http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NH24Ak03.html
Realpolitik blurs US red line on Syria
By Pepe Escobar
Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) are back. It's like we never left Dubya's glory days. No, they didn't find the non-existent Saddam stash on eBay. This is about the existent Bashar al-Assad's. And it's not WMDs as the pretext for an invasion and occupation, but WMDs as a pretext for whatever euphemism the Obama administration comes up with to define "kinetic military activity".
The whole thing is especially suspicious considering Damascus has been on the record stressing it will never use chemical weapons against the "rebels".
Here's US President Barack Obama; "A red line for us is [if] westart seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized." [1]
So now even a few mustard gas containers slightly wobbling inside a depot may constitute a casus belli. But is it that clear-cut? Obama said this is "a" red line - implying there may be unspecified (covert) others.
Obama also stressed Washington's "fears" of Syria's WMDs "falling into the hands of the wrong people". Considering the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is in the business - alongside Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) stalwarts Saudi Arabia and Qatar - of weaponizing the myriad gangs that constitute the Not Exactly Free Syrian Army (FSA), including hundreds of Salafi-jihadis, this is a stark admission that in fact they are the "wrong people". Ergo, the "right people" is the Assad regime.
Was that an Obama coded message to Turkey - implying that if you invade northwest Syria, now practically an autonomous Kurdish area, you will have to do it alone, without the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and without the Pentagon? Was that a message to the "wrong people", aka the "rebels", that apart from dubiously effective covert CIA shenanigans, you are on your own?
These two possibilities were advanced at the website Moon of Alabama. [2]
Yet it may have finally dawned on the Obama administration that a possible post-Assad Syria ruled by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) - which is infinitely more ruthless and sectarian than the Egyptian version - is not exactly an enlightened bet. The White House and the State Department are livid over Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's purge of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces leadership and his upcoming diplomatic trips to - heaven forbid - Beijing and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran. If the MB in Egypt can pull that off, imagine in Syria, which was not under Washington's sphere of influence to begin with.
So why not let the whole thing drag on in a Lebanonization - rather Somalization - scenario that pins down the Syrian army and weakens the central government in Damascus, thus erasing its "threat" in case the war-mongering Bibi-Barak duo in Israel goes ahead with an attack on Iran?
Stuff your democracy by bombs
Let's see how the situation stands. The Three (Warring) Graces - Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power - and their doctrine of R2P ("responsibility to protect"), applied "successfully" in Libya, miserably floundered in Syria.
There won't be any "no-fly zone" - in fact a declaration of war. There won't be any "humanitarian" bombing; it has been blocked at the UN Security Council no less than three times by Russia and China.
On top of it, the whole decade-old "war on terra" hysteria has proved itself to be an intergalactic scam; the CIA, alongside the House of Saud and Qatar, is once again side-by-side with Salafi-jihadis of the al-Qaeda variety merrily fighting a secular Arab republic.
The key Syria question is how Russia and China see Obama's red line.
Here's the Russian response. [3] Its bottom line is that the US should respect the "norms of international law"; no to "democracy by bombs"; and only the UN Security Council has the power to authorize an attack on Syria. Once again; Russia and China, three times already, have said no to war. Here's the Chinese response. Not via diplomacy, as in Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, but as a Xinhua editorial, which in the Chinese context means Beijing's official version. The headline says it all; "Obama's 'red line' warnings aimed to seek new pretext for Syria intervention".
Arguably this is the money quote - a summary of US foreign policy according to Beijing; "It is not difficult to find that, under the disguise of humanitarianism, the United States has always tried to smash governments it considers as threats to its so-called national interests and relentlessly replace them with those that are Washington-friendly."
All the key players here - the US, Russia and China - know Damascus won't commit the folly of using (or "moving") chemical weapons. So no wonder Moscow and Beijing are extremely suspicious this "red line" gambit may be yet another Obama deception maneuver, as in "leading from behind" in Libya (this is nonsense; in fact the attack on Libya started with Africom and then was transferred to NATO).
