Commentary on the economic , geopolitical and simply fascinating things going on. Served occasionally with a side of snark.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Syria updates - August 27 , 2013 ...US indefinitely postpones August 28 , 2013 meeting with Russia to discuss political solution to Syria.....Russia once again expresses regrets Obama Administration decision to cancel approaches to finding a political rather than military solution for Syria ....White House ponder limited time kinetic action ( perhaps two days of cruise missile or strikes by long range bombers ) - then what ? War on Terror gangsters ready to cut another notch on the long growing series of War crimes on its gun belt ?
A Royal Navy Trafalgar class submarine will join forces with American warships in the Mediterranean to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles in an attack that is likely to begin within days.
The missiles would be unleashed to destroy Mr Assad's command and control facilities, weapons delivery centres, intelligence bases and militia training camps.
Military commanders sealed agreement on the scope of attacks with regional allies and the Syrian opposition, officials at a two-day summit in Amman said last night.
The two day meeting in Jordan saw Gen Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US joint chiefs, and Gen Sir Nick Houghton, the head of Britain's Armed Forces, set out detailed war plans to service chiefs from 10 countries.
A Jordanian official said: "There was consensus that the international community must take action in Syria and that missile strikes by naval or air forces would be the best response."
The attack would be strictly limited to punishing the Assad government for using chemical weapons, rather than designed to tip the balance in favour of the rebels and destroy his government.
The first salvoes would be fired from US and British submarines currently deployed in the Mediterranean and four American destroyers positioned in the area.
American forces would launch the vast majority of missiles, but the Royal Navy is understood to have a Trafalgar class sub "ready to go" which can fire missiles from its torpedo tubes while submerged, sources said.
Proposals have also been drawn up for "stand-off" strikes by warplanes firing missiles from outside Syrian airspace to avoid the regime's extensive air defences.
A senior Free Syrian Army official based in Jordan said that the rebel command and the US had swapped information on key targets that should be included in any offensive operation.
The official, a former general who defected from the regime's air force, said: "The important places that will be attacked includes the significant weapons depots, the headquarters of top military units, missile launch sites, the runways of military airports and the air defences."
Chemical weapons stockpiles are unlikely to be a target themselves though. Attacks on Assad's stores of mustard gas and nerve toxins could trigger deadly chemical leaks, or make the arsenals vulnerable to plunder by jihadist rebel groups.
Following several days of "war cabinet" sessions with his national security team and Pentagon chiefs, President Barack Obama is believed to favour a campaign of up to 48 hours.
As well as cruise missiles, Mr Obama, his advisors and generals have been debating how heavily to use long-range bombers and fighters to pound targets from outside Syrian air-space in so-called "stand-off " strikes.
The jets would release joint air-to-surface cruise missiles that can be fired from hundreds of miles away to avoid exposing US pilots to Syria's large although outdated air defence system.
"The fine-tuning in the military planning has been how punitive these strikes should be," a Pentagon advisor told The Daily Telegraph.
"Do we simply punish him for using chemical weapons as a warning not to do so again? Or do we take out his ability to use chemical weapons for good?"
Chris Harmer, a former senior naval officer now working for the Institute for the Study of War, drew up a document earlier this year outlining operations for limited surgical cruise missile strikes. "I think the most effective tactic at this point to deny further use of chemical weapons would be to take out the Syrian air force," he said.
US planes could fly out of air bases in Cyprus and southern Turkey. Two US aircraft carriers that have been patrolling waters around the Persian Gulf may also be diverted to the region through the Red Sea.
Pentagon air staff planners have also drawn up plans to deploy F22s and F15s in Saudi Arabia and Jordan to provide security reassurance America's most important Arab allies and as back-up for air war operations.
However Jordanian officials wary of retaliation last night said they refused to be "a launch pad for attacks against Syria".
Mr Obama remains extremely wary of mission creep and is resolutely opposed to "boots on the ground" or even imposing "no fly zones". The US also does not want Assad to lose control of his chemical weapons stockpiles to extremist rebels – the goal is to prevent him using them again.
Let's talk about chemical weapons for a second - and who has used them.....
