The Syria end game; one possible scenario

The Syrian "uprising" was well into its second year when Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush, was promoted to the top post in the Saudi intelligence apparatus.

Days later unconfirmed reports briefly circulated claiming that Bandar bin Sultan had been assassinated. Though that story was roundly denied by various Saudi spokesmen, the fact remains that we haven't seen him since.

Not that there haven't been plenty of claims that he is alive and well. The Saudi house organ Al Arabiya speaks as though he is very much alive and masterminding the "game-changing" strategy that will have us rid of Assad "in months." (Al Arabiya, 13 April 2013)  Israeli website Debkafile routinely asserts that Bandar is still in charge. 

Perhaps what the case of Bandar Bush underlines is the fact that spokespersons on all sides have been busy as can be shovelling disinformation into the public realm to bolster their particular points of view. The Saudis have considerable prestige invested in the success of the anti-Assad struggle. Likewise, Turkey and Qatar.

The Americans have maintained the position that they are a hands-off bystander, although no serious person imagines that the Turkey-Saud-Qatar triumvirate embarked on their Syrian adventure without the blessing of the White House. In terms of the public perception of Obama's domestic audience, the Americans maintain deniability.

Nowhere is tension between public pronouncements and the national interest as extreme as in Israel. At the time of the recent Israeli attacks on Syria, we were told that the actions were intended to prevent the shipment of "advanced Syrian weapons" to Hezbollah in Lebanon. That's a good story, but one suspects that for the moment Assad has greater need for those missiles himself.

It is more than plausible that the intent of the Israeli action was to keep those weapons out of the hands of some faction or another of the Free Syrian Army. There have emerged two distinct "Syrian Free Armies" since the Syrian uprising began. On the one hand, you have the US-friendly officially-endorsed "good guys."

These are the FSA  types who are seen regularly on TV screens in the West. They talk a good revolution but command little or nothing on the ground in Syria.

On the other hand are the Al Nusra Front and their assorted fellow travellers, a collection of Wahabi radicals who do virtually all of the fighting. When Washington politicians voice their fears of having weapons fall into the "wrong hands," these are the people whose hands they are talking about. While they are more than happy to fight Assad today, they will be even happier to take their battle to the Israelis or the Americans tomorrow.

This is obviously of great concern in Tel Aviv. Since Israel's last foray into Lebanon in 2006 there's been no enthusiasm for the next round. Plenty of talk, yes, but a keen interest in ensuring that talk is all it is.

When IDF intel boss Aviv Kochavi claimed in February last year that 200,000 missiles were pointed at Israel, he was inadvertently making an acknowledgement that perhaps needn't have been made. While his statement was at least in part intended to pressure the Americans to fund more Iron Dome units, those additional Iron Domes are going to expand the envelope of immunity by mere minutes in the event of an all out war. Telling the Israeli people that they now have protection from the first two hundred incoming instead of the first one hundred isn't all that reassuring after you've told them 200,000 are on the way.

Which is why in spite of all the warlike rhetoric, Israel has no interest in a war with Hezbollah or anyone else, including Syria or any elements of the so-called Syrian opposition. 

That leaves both Israel and Hezbollah with a common interest in ensuring that Assad remains. And while it would be impossible for any American politician to say so, this is also were America's best interests lie, at least for the foreseeable future. Owing to their usual toxic combination of hubris and over-reach, the Americans had convinced themselves that their Syrian proxy opposition would make short work of the Assad regime. 

The past two-plus years have disabused them of that delusion.

That leaves the Americans in the position of having to make a climb-down without it appearing as such. While there are plenty of voices on the American political scene encouraging a more robust US involvement in Syria (see for example John McCain's visit to Syria today) there are many more cautioning against it.

Look for Assad to run Syria for years to come.

Syrian rebels behead imam, drag corpse through streets of Aleppo

You'd think a Sunni imam would be a champion of the so-called rebels. You'd be wrong.