As Asia Times Online has been reporting for over a year, once again the big picture is clear; this is a titanic battle between NATO-GCC and BRICS members Russia and China. At stake is nothing less than the rule of international law, which has been steadily going down the drain since at least Agent Orange being sprayed all over Vietnam, through Dubya's invasion of Iraq in 2003, and with the Libyan "humanitarian bombing" reaching an abysmal low. Not to mention Israel daily threatening to bomb Iran - as if this was a trip to a kosher deli. Well, one can always dream of the day a multipolar world will give a pink slip to those issuers of red lines.
Notes:
1. Obama Threatens Force Against Syria, New York Times, August 20, 2012
2. http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/08/obama-to-assad-do-whatever-you-need-to-do.html, Moon of Alabama, August 21, 2012.
3. Russia warns West on Syria after Obama threats, Reuters, August 21, 2012.
4. Obama's "red line" warnings merely aimed to seek new pretext for Syria intervention, August 22, 2012.
http://www.france24.com/en/20120823-france-considers-partial-no-fly-zone-over-syria-le-drian-clinton-assad-opposition
and....
http://www.debka.com/article/22296/US-UK-French-elite-units-on-standby-for-seizing-Syrian-chemical-weapons
Realpolitik blurs US red line on Syria
By Pepe Escobar
Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) are back. It's like we never left Dubya's glory days. No, they didn't find the non-existent Saddam stash on eBay. This is about the existent Bashar al-Assad's. And it's not WMDs as the pretext for an invasion and occupation, but WMDs as a pretext for whatever euphemism the Obama administration comes up with to define "kinetic military activity".
The whole thing is especially suspicious considering Damascus has been on the record stressing it will never use chemical weapons against the "rebels".
Here's US President Barack Obama; "A red line for us is [if] westart seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized." [1]
So now even a few mustard gas containers slightly wobbling inside a depot may constitute a casus belli. But is it that clear-cut? Obama said this is "a" red line - implying there may be unspecified (covert) others.
Obama also stressed Washington's "fears" of Syria's WMDs "falling into the hands of the wrong people". Considering the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is in the business - alongside Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) stalwarts Saudi Arabia and Qatar - of weaponizing the myriad gangs that constitute the Not Exactly Free Syrian Army (FSA), including hundreds of Salafi-jihadis, this is a stark admission that in fact they are the "wrong people". Ergo, the "right people" is the Assad regime.
Was that an Obama coded message to Turkey - implying that if you invade northwest Syria, now practically an autonomous Kurdish area, you will have to do it alone, without the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and without the Pentagon? Was that a message to the "wrong people", aka the "rebels", that apart from dubiously effective covert CIA shenanigans, you are on your own?
These two possibilities were advanced at the website Moon of Alabama. [2]
Yet it may have finally dawned on the Obama administration that a possible post-Assad Syria ruled by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) - which is infinitely more ruthless and sectarian than the Egyptian version - is not exactly an enlightened bet. The White House and the State Department are livid over Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's purge of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces leadership and his upcoming diplomatic trips to - heaven forbid - Beijing and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran. If the MB in Egypt can pull that off, imagine in Syria, which was not under Washington's sphere of influence to begin with.
So why not let the whole thing drag on in a Lebanonization - rather Somalization - scenario that pins down the Syrian army and weakens the central government in Damascus, thus erasing its "threat" in case the war-mongering Bibi-Barak duo in Israel goes ahead with an attack on Iran?
Stuff your democracy by bombs
Let's see how the situation stands. The Three (Warring) Graces - Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power - and their doctrine of R2P ("responsibility to protect"), applied "successfully" in Libya, miserably floundered in Syria.
There won't be any "no-fly zone" - in fact a declaration of war. There won't be any "humanitarian" bombing; it has been blocked at the UN Security Council no less than three times by Russia and China.
On top of it, the whole decade-old "war on terra" hysteria has proved itself to be an intergalactic scam; the CIA, alongside the House of Saud and Qatar, is once again side-by-side with Salafi-jihadis of the al-Qaeda variety merrily fighting a secular Arab republic.
The key Syria question is how Russia and China see Obama's red line.