The U.S. Has Repeatedly Falsely Accused Others of Chemical and Biological Weapons Use
In 1981, the U.S. accused the Soviets of supplying chemical weapons to Communist states in Vietnam and Laos for use in counterinsurgency warfare. It turned out that the “yellow rain” which the U.S. became hysterical about was actually honeybee feces.
But the U.S. used chemical weapons against civilians in Iraq in 2004. Evidence here, here,here, here, here, here.
Israeli also used white phosphorous in 2009 during “Operation Cast Lead” (and perhaps subsequently). Israel ratified Protocol III of Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (“Protocol III”) – which outlaws the use of incendiary devices in war – in 2007. So this was a war crime.
Moreover, the 1925 Geneva Protocol (which is different from Protocol III) prohibits “the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases”.
The use of White phosphorus (“WP”) may also be a war crime under other international treaties and domestic U.S. laws. For example, the Battle Book, published by the U.S. Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, contains the following sentence: “It is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets.”
Moreover, the U.S. and Britain have been dropping depleted uranium in virtually every country they fight, which causes severe health problems. See this, this, this and this.
University of California at Irvine professor of Middle Eastern history Mark LeVine writes:
Not only did the US aid the use of chemical weapons by the former Iraqi government, it also used chemical weapons on a large scale during its 1991 and 2003 invasions of Iraq, in the form of depleted-uranium (DU) ammunition.
As Dahr Jamail’s reporting for Al Jazeera has shown, the use of DU by the US and UK has very likely been the cause not only of many cases of Gulf War Syndrome suffered by Iraq war veterans, but also of thousands of instances of birth defects, cancer and other diseases – causing a “large-scale public health disaster” and the “highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied” – suffered by Iraqis in areas subjected to frequent and intense attacks by US and allied occupation forces.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. But it is hypocritical for the U.S., Britain and Israel to say that we should bomb Syria because the government allegedly used chemical weapons.
The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a Pro-Assad regime hacker group, claims it gained control over a handful of web domains of major media sites including Twitter, The New York Times, and Huffington Post U.K.
The group said in a tweet that it took over the Twitter.com domain. The SEA said it was able to change some of the basic information in Twitter's domain registry, such as the admin name and the email address for contacts, at DomainTools.com, here. However, it looks like that information has been switched back to normal.
A Twitter spokesperson directed Business Insider to the company's status page, which states that the site's domain records were modified.
Twitter says the attack affected the service it uses to host images on its site and some of those images were briefly affected. Twitter hasn't expanded on the cause of the attack, but says no user information was affected.
The New York Times website was taken down today too. The newspaper said the site went down after an attack on the company’s domain name registrar, Melbourne IT. Employees were told to stop sending sensitive emails during the attack, The Times' Christine Haughney wrote.
Marc Frons, chief information officer for The New York Times, issued statement this afternoon warning employees that the external attack was by “the Syrian Electronic Army or someone trying very hard to be them.”
The Times has a temporary home set up and are continuing to publish as they work through the outage at news.nytco.com.
The Huffington Post website appears to be working.
In the event of a punitive strike or a limited operation to reduce Syrian President Bashar al Assad's chemical weapons delivery capability -- for instance, by targeting key command and control facilities, main air bases and known artillery sites -- the United States already has enough forces positioned to commence operations.
Four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers -- and probably a nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine -- are already within Tomahawk cruise missile range of Syrian targets. In addition, the United States can call upon strategic bombers based in the continental United States as well as B-1 bombers from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. In such an operation, the United States would be able to carry out standoff attacks beyond the range of Syrian air defenses, while B-2 bombers could stealthily penetrate the Syrian air defense network to drop bunker-busting bombs with minimal risk.
Considering that al Assad's forces have a number of ways to deliver chemical weapons, ranging from air power to basic tube and rocket artillery, an operation that seeks to degrade the regime's ability to launch chemical weapons would necessarily be far wider in scope and scale. This means tactical aviation would have to play a key role in such a campaign, which in turn would entail the deployment of significant enabler aircraft such as aerial refueling tankers and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets.
Given the threat from Syrian air defenses to manned tactical aircraft flying over Syria, considerably more ships equipped with cruise missiles would be needed for the inevitable suppression of an enemy air defense campaign, and aircraft carriers would be needed to bolster the tactical aviation assets available for the operation.
