by Mike
Whitney
On Friday,
the United States rejected a draft resolution by Russia that was
intended to prevent a Turkish invasion of Syria. Moscow had called
for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council
(UNSC) to address its growing concern that Turkey is planning to send
thousands of ground troops and armored vehicles it has massed on its
southern border, into Syria to protect Turkish-backed militants and
to block the Kurdish militia, the YPG, from establishing a contiguous
state in northern Syria. Moscow’s one-page resolution was a
thoroughly-straightforward document aimed at preventing a massive
escalation in a conflict that has already claimed the lives of
250,000 and left the country in ruins.
According to
Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy, Vladimir Safronkov, “The main
elements of this Russian draft resolution are to demand that all
parties refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of Syria,
that they fully respect Syria’s sovereignty and independence, stop
incursions, and abandon plans for ground operations.”
The
resolution also expressed Moscow’s “grave alarm at the reports
of military buildup and preparatory activities aimed at launching
foreign ground intervention into the territory of the Syrian Arab
Republic.”
There was
nothing controversial about the resolution, no tricks and no hidden
meaning. The delegates were simply asked to support Syrian
sovereignty and oppose armed aggression. These are the very
principles upon which the United Nations was founded. The US and its
allies rejected these principles because they failed to jibe with
Washington’s geopolitical ambitions in Syria.
Quashing the
resolution confirms in the clearest terms that Washington doesn’t
want peace in Syria. Also, it suggests that the Obama administration
thinks that Turkish ground troops could play an important role in
shaping the outcome of a conflict that the US is still determined to
win. Keep in mind, if the resolution had passed, the threat of a
Turkish invasion would have vanished immediately.
Why?
Because the
Turkish “military has publicly stated that it is not willing to
send troops across the border without U.N. Security Council
approval.” (Washington Post)
Many people
in the west are under the illusion that Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan has dictatorial powers and can simply order his troops
into battle whenever he chooses. But that is not the case. While
Erdogan has removed many of his rivals within the military, the top
brass still maintains a certain autonomy from the civilian
leadership. Turkish generals want assurances that they will not be
prosecuted for war crimes in the future. The best way to do that is
to make sure that any invasion has the blessing of either the US,
NATO or the UN.
The Obama
administration understands this dynamic, which is why they quashed
the resolution. Obama wanted to leave the door open so Turkish troops
could eventually engage the Russian-led coalition in Washington’s
ongoing proxy war. This leads me to believe that the Washington’s
primary objective in Syria is no longer the removal of Syrian
President Bashar al Assad but the bogging down of Russia in a
never-ending conflict.
Just hours
after the US defeated Moscow’s draft resolution at the UN,
closed-door talks were convened in Geneva where high-level U.S. and
Russian military officials met to discuss the prospects for
ceasefire.
The
cease-fire, which is typically referred to as a “cessation of
hostilities”, is aimed at temporarily stopping the fighting so the
battered jihadists and US-backed rebels can regroup and rejoin the
war at some later date. Both Moscow and Washington want to deliver
humanitarian aid to war-torn cities across Syria, and to move towards
a “political transition” although both sides are deeply divided
over Assad’s role in any future government. According to the
Washington Post:
“One
of the many problems to be overcome is a differing definition of what
constitutes a terrorist group. In addition to the Islamic State and
Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, Russia and Syria
have labeled the entire opposition as terrorists. Jabhat al-Nusra,
whose forces are intermingled with moderate rebel groups in the
northwest near the Turkish border, is particularly problematic.
Russia was said to have rejected a U.S. proposal to leave Jabhat
al-Nusra off-limits to bombing as part of a cease-fire, at least
temporarily, until the groups can be sorted out.”
Repeat:
“Russia was said to have rejected a U.S. proposal to leave
Jabhat al-Nusra (al Qaida) off-limits to bombing as part of a
cease-fire, at least temporarily, until the groups can be sorted
out.” In other words, the Obama administration wanted to
protect an affiliate of the group that killed 3,000 Americans in the
terror attacks on 9-11 and that is responsible for the deaths of tens
of thousands of innocent Syrian civilians whose only fault was that
they happen to occupy country that these Wahhabi mercenaries wanted
to transform into an Islamic Caliphate. Naturally, Moscow refused to
go along with this charade.
Even so,
Secretary of State John F. Kerry announced on Sunday that he and his
Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, “had reached a ‘provisional
agreement in principle’ for a temporary truce in the Syrian civil
war and that it could start within days” although no one
really knows how the “cease-fire would be enforced and how
breaches would be resolved.”
Consider how
hypocritical it is for Obama to reject Russia’s draft resolution at
the UN and, just hours later, try to put Al Qaida under the
protective umbrella of a US-Russia brokered ceasefire. What does that
say about America’s so called “war on terror”?