Here's the Russian response. [3] Its bottom line is that the US should respect the "norms of international law"; no to "democracy by bombs"; and only the UN Security Council has the power to authorize an attack on Syria. Once again; Russia and China, three times already, have said no to war. Here's the Chinese response. Not via diplomacy, as in Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, but as a Xinhua editorial, which in the Chinese context means Beijing's official version. The headline says it all; "Obama's 'red line' warnings aimed to seek new pretext for Syria intervention".
Arguably this is the money quote - a summary of US foreign policy according to Beijing; "It is not difficult to find that, under the disguise of humanitarianism, the United States has always tried to smash governments it considers as threats to its so-called national interests and relentlessly replace them with those that are Washington-friendly."
All the key players here - the US, Russia and China - know Damascus won't commit the folly of using (or "moving") chemical weapons. So no wonder Moscow and Beijing are extremely suspicious this "red line" gambit may be yet another Obama deception maneuver, as in "leading from behind" in Libya (this is nonsense; in fact the attack on Libya started with Africom and then was transferred to NATO).
As Asia Times Online has been reporting for over a year, once again the big picture is clear; this is a titanic battle between NATO-GCC and BRICS members Russia and China. At stake is nothing less than the rule of international law, which has been steadily going down the drain since at least Agent Orange being sprayed all over Vietnam, through Dubya's invasion of Iraq in 2003, and with the Libyan "humanitarian bombing" reaching an abysmal low. Not to mention Israel daily threatening to bomb Iran - as if this was a trip to a kosher deli. Well, one can always dream of the day a multipolar world will give a pink slip to those issuers of red lines.
Notes:
1. Obama Threatens Force Against Syria, New York Times, August 20, 2012
2. http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/08/obama-to-assad-do-whatever-you-need-to-do.html, Moon of Alabama, August 21, 2012.
3. Russia warns West on Syria after Obama threats, Reuters, August 21, 2012.
4. Obama's "red line" warnings merely aimed to seek new pretext for Syria intervention, August 22, 2012.
http://www.france24.com/en/20120823-france-considers-partial-no-fly-zone-over-syria-le-drian-clinton-assad-opposition
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that the possibility of a no-fly zone stretching from the Turkish border to the city of Aleppo deserved to be considered, in an interview Thursday on FRANCE 24. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised the idea previously on August 11 in Ankara, Turkey.
“The idea of a no-fly over a particular part of Syria, as suggested by Hillary Clinton, should be examined,” he said.
However, he expressed his opposition to establishing such a zone over all of Syria, an act which he said would amount to a declaration of war. “A no-fly zone over all of Syria….could only be set up if there were an international coalition capable of doing it. For the moment, [that coalition] does not exist.”
Le Drian continued, saying that “France is not going to go to war against Syria on its own”, and adding that the Syrian crisis would never be resolved unless President Bashar al-Assad left power.
Asked about the fragmented Syrian opposition, Le Drian struck a reassuring tone. “The opposition is not yet entirely solidified,” he noted, “but we are increasing our efforts to support a robust Syrian opposition that is capable of taking the reins of the country, and, above all, of respecting all Syrian communities.”
The Syrian uprising has resulted in the deaths of some 23,000 people since it began in March 2011, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
and.......
Syria assures Russia chemical weapons will not be used – top official
Published: 23 August, 2012, 22:44
AFP Photo / Achilleas Zavallis
and....
http://www.debka.com/article/22296/US-UK-French-elite-units-on-standby-for-seizing-Syrian-chemical-weapons
US, UK, French elite units on standby for seizing Syrian chemical weapons
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 23, 2012, 8:44 AM (GMT+02:00)
US special forces kitted up for Syria
US C130 transports stand ready at Middle East air bases to fly into Syria US elite units especially trained in combat against chemical and biological weapons and tactics for securing their arsenals. Western intelligence sources reported Thursday, Aug. 23 that those units are on standby at bases in Israel and Jordan. Their assignments are to engage Syrian troops attempting to move those unconventional weapons systems to battle fronts or Hizballah and to prevent them falling into the hands of radical Islamic rebel fighters, especially Al Qaeda.