The United States has not yet begun to deploy the forces needed for this level of intervention, but significant combat power is not far off. Two U.S. supercarriers and their escorts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations are only a few days away, and the U.S. Air Force can rapidly surge squadrons into the theater if necessary, especially if air bases in Turkey, Greece, Jordan and Cyprus are available.
A Comprehensive Look At The Options For Intervention
The United States and its allies have a few options if they proceed with an intervention in Syria, a prospect that seems increasingly likely. A limited punitive strike on critical targets meant to discourage future use of chemical weapons would be the simplest operation. Another option would be to target the Syrian regime's chemical weapons delivery systems and storage facilities, but this option would require significantly more resources than the limited strike, and the risk of mission creep would be high.
Another problem with targeting the regime's chemical weapons is that such weapons are notoriously difficult to destroy. Therefore, the West could elect to deploy ground forces to secure the chemical weapons and ensure their destruction. Such a mission would be tantamount to a full-scale invasion, and thus we believe it is very unlikely.
Analysis
In general, the larger and more complex the operation, the more time it will take, the more of a leading role the United States will have to assume and the more obvious the force buildup will be. There appears to be 3 main scenarios.
1. Limited Punitive Strike
A limited punitive strike on regime targets is the least risky option and requires the fewest resources. This option would seek to demonstrate American and allied credibility by striking regime targets, including command and control facilities and other high-value and symbolic targets. The purpose of a punitive strike would be to dissuade the al Assad regime from the further use of chemical weapons in the civil war without crippling the Syrian regime itself.
2. Cripple the Regime's Chemical Weapons Delivery Capability
Should the United States and its allies decide to take the mission a step further, they could attempt not only to discourage the further use of chemical weapons but also to remove the regime's ability to use the weapons. The command, control and communication facilities would still be targeted, but the operation would also need to strike at a much wider network of targets and their associated defenses.
The most ambitious and risky operation would be to attempt to secure the regime's chemical weapons to definitively prevent their further use. This operation would probably also signal the demise of the al Assad regime. In many ways, this option would be synonymous with an invasion of Syria, since any attempt to secure the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal would necessitate significant ground forces. It is for this reason that we believe the likelihood of this option to be very remote.
( Arab League trying to have it both ways here.... no public support they say... )
The U.S. is moving toward possible military strikes against Syria without the public support of any major Arab ally, reflecting broad unease in the region about another Western military intervention.
Syria vowed to defend itself against any foreign attack, while the Arab League said that Damascus had used chemical weapons against its population. Meg Coker reports. Photo: AP.
During his Tuesday briefing, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reiterated the President's confidence that the Syrian government used chemical weapons on August 21. He also said that options for a response do not include regime change.
The lack of public endorsement from Arab governments, even from Saudi Arabia and other countries that have helped arm, train and fund rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad leaves the West with little political cover regionally should any Western-led attack go badly.
Arab League delegates on Tuesday urged the United Nations Security Council, rather than the West, to take "deterrent" action against Syria to prevent a repeat of alleged chemical attacks on Aug. 21 in the suburbs of Damascus. In Cairo, Egypt Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy appeared to side against intervention, saying on Tuesday, "The solution for Syria must be diplomatic, not militaristic."
While senior Saudi officials have been urging the U.S. and others behind the scenes to support tougher action in Syria, Arab leaders for more than a year have publicly maintained that any international military action there should be sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council, where Russia and China have blocked action.
In an atmosphere poisoned by persistent violence in Iraq 10 years after the U.S. invasion there, and by top-level disputes between the U.S. and its Mideast allies over the international response to revolutions in Egypt and elsewhere, the Arab world at large is split over whether the West should intervene.
"Don't expect a big cheer from us," said AbdulKhaleq Abdullah, a political-science professor in Dubai, of the likely response from the region. "If the results are fine, and the damage is very limited, I think that is gonna be a good sign. Maybe, 'Wow, give America a D.' "
Turkey, in a newspaper interview by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu published Monday, became the first major Muslim Middle East ally of the U.S. to announce it would join an international military coalition against Syria, even without advance U.N. approval.
The weakest Arab states, Lebanon and Jordan, particularly fear possible retaliation and a further deluge of Syrian refugees in the event of a Syria strike.
In June, after a U.S. finding that Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons, U.S. military officials decided to keep fighter jets and Patriot missile batteries in Jordan.
