsavory both sides - the police state Assad system and the armed opposition - really are.

Car bombing tourism, anyone? 
It's useful to examine what price Washington itself, not to mention its NATO subjects, could be paying for this Holy War branch-out fought with - who else - the same bunch of "terrorists" who until yesterday were about to destroy Western civilization and turn it into a giant Caliphate.

Washington, London and Paris have tried - twice - to twist the UN Security Council into yet another war. They were blocked by Russia and China. So plan B was to bypass the UN and launch a NATO war. Problem is NATO has no stomach - and no funds - for a very risky war with a country that can actually defend itself.

Thus plan C is to bet on a prolonged civil war, using the Far-from-Free Syrian Army (FSA), crammed with mercenaries and jihadists, and the band of opportunistic exiles known as the Syrian National Council (SNC).

The SNC has actually called for a Libya-style no-fly zone over Syria - shorthand for a NATO war. Turkey also formally asked NATO for a no-fly zone. NATO commanders may be inept - but they have a certain amount of experience with major embarrassment (see Afghanistan). They flatly refused it. The SNC - and the FSA - could not be more un-representative. The "Friends of Syria" - as in Hillary and the Arab stooges - barely acknowledge the existence of the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change (NCB), the main indigenous opposition movement in Syria, composed of 13 political parties, mostly from the Left, Arab nationalists and including one Kurdish party. The NCB firmly denounces any form of militarization and totally dismisses the FSA.

Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari - a Kurd - has warned that Salafi-jihadists of the al-Qaeda mould are moving into Syria in droves. Apparently this bunch still listens very closely to "invisible" al-Qaeda ideologue Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri; five months ago he issued these marching orders to jihadis in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. It also helps that many of them are being weaponized - via different networks - by the House of Saud and Qatar.

For months everybody knows that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) of al-Qaeda-linked Abdul Hakim Belhaj has been active in Syria - as well as remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq now responsible for car bombings even in Damascus.

In the event of a post-Assad Syria dominated by hardcore Sunnis infiltrated by Wahhabis and Salafi-jihadists, guaranteed blowback will leave Afghanistan after the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad looking like a ride on Disneyland Hong Kong.

We accept yuan and rubles
As for China, it's laughing about Hillary's desperation all the way to the bank. As the House of Saud becomes ever more paranoid with what it sees as the Obama administration flirting with democracy in the Arab world, Beijing jacked up trade ties by delivering a bunch of new missiles to Riyadh. And while the "West" flirts with Holy War, Beijing's state-sponsored corporations have been buying commodities like crazy all across the Middle East, North Africa and South America - as well as stockpiling rare earths for strategic reserves. China produces no less than 97% of the world's rare earths - used on everything from iPads to those shiny new missiles now frying in the Arabian desert. 

Other side effects as in "the price to pay" for the bypassing of the UN and the obsession on NATO as global Robocop will be inevitable. It shouldn't be forgotten that the Holy War on Syria is a stopover on the way to Tehran. For instance, a new system of maritime insurance, as well as a new international exchange mechanism - bypassing Western diktats - may be about to be born.

Yet the most important element may be a concerted move by Russia, Iran and China to reorganize the global energy market by transacting outside of the petrodollar.

So Washington cuts Iran off from SWIFT - the international bank clearing system? Iran's central bank counterpunches; if you want to do business with us, you can pay in any currency apart from the US dollar, or you can pay with gold.

This is the Holy Grail of the Holy War - not Syria; one thing is for Tehran to accept euros as payment for its oil and gas; another thing is to accept gold. On top of it with full support from both Russia and China.

In a nutshell; the whole Holy War syndrome is accelerating the end of the US dollar as global reserve currency. And when it happens, will there be an American Spring? Or will US elites - like the Mob - have the guts, and the muscle, to force Russia and China to pay the price? Note:
1. NATOGCC is a compound of the North Atlantic treaty Organization and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) andRed Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His most recent book is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). 


and....


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/NG10Ag01.html


Russia drags Turkish farmers into Syria front line
By John Helmer

MOSCOW - A century ago the Ottomans understood not to press the Russians in close encounters; the Turks are slow learners. After several recent episodes in which the Turkish armed forces have attempted to interfere with Russian vessels delivering cargo to Syria, the Russians have now delivered the message that Turkish cargoes headed for Russia may be stopped altogether.