The Sunni majority in Syria are not at all united in their opposition to the Assad regime, and even most of those who oppose Assad are loathe to see their country descend into the kind of barbaric violence we are witnessing today.

Judging from the tone of the article, even our friend Rami Abdulrahmen at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is getting cold feet about some of his confreres in the Free Syrian Army.

Media double-talk on Syria obscures reality on the ground

Here's a perfect example.

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Ariel Ben Solomon promises with his headline an analysis of the Syrian oppositions's growing momentum.

Yet the first line of his article makes clear that what is gaining momentum is not the opposition but Western intervention.

In fact, the official opposition, recognized as the "legitimate voice of the Syrian people" months ago by their sponsors in the West, is descending into complete chaos. Within the past week they have elected an American prime minister who no one in Syria other than his distant relatives has ever heard of, lost the leader anointed by Hilary Clinton mere months ago, and lost the putative commander of the Free Syrian Army to a car bomb on one of his rare excursions into the country.

This does not bode well for the opposition's "growing momentum."

It becomes more obvious by the day that the real war within Syria is being waged by precisely the sort of radical elements that France is fighting in Mali, that the US has sworn to eliminate around the world, and that has been the primary target of the entire "War on Terror" since said war was declared by George W. Bush in 2001.

Which should raise several problematic questions.

Assad has all along claimed he is in a battle with "terrorists." If he is fighting the same al-Qaeda in Syria that US forces were fighting in Iraq he's right. Then why is he America's enemy?

Why is America funding and arming, directly and via various proxies, the very enemy that elsewhere it is committed to wiping out? How do you wipe out your enemy by supplying them with guns and money? Who are the useful idiots in this scenario?

The community of wishful thinkers in Langley had a Syrian slam-dunk on the drawing board. Their long-cultivated "opposition" would have Assad on the run in weeks, or on the outside, months. Then Syria would be in the hands of a pliable anti-Iran pro-Israel proxy government happy to do America's bidding in the region.

There was no plan B.

As Assad defied their expectations, the "revolution" so carefully nurtured over a decade fell day by day and week by week into the hands of the "foreign extremists" who will take American support but not American orders.

America is turning Syria into an al-Qaeda state.

Mali wipes Syria off news map

Have you noticed that too?

France flys a few hundred troops to Mali and suddenly Syria no longer exists on the front pages of the news sites of the world.

It's still there on the back pages, at least on some of those sites.

Let's do a brief accounting of the relative importance of each story.

Syria, a major country at the heart of Arab consciousness. Besieged by foreign forces largely armed and instigated by the West.

Not a story.

Mali, a country on the fringe of everything, but a major source of revenue for a few Western gold mining conglomerates.

Front page news.

Get the picture?

The Syria file from the Likud perspective

The common wisdom has it that it would be by far preferable to have a stable autocracy controlling the levers of power in Syria rather than some willy-nilly conglomeration of raggedy-ass rebels, protesters, and misfits.

Not even to mention the Jihadists who have taken over the Syria rebellion.

Here's the countervailing point of view.

The Somalia model.

Maybe Israel  can get along quite nicely with a state of perpetual anarchy next door. After all, it wouldn't be much different than having a Gaza on the northern border.

Let the Muslims annihilate one another in never-ending internecine power struggles.

Feed them lots of small arms but make sure they never get any serious weaponry. If that means that Israel herself will provide AK-47s and RPGs to all factions in Syria, so be it.

After all, it's for the greater good.

Free Syrian Army frees cargo from dozens of trucks stranded at border

These must be the Libyan freedom fighters who migrated to the Syrian revolution.

Multiple news sites are carrying variations of this story.

Seems when the rebels overran a couple of border posts this week it left dozens of transport trucks stranded.

The liberators lost no time liberating the freight, leaving a lot of drivers and businessmen wondering who is going to make good on their losses.

The think tank here at Falling Downs has given this serious consideration. It is our seriously considered view that the losses should be covered by the same entities that are funding the rebels.