A meeting of U.S., Saudi, and other Western and regional top military officials on Sunday and Monday was devoted mainly to reassuring Jordan of protection in the event of any disruption following a strike on neighboring Syria, as well as to try to plot responses to any further alleged use of chemical weapons by Syria, according to officials in Jordan and in the Gulf familiar with the proceedings.
In Jordan, where a U.S.- and Saudi-backed effort is helping train Syrian rebels, Jordanian King Abdullah publicly called for peaceful settlement. Jordanian officials have repeated that line over the past week.
Jordan already has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria. Its fear is being "dragged into retaliation and war," a senior Jordanian official said.
Saudi Arabia—for more than a year the strongest advocate of international action on Syria—has limited its public response to last week's alleged chemical attack to statements by Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal calling for unspecified, decisive action under the U.N.
A Saudi cabinet statement repeated that position Monday night, after the U.S. made clear it was considering a military strike on Syria.
"Not yet," a Saudi government spokesman said, when asked if the Saudi government had said whether it would support a military strike on Syria.
In principle, and in private, Saudi Arabia probably "would support any act to stop that war, or stop the use of gas," said Anwar Eshki, a former adviser to Saudi Arabia's council of ministers, or cabinet, and the head of a Saudi-based strategic research center. Mr. Eshki was referring to the use of poison gas.
Arab leaders, however, for regional political reasons, would think twice before saying in public that they back a Western-led attack on an Arab country, said Mr. Abdullah, the political-science professor at Emirates University in Dubai.
Overall in the Arab world, "People would just look the other way, and hopefully it is brief and surgical and doesn't extend too far," Mr. Abdullah said.
And if any intervention went wrong? "A big backlash, probably," he predicted.
That response could be guided in part by how the Arab leadership publicly addresses the issue. "There has been no preparation done of Gulf audiences by leaders," that would help reconcile Gulf and other Arab populations to an international military strike on Syria, said Michael Stephens, a Middle East analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in Qatar.
Many Arabs describe themselves as divided—wishing for action that would stop the killing in Syria, but not trusting the U.S. to do it right.
"Sometimes I do wish they would interfere, and sometimes I fear the same things that happened in Iraq will happen there. It's a matter of trust, and now we don't trust anyone," said a Jordanian university professor working in Saudi Arabia, leaving a mosque set inside a sprawling Riyadh shopping mall after sunset prayers Monday night.
The hard Arab League stance against the Assad regime emerged from a meeting of the 22-member organization in Cairo. The coalition said that the Syrian government had committed a chemical attack and that it"demands that all the perpetrators of this heinous crime be presented for international trials". Reuters has more:
[The Arab League] also urged the [UN security] council to "overcome the differences among its members by taking the necessary ... resolutions against the perpetrators of this crime, for which the Syrian regime bears responsibility, and to end the violations and crimes of genocide that the Syrian regime has been carrying out for over two years".
David Cameron said the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, had agreed to the recall. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters
MPs are to be recalled from their summer break to vote on whether Britain should take part in military action in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria, David Cameron has said.
The prime minister said the Commons speaker, John Bercow, had agreed to his request to recall parliament from its summer recess on Thursday.
Cameron tweeted: "Speaker agrees my request to recall Parliament on Thurs. There'll be a clear Govt motion & vote on UK response to chemical weapons attacks."
The prime minister returned to Downing Street early from his summer holiday in Cornwall to allow him to chair a meeting on Wednesday of the national security council, which will consider evidence linking the Assad regime to the chemical attack last week.
Cameron is expected to make a statement to MPs on Thursday outlining what No 10 has described as compelling evidence of the regime's involvement in the attack.
The prime minister wants to build a strong case linking the regime to the attack in the east Ghouta region of Damascus to ensure there is a proper legal basis for any attack. Britain and its partners are unlikely to seek a UN security council resolution authorising military action because that would be vetoed by Russia.
Instead the allies will probably rely on international law banning the use of chemical weapons. Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, is likely to advise that this will be lawful only if there is definitive proof linking the Assad regime to the attack.
Downing Street is hoping to reduce the number of Tory rebels by acting in a deliberative manner. There were signs that this approach could be paying off when Julian Lewis, a strong opponent of widespread military action, said he could support a limited surgical strike.