The subtlety of this message has yet to be detected by the Anglo-American war media. They are still blustering over the message the Syrians delivered when they used Russian-made cannons to shoot down an American-made Turkish spy plane over Syrian territory on June 22.

Six days later, on June 28, the Russian government's food safetyand quarantine service Rosselkhoznadzor (RSN) issued an announcement disclosing that it had detected 33 cases of infestation in Turkish exports to Russia of fruits and vegetables. The detection had reportedly taken place over the previous six months, possibly longer. The pests were identified in the official announcement as "the American white moth and the western (California) flower thrip". 

RSN said it had "appealed to the General Directorate of Protection and Control of the Turkish Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock to take urgent measures to ensure full compliance with Russian and international phytosanitary requirements for the regulated supply of Turkish goods to Russia."

Then followed the warning of a trade embargo. "As you know, in 2005 Rosselkhoznadzor was forced to introduce restrictive measures on imports of Turkish plant products due to the discovery of systemic [infestation] in the quarantine facilities in Russia." [1]

The RSN announcement might have identified the pests by their common English or Latin names - the fall webworm orHyphantria cunea, as the moth is known, and the western flower thrip, Frankliniella occidentalis. But RSN probably wasn't intending a reminder of the entomological history according to which the insects were native to the US and migrated from there to Europe.

Explicitly naming the insects as American, however, appears to have been intended to convey the larger point - by relying on American infestation of the political and military sort, going to war against Syria, and imposing an armed cordon around its supply lines, Turkey is putting at risk its trade with Russia. The Turkish generals may enjoy their warmaking; Turkish farmers may not. Turkish customs data show that this is a particularly sensitive time of the year for the Turks to appreciate a Russian threat to shoot down Turkish strawberries, pomegranates, cherries, tomatoes and peppers. That's because the value of Turkish exports to Russia, all products, in the five months to May 31 has been running at a record level - US$2.6 billion so far, with more than $6.2 billion possible by year's end. If achieved, that would be higher than the $6 billion value reached last year, and in 2008. In between, the value of Turkish exports sank as low as $2.5 billion in the recession year of 2009.

Russia ranks the third-largest of Turkey's export markets, behind Germany and the UK; it is roughly equal with Italy. An estimated 20% of the value of Turkish exports to Russia is generated by fruits and vegetables; for Turkish strawberries and tomatoes, Russia is the leading buyer.

Russian Customs figures show that this March imports of Turkish tomatoes hit a quarterly record of 97,295 tonnes, worth $90.8 million. At this rate, the trade is 4% better than last year by volume, though lower tomato prices have cut the value by about 13% compared to the first quarter of 2011.

Alexei Alekseyenko, a spokesman for RSN, said that for the time being no action to impose the quarantine has been taken beyond the warning to the Turks to clean up their act and get rid of the American infestation. RSN says that since June 28 the Turks haven't had time to reply to the Russian demarche.

A leading food sector analyst at a Moscow bank says the impact of the threatened cutoff in the fruit and vegetable trade would be decidedly asymmetrical. For Russians, an embargo on the Turkish imports would have little impact at this time of year, he believes, because "it is always possible to switch [import purchasing] from Turkey to another country. Because now it's the [summer] season, so there are a lot of alternatives - from Central Asia or the Caucasus. But as for Turkey, this is naturally bad news, because they export to Russia amounts a very large share of their production." More than $1 billion worth at present. The Russian move against Turkish agribusiness is an invitation to count what Turkey's war against Syria may cost Turkish growers and traders. The source adds that he doesn't doubt that moth and thrip infestation occurs in cargoes imported from other countries. But he is convinced that Turkey is being singled out by the Kremlin. 

"In this case, it seems to me, that it is an easy reminder to Turkey that it is no longer in an imperial position [towards its neighbors]. And that someone else [Russia] is an ally of Syria. I suppose that it will be possible to predict the next political steps, if Turkey does not reconsider its plans for Syria. And this is just a reminder for Turkey, so far as it depends on Russia. There are many levers of pressure. This is one."

Note:
1. Click here for Russian text.