The Saudis and the Qataris can well afford it.

French military "advisers" captured in Homs

The mythology surrounding Syrian Spring has been taking a beating these past few weeks.

RT News has been reporting all day that at least two French officers have been taken into custody in Homs. That would be further evidence of direct NATO involvement in the Syria conflict. Several weeks ago a number of Turkish "advisers" were captured by the Syrian Army.

The reigning narrative of "brutal military regime slaughters unarmed protesters" also suffered a blow when BBC and others broadcast footage of gunbattles in Homs. You can't have a gun battle unless both sides have guns. If the Crips or the Bloods or the Hells Angels sent armed gangs into Washington what do you suppose the response would be?

"Obama regime slaughters unarmed protesters?"

Meanwhile, back in Paris, birthplace of the Syrian revolution and the Libyan one before it, the Free Syrian Government in Exile staged a presser to proclaim that it was now in charge of all military action in the country, a claim immediately denied by a number of other opposition groups both inside and out of Syria.

Arab Spring is long over.

Welcome to NATO's nightmare.

So long Syria, hello Somalia!

There’s enough hot air coming out of London this week to send a fleet of dirigibles to the horn of Africa, there to rain thousands of tons of “projectiles of democratic values” down on the al-Shabaab evil doers currently doing their evil on the benighted people of Somalia.

All the usual suspects are in town for the Somalia Salvation Summit, usual suspects meaning NATO and a few hangers-on.

The fact that Clinton and Cameron are making bold pronouncements about Somalia also tells you something about Syria, i.e. that NATO has washed its hands and isn’t about to get more involved than it already is.

And if they’ve had a change of heart about Syria, it also tells you something about where their thoughts are on Iran. Syria has essentially been a proxy front in the war on Iran.

So while there’s going to be continued braying for Persian blood from the usual right-wing war-mongers in Likud and the GOP, the reality is that NATO has decided on smaller fish for their next adventure.

Like Somalia. After generations of anarchy during which we occasionally sent in our proxies from Ethiopia or Kenya to flatten a few villages, the fact that Somalia suddenly merits its very own conference means bigger things are in the works.

Hillary Clinton herself has announced that Somalia stands at a crossroads.

Cameron must have thought he heard “crosshairs” instead of crossroads and immediately offered to begin bombing raids on the al-Shabaab.

Canada’s John Baird is just hoping the world has forgotten the last time Canadians were bringing democracy to Somalia. That effort resulted in the torture and murder of a number of Somali civilians.

So good luck to you, Somalia! Good things are just around the corner now that NATO’s got your back.

And carry on with that nuke program Ayatollahs; you’re good to go for now.

War on Shia Islam makes strange bedfellows

Holy jumpin' Jehova, does it ever!

This brouhaha in Syria has got Likud Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut singing from the same page in the hymnal as Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri. Who can even imagine such a thing?

"It's time to help the brave Syrian freedom fighters" Lieberman declared today on CNN.

"Amen", declared Ayman. In fact al-Zawahiri has got his boys in country already. Seems Bashir al-Assad isn't kidding when he says he's fighting Al Qaeda. The smart money says the suicide bombs in Aelpo the other day were Al Qaeda handiwork.

But wait a minute here... Assad is fighting Al Qaeda, we're fighting Al Qaeda, but we're going to support Al Qaeda in their fight against Assad? Does this mean that al-Assad is a greater evil than Al Qaeda?

Not at all. What it means is that yet again contradictory streams in American foreign policy are rising up to bite us on the ass.

As everyone knows, except apparently the toadying Canadian Foreign Minister who last week made an embarrasing attempt to upstage the toadying US congress on his bag-licking mission to the Holy Land, Israel has no greater friend than the US.

We tolerate Assad because he does a pretty good job of keeping things cool on Syria's border with Israel, in spite of the ongoing open sore that is the Golan heights. Do we care about "unarmed protesters" being slaughtered in their thousands? Of course not.