The announcement by Cameron came after No 10 confirmed that Britain's armed forces were making contingency plans for a possible military strike against the Assad regime to deter the "abhorrent" use of chemical weapons. In a sign of the increased pace of activity, the prime minister's spokesman said plans for a military strike were under way.
The spokesman said: "I am not going to get into details on any specifics. All I would say is it is reasonable to assume that our armed forces are making contingency plans."
Downing Street said any military action would be designed to act as a deterrent against the future use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime and by others around the world. The prime minister's spokesman said any action would be fully in line with international law.
"Any use of chemical weapons is completely abhorrent and against all international law," the spokesman said. "In terms of endgame, this is about looking at how we deter the use of chemical weapons because this is something that is completely abhorrent and against all international law. This is about deterring the use of chemical weapons."
Downing Street, along with the US and France, is waiting to see the findings of the UN inspectors who saw the sites of alleged chemical attacks in the east Ghouta region of Damascus on Monday. But the allies would not be bound by the UN findings.
The No 10 spokesman said: "We will see what the UN produces. But, as the foreign secretary has said, it is possible that given the regime prevented that UN team from going in on day one, the evidence from the site could well have been tampered with, moved or degraded."
The spokesman said this would be considered alongside the evidence that had been amassed by Britain, the US and France. Asked whether the response to the chemical attack would depend on the UN findings, the spokesman said: "Yes. What I am saying is there is a process that is going on. We are in discussions with our international partners looking at the evidence that is available."
The spokesman said of plans to recall parliament: "The prime minister's view has been consistent throughout, which is that it is important that parliament has an opportunity to debate and discuss these very important matters."
Michael Gove, the education secretary, suggested the decision on military strikes in Syria was one for Cameron and his advisers, rather than parliament.
"I think the decision about how the government is going to respond to the horrendous humanitarian atrocities we have witnessed is one which is properly taken by the prime minister and the members of the national security council," he said after a speech in central London on Tuesday.
"I know the prime minister has said in the past he respects the right of the House of Commons to be kept up to date. I don't think there has been any foreign secretary who has been as assiduous in keeping the House of Commons up to date with not just what's been happening in Syria but with what's been happening elsewhere in the Middle East as William Hague.
"So, I am absolutely confident the prime minister and the foreign secretary are the right people to be leading at this time and I think their response so far has been absolutely right in the face of what are horrendous crimes."
WESTERN POWERS TELL SYRIAN OPPOSITION TO EXPECT STRIKE WITHIN DAYS - SOURCES WHO ATTENDED MEETING BETWEEN ENVOYS, SYRIAN COALITION
MILLER SAYS CHANCE OF U.S. STRIKE ON SYRIA ‘VIRTUALLY 100%’
has sent investors scrambling for cover and added war premia to risk assets. Gold is now up over 20% from its 6/28 lows to $1,418.90; WTI jumped to over $108.50 - its highest since early March - collapsing the Brent-WTI spread back to $4. S&P futures are at their overnight lows -12pts (as all-important AAPL loses the $500 level and Icahn's dreams); 10Y yields have slid to 2.76%; and the JPY is surging back to 97.50 as carry-unwinds escalate.
Oil prices are surging...
as gold breaks away from Mikael's grip...
to a new bull market...
as a safety bid drives Treasuries higher (yields lower) and carry-unwinds smash stocks...
and the all-important AAPL loses its post-NASDARK/Icahn gains...
A Syrian man mourns over a dead body after an alleged poisonous gas attack fired by regime forces, according to activists, in Douma town, Damascus, Syria, Aug. 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Media Office Of Douma City)
Let us posit that the Syrian government did, in fact, order last week’s chemical attack that killed hundreds of Syrian citizens, including women, children and others who had not taken up arms against the Assad regime.
In Washington, the eagerness to initiate military action in order to punish Assad is now palpable. Before ordering any such action, President Obama should answer several questions. He should share those answers with the American people, before not after pulling the trigger.
First, why does this particular heinous act rise to the level of justifying a military response? More specifically, why did a similarly heinous act by the Egyptian army elicit from Washington only the mildest response? Just weeks ago, Egyptian security forces slaughtered hundreds of Egyptians whose “crime” was to protest a military coup that overthrew a legitimately elected president. Why the double standard?