John Helmer has been a Moscow-based correspondent since 1989, specializing in the coverage of Russian business. 
and....

http://www.infowars.com/endgame-in-syria-and-iran-risks-war-with-china-and-russia/

Endgame in Syria and Iran Risks War with China and Russia

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
July 9, 2012

Dominique de Kevelioc de Bailleul of Beacon Equity Research predicts that the coming conflict with Syria will be the trigger event that takes down the U.S. dollar. A military response to Syria and Iran would likely draw in Russia and China, he warns, and the result would be a conflagration the world has not witnessed since the Second World War.

“Cold War-like comments made at the ‘Friends of Syria’ conference in Paris by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toward Russia and China strongly suggest that a showdown between the former Cold War rivals, now to include China, is on.” he writes. “The prize: oil – and by implications the future of the U.S. petrodollar standard and the American way of life.

U.S. Secretary of State Clinton excoriates China and Russia.

On Friday, during a meeting with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Friends of the Syrian People (an umbrella organization created by Nicholas Sarkozy), Clinton demanded China and Russia pay a price for not supporting military action against Syria and its leader, Bashar al-Assad. Russia and China are “holding up progress and blockading it,” she insisted.

The Syrian opposition used the meeting in Paris to call for a “no-fly zone” in Syria, a move Russia opposes. A similar no-fly zone in Libya last year announced by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, was used to attack the north African country with Tomahawk cruise missiles and target air defense facilities, tanks, and artillery.

At least 30,000 people were killed and 50,000 wounded as a result of NATO bombing and attacks by U.S.-supported and armed rebels that included members of al-Qaeda.

In November, Paul Joseph Watson wrote that the “same Al-Qaeda terrorists who fought U.S. troops in Iraq and helped NATO overthrow Colonel Gaddafi are now being airlifted into Syria to aid rebels there in toppling President Bashar al-Assad.”

Also in November, Milliyet, a major Turkish newspaper, reported that France had sent its military trainers to Turkey and Lebanon to aid the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA). The FSA issupported by the British intelligence asset the Muslim Brotherhood and the al-Qaeda infested National Transitional Council in Libya.

In order for the coordinated attack to work in deposing al-Assad and arranging a government amenable to the bankster elite, Russia and China will require persuasion to drop their opposition:

The U.S. Secretary of State went on to accuse Russia, China and Iran of supporting Syria’s Assad regime economically and militarily, and called upon other nations to comply with UN sanctions levied upon Syria – sanctions which would also include refusing oil shipments from Syria’s vital economic support and trusted ally, Iran.  But for continued sanctions against Syria to be effective, “much will remain dependent on persuading the two reluctant powers [Russia and China] to pressure Assad into action [of peaceful regime change in Syria],” according to Canada’s CBCNews.

Though, Russia and China have already agreed to a peaceful resolution to the Syrian civil war, signing off on the Security Council plan drafted by former-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, it’s more likely that Moscow and Beijing are playing politics of cooperation to buy more time for the Assad regime. Russia and China do not want regime change in yet another Middle Eastern country for a host of economic and political reasons, of which, the primary one is to stop the U.S. from controlling the region’s oil supplies to Russia’s ally and co-founding member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), China.

Dominique de Kevelioc de Bailleul cites authors John Barry and Dan Ephron, who highlighted in 2004 during the height of neocon control of the Pentagon the central role of Syria in the effort to destabilize and topple disfavored regimes in the Middle East.

“Syria and Iran have been targets of interest of the U.S. for quite some time, as Washington under the George W. Bush Administration had known that a day would come when the U.S. and China would bang heads for precious crude supplies in the Middle East,” writes de Kevelioc de Bailleul.

“Whether it’s the Obama Administration or another neocon U.S. president in control of the executive branch, the petrodollar standard must be defended in the Middle East.  The Iranian/Syrian alliance has stood in the way of total U.S. dominance in the region, but now the matter has become urgent following Iran’s announcement in Feb. 2012, that it has broken ranks in the petrodollar scheme.  It now will not accept the dollar as payment for Persian oil.”

Pentagon wargame plans, Barry and Ephron note, would go badly for the United States. “The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating,” they write for Newsweek.