Meanwhile in
Turkey, Erdogan’s threats to invade Syria have intensified
following a car bombing in Ankara last week that killed 28 and
wounded 61 others. The Turkish government blamed a young activist,
Salih Neccar, who had links to the Turkish militia (YPG) in Syria of
being the perpetrator. But less than 24 hours after the blast, the
government’s version of events began to fall apart. In a story that
has been scarcely reported in the western media, the Kurdistan
Freedom Hawks (TAK) claimed full responsibility for the bombing
according to a statement on its website. (The Freedom Hawks are
linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK.) Then, on
Monday, the Erdogan regime was slammed with more damning news: DNA
samples demonstrated conclusively that Neccar was not perpetrator,
but rather Abdulbaki Sömer, a member of the group that had claimed
responsibility from the beginning. (TAK) As of this writing, the
government still hasn’t admitted that it lied to the public to
build their case for war. Erdogan and his extremist colleagues
continue to use thoroughly discredited information to threaten to
invade Syria. As he said on Saturday at a UNESCO meeting in
Gaziantep:
“Turkey
has every right to conduct operations in Syria and the places where
terror organizations are nested with regards to the struggle against
the threats that Turkey faces…No one can restrict Turkey’s right
to self-defense in the face of terror acts that have targeted
Turkey.”
This
explains why Turkey has been shelling Syrian territory for the last
week. It also explains why Erdogan has given Sunni jihadists a free
pass to traverse Turkey and reenter the war zone in areas that
improve their chances of success against the Syrian Army. Check this
out from the New York Times:
“Syrian
rebels have brought at least 2,000 reinforcements through Turkey in
the past week to bolster the fight against Kurdish-led militias north
of Aleppo, rebel sources said on Thursday. Turkish forces facilitated
the transfer from one front to another over several nights, covertly
escorting rebels as they exited Syria’s Idlib governorate, traveled
four hours across Turkey, and re-entered Syria to support the
embattled rebel stronghold of Azaz, the sources said. 'We have been
allowed to move everything from light weapons to heavy equipment,
mortars and missiles and our tanks,' Abu Issa, a commander in the
Levant Front, the rebel group that runs the border crossing of Bab
al-Salama, told Reuters, giving his alias and talking on condition of
anonymity.”
The Obama
administration knows that Erdogan is fueling the conflict, but has
chosen to look the other way. And while Obama has (weakly) admonished
Turkey for shelling Syrian territory, he has, at the same time,
acknowledged Turkey’s “right to defend itself”, which is an
expression the US reserves for Israel when it conducting one of its
murderous rampages in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Now, Obama has
bestowed that same honor on Erdogan. This alone speaks volumes about
the duplicity of Washington’s approach.
So what is
Washington’s gameplan in Syria? Is the administration serious about
defeating ISIS and ending the hostilities or does Obama have
something else up his sleeve?
First of
all, Washington is not the least bit concerned about ISIS. The group
is merely a straw-man that allows the US to conduct military
operations in a region that is vital to its national interests. If
the ISIS boogieman disappeared tomorrow, the White House would
conjure up some other phantom–like the drug war or something
equally ridiculous–so it could continue its depredations
uninterrupted. What matters to Washington is breaking up the strong,
secular Arab governments that pose a long-term threat to US-Israeli
ambitions. That’s what really matters. The other obvious goal is to
control critical resources and pipeline corridors to the EU and make
sure those resources continue to be denominated in US dollars.
We continue
to believe that the US-Kurdish (YPG) alliance does not really advance
US strategic interests in Syria. The US is not interested in Kurdish
statehood nor do they care if jihadist militias control the northern
quadrant of Syria’s border-region. The real purpose of the US-YPG
alliance is to enrage Turkey and provoke them into a cross-border
conflict with the Russian-led coalition. If Turkey deploys ground
troops to Syria, then Moscow could face the quagmire it has tried so
hard to avoid. Turkish forces would serve as a replacement army for
the US-backed jihadists and other proxies that have prosecuted the
war for the last five years but now appear to be in full retreat.
More
importantly, a Turkish invasion would exacerbate divisions inside
Turkey seriously eroding Erdogan’s grip on power while creating
vulnerabilities the US could exploit by working with its agents in
the Turkish military and Intel agency (MIT). The ultimate objective
would be to foment sufficient social unrest to incite a color-coded
revolution that would dispose of the troublemaking Erdogan in a
Washington-orchestrated coup, much like the one the CIA executed in
Kiev.
It is not
hard to imagine Obama secretly giving Erdogan the greenlight, and
then pulling the rug out from under him as soon as his troops crossed
over into Syria. A similar scam was carried out in 1990 when U.S.
Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, gave Saddam Hussein the nod to
invade Kuwait. The Iraqi Army had barely reached its destination
before the US launched a massive military campaign (Operation Desert
Storm) that forced Saddam to speedily withdraw along the infamous
Highway of Death where upwards of 10,000 Iraqi regulars were
annihilated like sitting ducks in a vicious and homicidal display of
American firepower. That was the first phase of Washington’s plan
to overthrow Saddam and replace him with a compliant Arab stooge.
Is the same
regime change trap now being set for Erdogan?
It sure
looks like it.
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