What we care about is that the last couple of generations of stability on that border might be threatened. If Assad goes, we want to have a hand in deciding who is going to replace him.

To that end, the US has been busy busy busy coordinating the "Free Syrian Army" from an American base in Turkey. This is not a secret and has been written up extensively in major media outside the US. Only in America is it deemed un-newsworthy.

Oddly enough, al-Zawahiri and Al Qaeda have precisely the same motivations as we do. If Assad is doomed, they and their Saudi paymasters want to have a say in what happens next.

Which brings us to the real reason we're so concerned about those "unarmed protesters" in Syria; Iran.

The ill-fated debacle of the US invasion of Iraq didn't just destroy that country, it greatly enhanced Iran's influence within it. Have you noticed that the Shia-dominated government in Iraq is not participating in the embargoes on either Syria or Iran?

The war cheer-leaders in Congress and beyond want to make sure that whatever we do in Syria, it doesn't ultimately enhance Iran's influence in the region even more.

Syria is just another front in our war on Iran.

And if that means we have to arm Al Qaeda fighters, we're willing to do it.

Obama and al-Zawahiri; brothers in arms?

Al Qaeda boss Ayman al Zawahiri has joined President Obama and other Western leaders in calling for the ouster of Syrian President al-Assad.

Could this be a turning point in relations between the world's number one terror threat and it's number one target? Will we see a prominent Washington PR firm get the Al Qaeda account and start polishing up the somewhat tarnished brand?

Will we see an Al Qaeda diplomatic mission as the first step in fully normalized relations?

Well, maybe not. First of all, there's the little matter of the $25 million bounty the US has on al-Zawahiri. That could be a deal-breaker right there.

Then there are the particulars of al-Zawarhiri's endorsement of the Syrian opposition. He makes it clear that while he backs them he doesn't approve of their reliance on support from the US and our puppet states in the Gulf.

He also acknowledges that Al Qaeda is already active in the country. That's got to be a conundrum for the Free Syria cheerleaders. How do we cheer on the "peaceful protesters" without also cheering on our Public Enemy Number One?

In fact, it throws the entire logic of American anti-terror strategy into disarray. We've spent billions hunting down Al Qaeda around the world, eliminating as much of the leadership as we can by whatever means possible.

Yet we're going to support them in Syria?

Free Syria!

On the face of it, it's hard to know what to believe about the upheaval in Syria.

What do we know?

We know that there are a lot of people pissed off at their dictator.

We know that this has been an armed campaign against the dictator from the first days of the uprising.

We know that the armed campaign is organized and financed by foreign countries: France, UK, Turkey, Qatar, and the US, among others.

Can this campaign free the people of Syria?

Many of the same players just recently concluded their campaign to free the people of Libya. How is that going for the people of Libya?

Those who promote the present unrest within Syria also posit a future Syrian state that cuts its ties with Iran and becomes a friend and ally of Israel and America.

How realistic is that?

The 'Free Syria Army' meets bullshit detection 101

The Free Syria Army, stage managed by us from an airbase in Turkey, has got a video out showing off some Iranian prisoners they've captured in Homs. The intent is obvious; to confirm what this blog has said all along, that the Syrian "uprising" is just the western front in our already-on war against Iran.

What trips up their propaganda video is the fact that they make such a big deal of showing off the passports of the supposed Iranians they have captured fighting for the regime in Damascus.

Hmmm...

This blog is read by folks in every country that made up the 'coalition of the willing'. Let me ask you boys and girls, when you were shipped off to Iraq or Afghanistan, was your passport part of your kit? Did you carry your US/Canadian/UK/Polish/etc passport in your pocket when you went out on missions in Iraq and Afghanistan?

I'm guessing not.

But these twats who run PR for the 'Free Syria Army' think we're stupid enough to believe that Iran would send fighters to Syria, with their passports in their pockets, so that in the event that they fall into enemy hands they can be a propaganda coup?

Nice try, but you'll have to try harder.