Despite the risk of finally toppling the hegemony of the U.S. dollar and destroying dominance of the petrodollar, Obama and Clinton (and, if selected, Romney and his virulent clan of neocons) are determined to push forward with an endgame involving Syria (the fifteenth largest military in the world; 325,000 active troops) and Iran (the ninth largest military at 523,000 active troops).

“Either the U.S. dollar temporarily withstands an all-out war against the most formidable foes since the Germany-Japan-Italy axis of WWII, or it doesn’t,” Dominique de Kevelioc de Bailleul concludes. “But in the end, odds heavily favor an abandonment of the dollar as the world’s premier reserve currency; it’s just become too much trouble for too many nations, now.  The conditioning of the U.S. population to expect a heavy-handed government continues unchecked and unchallenged by the Congress, because internally Washington knows the dollar’s days are numbered – and it could be as close as the day of next scheduled military conflict in the Middle East.”

and fwiw , something to ponder.......

'Bloody bandits and Western lies: What’s really going on in Syria'

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Published: 08 July, 2012, 19:06

A member of the Free Syrian Army (The Brigade of the Revolution's Shield) attends a daily training in Sarmada, north of Idlib province (Reuters / Handout)

TRENDS:Syria unrest

TAGS: Arms, Conflict, Crime, Military, Politics,Terrorism, Opposition, Syria, Turkey,Bashar Assad

Everything you’ve heard about Syria is a lie says Ankhar Kochneva, a Russian journalist who has seen first hand the realities of the Syrian civil war. Kochneva told RT she has proof a Western invasion of Syria will be launched by summer’s end.

RT: While visiting Turkish camps for Syrian refugees, I was told that the Syrian army was shooting at them.

Ankhar Kochneva: There are a large number of videos from those camps showing people walking upright, not ducking down even though you can hear shooting. The options are that either the sound was added to the video later, or that people knew that they were only shooting in the air without any intention of actually hitting them.

The Syrian army has no reason to shoot up these camps, as Syria is doing its utmost to ensure these people return home. And in fact they are doing just that if you go by the official Syrian data; 16,500 people have returned. Meanwhile, Turkey and the Syrian opposition are strongly interested in having those camps. If it weren’t for these camps, who would believe in the regime’s atrocities described by the opposition?  

By the way, many of these camp residents had to flee due to the atrocities committed by bandits. For instance, in the city of Jisr ash-Shugur on the border with Turkey, 120 policemen and a large number of peaceful civilians were murdered in a deadly incident last summer. 

All Syrians have a large number of family members who live across the entire country in large, spacious houses. When they have troubles at home, they go stay with their relatives rather than in camps in strange countries. The bandits, however, blocked all the roads except for the ones leading to Turkey. People found themselves caught in a trap, just like Israelis shooed Palestinians off their land by building them a ‘corridor’ to Jordan.  

RT:Where will refugees resettle within Syria, as only 20 thousand of them went to Turkey and there’re many more of those?

AK: The majority of refugees mainly stay with their relatives or rent apartments. It’s very difficult to find an apartment in Damascus, Tartus or Latakia. For instance, in Homs, the previous school year was disrupted as people had to move to areas where their children could go to school. We see that people run to the government, rather than from the government, for protection. Getting these people to settle is a huge burden for the state treasury as they have to establish new schools, to provide food, healthcare, and so on for hundreds of people. And this is what the government is doing. There are a large number of volunteers who work for free helping people resolve their problems as they get settled.

People are returning to Homs, to areas that have been cleared of bandits. The army guards their homes. I have pictures showing soldiers in one of the streets taking pot flowers out of houses and placing them outside so that they can water them until the locals return home. None of them had any idea that some journalists would show up – we appeared totally out of the blue.

RT: Why do you keep calling people fighting against the Syrian government bandits?

AK: Because I have seen what they do to the kidnapped people. I have been to the torture chambers; I have met mothers who saw their children die. The whole country loathes them as bandits. There is nothing worse than being loathed by your own nation. They killed a mufti’s son, they kill Christian priests, and they kidnap and torture children. A few days ago they killed two elder brothers of a five-year-old boy to take vengeance on him for reciting poems at rallies to support Syria. They massacred the whole family of an MP. I have been to homes turned into bandit hideouts. I have seen empty liquor bottles; how does it square with Islam? I have been to churches destroyed by bandits in Homs. I have been under their fire, with grenades dropping right next to me. I have been targeted by snipers who could perfectly see I am a woman, not a soldier. In the bustling street where I lived, near the marketplace, they blew up a few cars. Why blow up civilians shopping for food? 