Second, once U.S. military action against Syria begins, when will it end? What is the political objective? Wrapping the Assad regime on the knuckles is unlikely to persuade it to change its ways. That regime is engaged in a fight for survival. So what exactly does the United States intend to achieve and how much is President Obama willing to spend in lives and treasure to get there? War is a risky business. Is the president willing to commit U.S. forces to what could well become another protracted and costly struggle?
Third, what is the legal basis for military action? Neither Russia nor China is likely to agree to an attack on Syria, so authorization by the U.N. Security Council won’t be forthcoming. Will Obama ask Congress for the authority to act? Or will he, as so many of his recent predecessors have done, employ some dodge to circumvent the Constitution? With what justification?
Syrian rebels issue latest predictions and make more demands of US....
Last Update: Tuesday, 27 August 2013 KSA 01:19 - GMT 22:19
Opposition figure: major decisions on Syria expected within hours
Monzer Makhous, the Syrian National Coalition’s (SNC) ambassador to Paris, said an international military action is on the sight and that the Syrian Free Army will do its part. (Al Arabiya)
Al Arabiya
A Syrian opposition diplomat told Al Arabiya on Monday that the “coming hours” will mark a crucial phase in the Syrian conflict and will be filled with developments “the region and the world have not witnessed in years.”
“Wait until tomorrow [Tuesday] and you will hear a very important speech, while in the following three to four days will be filled with developments that the region and the world have not witnessed in years,” said Monzer Makhous, the Syrian National Coalition’s (SNC) ambassador to Paris.
Makhous said the “very important” speech will not come from the Syrian opposition but from “Friends of Syria” countries which he said are “about to execute their humanitarian, moral, and political duties towards Syria.”
Elaborating more, he said that an international military action is on the sight and that the Syrian Free Army will do its part. The military actions, he noted, will be “comprehensive.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday said there was little doubt that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against civilians, noting that “this international norm cannot be violated without consequences,” he added.
President Obama last year said the use of chemical weapons would constitute a “red line.”
“Make no mistake. President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious,” Kerry said in a televised statement Monday.
Detailed of the looming military action, however, remain unclear.
Andrew J. Tabler, senior fellow in the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute, told Al Arabiya that the White House’s recent contacts about Syria show that President Bashar al-Assad has lost his last chance.
Tabler noted that Obama’s reticence over the form and timing of the anticipated military action is a “normal procedure” in such cases.
Syria dares US to show its evidence that the Syria government used chemical weapons.....
Syria's foreign minister challenged the Obama administration and its allies on Tuesday to "produce the evidence" showing Bashar Assad's government was behind a chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus last week, saying the information available on which side was behind the deadly attack provided a "weak and inaccurate" case for military intervention from the West.
Walid Muallem said he was holding the televised news conference in Damascus to inform the American public that the Obama administration's assertion that there could be "little doubt" the Assad regime was behind the apparent chemical attack in the eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus "is completely wrong."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday there was "undeniable" evidence of a large-scale chemical weapons attack in the Ghouta area, with intelligence strongly pointing to Assad's government.
Kerry's tough language marked the clearest justification yet for U.S. military action in Syria which, if President Obama decides to act, wouldmost likely involve sea-launched cruise missile attacks on Syrian military targets.
Keenly aware of the prospect that U.S. missiles could soon target sites in his country, Muallem sought Tuesday to undermine the arguments presented as circumstantial evidence of his government's culpability in the Ghouta attack, which left somewhere between 330 and 1,800 people dead.
A senior Obama administration official told CBS News over the weekend that the U.S. intelligence community had based its assessment given to the White House, claiming Assad regime was responsible for the attack, on "the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured," and witness accounts.
According to various chemical weapons and security analysts, the strongest evidence pointing to the attack having been carried out by Assad's forces is the sheer scale of the casualty toll and the area involved. Few believe the discordant rebel factions on the ground in Syria possess the weapons, delivery systems or expertise required to launch a large-scale chemical attack.
President Assad's government denied involvement from the outset, however, suggesting the rebels were behind the use of chemical agents in Ghouta. On Saturday, Syrian state TV broadcast images of what the government claims were chemical agents discovered by soldiers in tunnels used by rebel forces in the suburbs.