Those elite units have been issued with special equipment for chemical and biological warfare including anti-contamination suits. The transports are also fitted with purification equipment for operating in polluted terrain.
These plans followed President Barack Obama’s warning Monday, Aug. 20 that "we cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people." He announced, "We have put together a range of contingency plans.”
Those elite units have been issued with special equipment for chemical and biological warfare including anti-contamination suits. The transports are also fitted with purification equipment for operating in polluted terrain.
These plans followed President Barack Obama’s warning Monday, Aug. 20 that "we cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people." He announced, "We have put together a range of contingency plans.”
Also on standby for stealthy raids into Syria are British special operations forces in Cyprus and French units trained in unconventional warfare in Jordan. Thursday morning, President Obama talked by phone to British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande to wrap up the details of their combined operation in Syria, effectively the onset of direct Western intervention in the Syrian conflict.
The Pentagon had not by Thursday reacted to these reports, but did release photos of US special operations soldiers clad in anti-contamination suits standing by armored personnel carriers equipped for chemical and biological warfare. The American media were also briefed on US plans to land special operations teams trained in the handling of these weapons for missions to protect or destroy unguarded Syrian stockpiles before they fall into the wrong hands. They also refer to air strikes to incinerate chemicals without dispersing them in the air.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that alongside the US satellites and drone aircraft monitoring the chemical and biological weapons stores, small American reconnaissance teams are already on the ground, marking out landing sites and setting up bridgeheads for the incoming US, British and French special forces.Some - though not all - of the targeted stockpiles of shells and missile warheads are located around centers of the fiercest fighting in Syria’s civil war such as Aleppo in the north. They may be inadequately guarded since the Syrian ruler may have been forced to throw the units securing them into battle against rebel forces.
The Pentagon had not by Thursday reacted to these reports, but did release photos of US special operations soldiers clad in anti-contamination suits standing by armored personnel carriers equipped for chemical and biological warfare. The American media were also briefed on US plans to land special operations teams trained in the handling of these weapons for missions to protect or destroy unguarded Syrian stockpiles before they fall into the wrong hands. They also refer to air strikes to incinerate chemicals without dispersing them in the air.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that alongside the US satellites and drone aircraft monitoring the chemical and biological weapons stores, small American reconnaissance teams are already on the ground, marking out landing sites and setting up bridgeheads for the incoming US, British and French special forces.Some - though not all - of the targeted stockpiles of shells and missile warheads are located around centers of the fiercest fighting in Syria’s civil war such as Aleppo in the north. They may be inadequately guarded since the Syrian ruler may have been forced to throw the units securing them into battle against rebel forces.
Important stress was laid by Obama in his comments Monday on the fact that he had not ordered US military engagement in Syria “at this point.” In other words, beyond that point, he was free to change that order. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that direct American military involvement in the Syrian conflict has to all intents and purposes begun and looks like expanding in the coming days.
This is a sharp reversal of the military situation in the Middle East. It could lead to all-out warfare exploding in Syria possibly involving Hizballah ahead of a strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons, although this strike could unfold from the Syrian campaign - during its course or at its conclusion.
Washington is hoping that its direct action in Syria, aside from grappling with the unconventional warfare menace looming over the region, may persuade Tehran to cave into American demands for halting uranium enrichment and turn it aside from its race for a nuclear weapon in order to save itself from attack.
This is a sharp reversal of the military situation in the Middle East. It could lead to all-out warfare exploding in Syria possibly involving Hizballah ahead of a strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons, although this strike could unfold from the Syrian campaign - during its course or at its conclusion.
Washington is hoping that its direct action in Syria, aside from grappling with the unconventional warfare menace looming over the region, may persuade Tehran to cave into American demands for halting uranium enrichment and turn it aside from its race for a nuclear weapon in order to save itself from attack.
The Obama administration is split between two factions on the Syrian question – those who are pushing hard for direct US military intervention - both to end the bloodshed and Bashar Assad’s reign in Syria and to preempt a unilateral Israeli strike against Iran. The other faction is dedicated to Obama’s anti-interventionist mindset.
and.....
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