RT:The opposition and the insurgents have sought to assure me that this is all the doing of criminals released and hired by the Syrian government. The insurgents also claimed it was the Syrian government that staged explosions in public places.

AK: This theory is ridiculous. The government has announced nine amnesties for criminals and opposition activists never implicated in any murders. Yet now the government is blamed for these amnesties! Let me remind you that the bandits would first set court archives on fire with files of criminal cases and smuggling. A few terrorist attacks targeted buildings that stored the intelligence and police archives. For example, on December 23, 2011, suicide bombers set the intelligence archives ablaze before blowing themselves up in a car.

RT:Are the escape of the Syrian pilot to Jordan and the Turkish aircraft incident related?

AK: When the aircraft got hijacked on July 21, I was in Beirut, at the Al Mayadin TV channel which was headed by Ghassan Bin Jiddu, the former chief of Al Jazeera’s bureau in Libya. He was the one who caused a scandal by quitting the channel due to lies that the channel had been broadcasting for the last year and a half. On that day, this channel was the first to report the jet hijacking in Jordan. The first question was, how quickly Jordan would return the plane, which it was obliged to do according to the international laws. It wasn’t as much about the aircraft itself, but rather about the friend/foe enciphering system. According to military experts, it takes about a week to decipher it. The fact that the aircraft wasn’t returned immediately gives a reason to doubt Jordan’s neutrality. There are reasons to suggest that the incident was thoroughly staged. On 23rd June, a Turkish reconnaissance aircraft flying at an extremely low altitude intruded into Syria. Some experts believe that by then, Jordan could’ve deciphered the codes, and that Turkey made an attempt to use them. 

RT:Turkey denies its plane was flying over Syrian territory. What do they say in Syria? 

AK: The aircraft was flying at an altitude of 1,000 meters. It deliberately performed several circles over neutral waters and land. It was then shot down with a weapon of a range not exceeding 3,000 meters. A machine gun was used, rather than a missile launcher, as the world’s media insist. Immediately Syria proposed establishing a bilateral commission for investigating this incident. But Turkey refused doing it. And now, the latter has been declaring that it was Syria that didn’t want to do it. It gets even funnier than that: Turkey says that it will not let Syrian provocations go unanswered. They are bringing a large number of armored vehicles to their border, even though provocations, arms smuggling and militants infiltration are happening on the part of Turkey, with the consent of the Turkish government.

RT:Reports say that Burhan Ghalioun, a Syrian opposition leader, has sneaked into Syria and there are already areas in Latakia and Homs beyond the control of Damascus.

AK: The Benghazi scenario is impossible in Syria. So in order to justify a possible intervention, they spread sensational yet false information. It is only recently that the media have stopped huffing and puffing over the takeover of an air defense base in Al-Rastan. A video even claimed the missiles would target the presidential palace in Damascus. The next day I was in Homs, which is within a distance of some 10 km from Al-Rastan. When asked about the seized base, the officers joked and treated me to tea, while the province governor was holding a conference to restore the affected regions and provide aid to citizens. If the information on the seized base and weapons were true, they would only be concerned about the air defense base rather than compensations for destroyed homes. This is copybook deception. When you hear that the presidential palace is under fire, you will believe it, because you have already been brainwashed that there are enough weapons to open fire. They used the same method of preemptive lies in January. First they said that hostilities were rife in the center of Damascus when there were none, next they doctored rumors of the president’s allegedly fugitive family.

When it comes to control over territory, please bear in mind that “territory” in Homs amounts to three districts cordoned off by the army. There are indeed up to 10,000 bandits inside, military experts say. The army has stayed out of the districts and refrained from combat operations at the UN’s behest. In Homs, the insurgents have been keeping a living shield of around 2,000 civilians, including women and children. Many need urgent medical aid. Some badly need dialysis; others suffer from diabetes, while more have no disinfectant for their wounds. The UN and the Elders are negotiating their evacuation, but it would be out of synch with the insurgents’ intents. Here is yet another example of how the army is trying to avoid victims; otherwise they would have eliminated this hornet’s nest long ago.
But when the insurgents start provoking the soldiers and barraging the surrounding quarters, the military has to react. The government suggested opening six humanitarian corridors and getting the people out on the Red Cross vehicles, but the insurgents have no intention of releasing them, as they would like to walk out with the civilians. Latakia is under total government control. The forested mountains harbor militant groups who attack towns and leave bombs in the streets, which have recently killed two teenagers.