U.S. and European nations have also accused the Assad regime of delaying access to the Ghouta sites for a team of about 20 United Nations weapons inspectors in the country. Obama administration officials said the team, which arrived in Damascus just days before the alleged attack in Damascus, was deliberately denied access to the suburbs by the regime for days.
A senior State Department official said if the Syrian regime wanted to prove to the world that it had not used chemical weapons in Ghouta, the government would have stopped shelling the area and granted access immediately following the incident. A senior administration official told CBS News before an agreement between the U.N. inspectors and the Assad regime was reached on Sunday that any move to allow the team into the area would already be too little, too late.
"At this juncture, any belated decision by the regime to grant access to the UN team would be considered too late to be credible, including because the evidence available has been significantly corrupted as a result of the regime's persistent shelling and other intentional actions over the last five days," the official said on the condition of anonymity.
Muallem rejected that argument on Tuesday, saying his government only received the request from U.N. disarmament chief Angela Kane to visit the Moadamiyeh suburb in Ghouta on Saturday.
"Miss Kane came on Saturday, on Sunday we agreed and on Monday, they (the U.N. inspectors) went to Moadamiyeh. We did not argue about the sites they wanted to visit. We agreed straight away," said Muallem. "How could we be accused of causing a delay?"
Muallem said rebel snipers were responsible for the U.N. team's convoy coming under fire as it tried to enter opposition-held territory in Moadamiyeh, and that the inspectors were forced to withdrawal to a government checkpoint before venturing again into the area.
He also said he was "surprised to learn" on Tuesday that the inspection team was "not able to go to a second site because armed groups did not agree among themselves" to guarantee their security.
"I am saying this so that you will know that the Syrian side is implementing its commitments," said Muallem.
CBS News correspondent Holly Williams notes that, while the U.N. inspectors are tasked with determining whether or not chemical weapons were used, it is not their job to say who used them.
Williams reports that several countries, including Britain, France and Turkey, have now joined the U.S. in blaming the regime for the chemical attack and calling for some kind of military response. She notes, however, that if the U.S. does intervene in Syria, it will likely anger Assad's allies in Russia and Iran.
Russia and China have warned the U.S. not to preempt the results of the U.N. investigation.
Secretary of State John Kerry strongly suggested in remarks on Monday that President Obama has concluded that the ruling Baath regime in Syria was responsible for poison gas attacks last Wednesday that reportedly left hundreds dead, including non-combatant women and children. He further suggested that the Obama administration intended to respond in some way to this alleged regime atrocity.
“MSF can neither scientifically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack,” said Dr. Janssens. “However, the reported symptoms of the patients, in addition to the epidemiological pattern of the events—characterized by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers—strongly indicate mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent. This would constitute a violation of international humanitarian law, which absolutely prohibits the use of chemical and biological weapons.”
Note that it is not as conclusive as Kerry suggested, though it is very suggestive.
Some have asked why the regime would risk using poison gas when it has been making gains against the rebels. But the regime’s advances are minor and tenuous. It only took the small town of Qusayr with Hizbullah help! And ‘advances’ in Homs were just scorched earth destruction of neighborhoods. They were offset by loss of a major air base near Aleppo, key for resupply of troops up there because roads north are insecure. The regime can only advance here or there, but doesn’t have manpower to take back substantial territory.
My guess is that rebels in Rif Dimashq in outskirts of the capital were making inroads toward Damascus itself. Defensive troops are off tied down in Homs. Since the capital is the real prize and end game, the regime decided to let them know it wouldn’t be allowed. It is the typical behavior of a weak regime facing superior demographic forces (the Alawites are far outnumbered by Sunnis) to deploy unconventional weaponry. Although there was a risk in using the gas, the regime may have felt threatened enough to take the risk, confident that it could muddy the waters afterwards with charges that it was actually the rebels who were behind it.
I don’t find the ‘false flag’ narrative about the gas attack put forward by the Russians plausible. Rebel forces are not disciplined enough to be sure of being able to plot and carry out a mass murder of the families that have been sheltering them in East and West Ghouta and to keep it secret. How could they have been sure no one among them would get cold feet and blow the whistle? Killing hundreds of women and children from your own clans would be objectionable to at least some in any group of fighters. The fighters in Rif Dimashq are not the hardened Jabhat al-Nusra types. Besides, capturing and deploying rocket systems tipped with poison gas is not so easy; even just operating them takes training.
It is not clear what an American intervention would achieve. It is likely that Washington will conduct a limited punitive operation, perhaps hitting regime buildings with Tomahawk missiles. The latter would avoid the regime’s sophisticated anti-aircraft systems, which might be able to fell an F-18 fighter jet.
It should be obvious, however, that any such strike would be a form of retaliation for President al-Assad’s flouting of international law. It would not actually protect Syrians from their government, and it would be unlikely to alter the course of the civil war.
Such a strike would carry with it some dangers for the US. It is not impossible that the Baath would respond by targeting US government facilities or businesses in the region. It is also possible that it would target Israel in revenge. An American strike might bring the Iranian Revolutionary Guards into Syria in greater forces.
But it is also possible that the regime will hunker down and concentrate on surviving its domestic challenge.
Either way, the people of Homs and other contested cities will likely go on suffering the regime’s indiscriminate assaults, and it is unlikely that a few Tomahawk strikes will affect the course of the war.
US indefinitely ices political solutions with Russia
US-Russian relations are rapidly going from bad to worse to hopeless. As if open public disagreement over Syria expressed in every possible venue and medium, and foreign policy in general was not enough, now the two countries' animosity has spilled over into private diplomatic affairs.
Moments ago, AP reported that the State Department postponed a meeting, which was originally scheduled for August 28, with Russian diplomats on Syria this week to an indefinite future date. The meeting at The Hague was about setting up an international conference to find a political resolution to the Syrian crisis.
A senior State Department official said Monday the meeting between Undersecretary Wendy Sherman and U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford with their Russian counterparts was postponed because of the ongoing U.S. review about alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria.
More:
The U.S. says it has evidence that chemical weapons very likely were used by the government of Bashar Assad. The U.S. official said the meeting will be rescheduled because a political solution is still needed in Syria.
The official was not authorized to publicly confirm the changes and spoke on condition of anonymity.
So is it safe to assume at this point the State Dept is telegraphing far and wide that a "political resolution" has been indefinitely postponed? Or will John Kerry hold one more monologue tomorrow (for which he will be fashionably one hour late) explaining why relations with Russia are at a post-Cold War low ?
Moscow has voiced “regret” over a US decision to put off bilateral talks over Syria. Russia has sought to placate calls for military action over the alleged use of chemical weapons, saying there is no evidence of the Assad regime’s complicity.
The US government announced it was postponing bilateral talks with Russia late Monday, citing “ongoing consultations” over the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons.
Russian and American officials had been scheduled to meet in The Hague on Wednesday for bilateral talks on the Syrian conflict.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov tweeted a response to the move Tuesday morning, expressing concern over Washington’s decision.
“It is a pity that our western partners have decided to cancel the bilateral US-Russian meeting to discuss calls for an international conference on Syria,” Gatilov wrote on Twitter. He added in a later post that discussing terms for a political solution were needed now more than ever in the face of possible military intervention in Syria.
Foreign Affairs Committee chairman of the Russian Duma, Aleksey Pushkov also posted on his Twitter, alleging the US had already made the decision to strike Syria and they had gone too far.
A number of western countries including France, the US and the UK have condemned President Bashar Assad’s government for last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb and called for a response, hinting at possible military action. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minster David Cameron in a phone conversation that there was still no evidence the Assad government was behind the attack.
However, Cameron insisted that Assad’s forces were behind the “chemical weapons” attack, saying that the Syrian opposition did not have the facilities to orchestrate such an attack. Cameron also cited the Syrian government’s delay in allowing a team of UN experts to examine the site as an indication that it had something to hide.
Washington has also seen an increase in rhetoric, urging action against the Assad government. Samantha Power, the US Ambassador to the UN, decried the Assad government for the attack on her Twitter account, and demanded accountability.
Submitted by George Washington on 08/27/2013 17:16 -0400
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/27/2013 19:33 -0400
Email
Still in recess, and war enthusiast Rep. Eliot Engel (D – NY) is urging President Obama to 
The non-specificity of “international community” is likely deliberate here, as the US is almost certain to fail in getting UN Security Council authorization, with Russia and China both opposed to war.
No comments:
Post a Comment