RT:Is it true that generals, officers and whole army units have changed sides and join the rebels?

AK: This is a lie. All the military I know sneer at these messages. Naturally, they’ve intimidated some people into doing that and paid others. They made other people choose between an officer’s honor and familial honor, but 90 per cent of videos that feature desertion cases show soldiers abducted by bandits. They read a text someone else wrote.

I will never forget a military pilot with his hands bound and two dozen insurgents behind his back. If they bound his hands, it means he fought to the utmost. They kidnap soldiers from their homes; they attack their cars and capture the passengers. Sometimes bandits would stop a regular bus and take the military hostage. First they make the soldiers claim they are deserters, next they torture them, and finally kill and play them off as victims of the army. Kidnapping people is a major business of the so-called revolutionaries. Lately, they have kidnapped 12 Lebanese pilgrims on their way home and two Iranian drivers on the same day.

The opposition claims that the people do not support the government, even though  it has to use mercenaries from Iran and Hezbollah. They claim that there are 15,000 soldiers in Syria, but so far the opposition has only been able to show the world a video with five Iranian electricians. They must have killed the sixth one to intimidate the rest. Wait and see when they show us “Iranian mercenaries” and twelve “Hezbollah mercenaries”, they have to make use of the kidnapped people after all! I have seen what they do to the military captives. This is the price they pay for having chosen this job. The military are one of the main targets for attacks. They can be killed for wearing a military uniform. So why flop over to those who can kill for wearing a uniform?

RT:Does Damascus still have the situation under control?

AK: Due to the commitment to suspend fire, the army has slowed down slightly.

But if necessary, all areas can be quickly brought under control again. The bandits “supervise” the places from which the army has been withdrawn upon the order of the United Nations.  So, these territories were not occupied by military operations. They can’t and they don’t know how to fight the army. I have information that a military invasion of Western forces into Syria is expected to take place in August-September. But there’s hardly any reason for justifying such invasion.  They’ve searched for this reason for the whole year. But they didn’t give any information about the exact deadline.  Now it’s done – and we should expect new provocations and new information during the time that is left. If the world believes this, it will empower the aggressor.

RT: What kind of information regarding this decision is there?  What is the reaction to it in Syria?

AK: I’m not going to reveal my sources. I have no doubt about their reliability. In Syria there’s no panic or certitude about such an attack. People in Yugoslavia, Libya and Iraq didn’t believe in the possibility of such invasion until recently. One of the indirect pieces of evidence regarding the information I have is the widely spread news that Russia and China allegedly agreed to remove Assad. This is as much a lie as all the trash that the media sells to its audience.

RT: Who takes part in pressurizing Syria and how is it done? 

AK: Iraq, especially in light of the fact that about 2 million of its citizens live in Syria, supports it, in particular, by helping combat smuggling.  Lebanon helps the struggle against smugglers, but Saad Hariri’s Mustaqbal movement is one of the major stakeholders in the anti-Syrian campaign. This person finances the militants, supplies them with weapons and manpower. His media empire leads the information war against Syria. We’ve recently witnessed the turmoil in Beirut. Hariri’s people tried to pull the forces from the border by inciting the riot in the capital as the army almost overtook the smugglers. As for Jordan, its state can’t be envied. On the one hand, the country is much dependent on its relationship with Syria – economically, in food supplies and transit, but, on the other hand, if Jordan isn’t much of a compliant ally of the USA an NATO, the King isn’t likely to save his power during the «Islamic awakening».

Civil war and instability in Syria are very profitable for Israel. Apart from this situation, nobody raises the issue of returning the Golan Heights and Jerusalem. The specific characteristic of Israeli mass media is making up sensational news. As for Qatar, one could speak for ages about this nano-aggressor: they provide weapons and money supplies in an attempt to solve their own internal problems.

Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT