The Syria Thread 2011 - Present

[parel]

Article full of links. Unless there's a one click method to embed links, I am afraid I don't have time put them all in.

SYRIA BEFORE THE WAR

Western support for terrorism turned Syria from heaven into hell

24 February 2016


Since 2011 Syria experienced one of the most devastating conflicts in recent history. More than 250,000 lives were lost and also the damage to the infrastructure of Syria is horrible. In 2015 Syria received the last place in the list of all countries on the Global Peace Index. But how was Syria before the war?

Syria is often described as the cradle of civilization. Civilization began in Syria around 9000 BC and the first human settlements developed on this ancient land. With the creation of early agriculture, mankind was able to abandon its hunter-gatherer lifestyle and evolve into the modern man. In the coming millennia Syria witnessed the rise and fall of the Assyrian empire and the birth of the three big monotheistic religions. These were events that influenced not only the past but also influence present day Syria.

Before the war there were no ethnic or religious divisions within Syria. Christians, Muslims and Jews co-existed together as Syrians. Nobody was asking if you are Sunni, Shiite, Alawite or maybe a Druze. Muslims went to the mosque for the Friday prayers, while next to the mosque on the opposite side of the street there was a Christian monastery. It was no contradiction for the Syrian president, coming from an Alawite family, to marry his wife Asma al-Assad, who came from a Sunni family. Despite this, nowadays the western media still tries to speak about the Syrian government as “Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect.” In reality, these fractions amongst religions never existed in the pre-war Syria.

Before the war, Syrian society was warm and welcoming to everybody. A Syrian friend of mine described the Syrian pre-war society very well with a story he told me. He has been living in Europe for some decades already but visits his motherland every year to see his family, friends or even to have a nice vacation. He comes from a Sunni family but has never been very religious.

Once he visited Syria with his Christian wife from Europe. She was especially interested in the Christian cultural heritage of the country. So they decided to visit the ancient settlement of Maaloula near Damascus. Maaloula is a beautiful city of only a few thousand inhabitants. It is built into the rugged mountainside and is famous because it is one of the handfuls of villages where Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, is still spoken today. There had been 32 churches in the city when my friend and his wife visited it. Some of the churches in Maaloula are the oldest churches in existence. Nowadays most of them have been damaged and destroyed by “rebels” of the Al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda in Syria) in 2013. But at the time, when they visited the village, these churches were still standing. During their way to the small village they passed many other villages by car. On their way, they got out of the car and walked around the streets of one of the smaller settlements. Suddenly some of the villagers came towards them. They offered the couple gift baskets with regional fruits that they had harvested themselves and asked them if they would like to stay in the village so that they can show them around. Even my friend, who is Syrian, and his wife, were very astonished by the hospitality of the Syrian people. And when they told the villagers that they had to continue their travel the villagers had tears in their eyes and did not want them to go.

This is not the only story about Syrian hospitality. Now it may be hard to believe for somebody who only knows Syria from the pictures of war and destruction on TV. Syria can hardly be recognized when comparing photos before 2011 and today.


Unlike a decade ago when my friend visited the village, Maaloula is now destroyed, the great bazar Al-Madina Souq in Aleppo was burned and destroyed, as well as the Umayyad Mosque in Aleppo and many other places of cultural heritage. All this is thanks to Western support for “moderate rebels,” who are in fact pseudo-Islamic extremists. The church of Saint Paul is in Damascus but has not been destroyed since Damascus is under the control of the Syrian Arab Army (termed by the Western media as “Assad’s army,” it is composed of Christians and Muslims, with many Christians serving as generals). The “Islamic State” is now selling Syrian history on the black market, making up to 100 million US dollars a year. Or just blowing up as idols, as they did with the Baal temple, located in the Syrian city of Palmyra. Even more disturbing is the fact that it will take years to rebuild the homes of the Syrian people and to finish the reconciliation process in Syrian society.

This could have all been prevented if the West didn`t start to arm the jihadist rebels in 2011. If this didn’t happen the conflict in Syria would have been over within a few months and today, we wouldn’t be discussing Syria as a war-torn country over and over again. Instead, we would have seen Syria as an oasis of peace and co-existence between different religions and cultures. A country with a rich history, a beautiful landscape and friendly people. And our only discussions about Syria would have been about our last holidays in the country, our lovely time at the bazaar of Aleppo, in the monasteries of Maaloula and by the Mediterranean sea at Lattakia.

Our team at GIA would like to express sincere gratitude to young men and women who care about the future of their country https://www.facebook.com/shababeeksouria.

Also, bought this pdf book last week. It's excellent. Uploaded it to Scribd for you guys. Would rather it wasn't shared on other fora as I don't want to do the author out of income. Bad form and all, but important reading. Several chapters have appeared on Global Research already, but not the whole book.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/300516683/Th ... r-on-Syria

[Nordic]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e44315.htm

Newly Translated WikiLeaks Saudi Cable
Overthrow the Syrian Regime, but Play Nice with Russia
By Brad Hoff

February 26, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "Levant Report" - IT IS NO SECRET that Saudi Arabia, along with its Gulf and Western allies, has played a direct role in fueling the fires of grinding sectarian conflict that has kept Syria burning for the past five years. It is also no secret that Russian intervention has radically altered the kingdom’s “regime change” calculus in effect since at least 2011. But an internal Saudi government cable sheds new light on the kingdom’s current threats of military escalation in Syria.

Overthrow the Regime “by all means available”

A WikiLeaks cable released as part of “The Saudi Cables” in the summer of 2015, now fully translated here for the first time, reveals what the Saudis feared most in the early years of the war: Russian military intervention and Syrian retaliation. These fears were such that the kingdom directed its media “not to oppose Russian figures and to avoid insulting them” at the time.

Saudi Arabia had further miscalculated that the “Russian position” of preserving the Assad government “will not persist in force.” In Saudi thinking, reflected in the leaked memo, Assad’s violent ouster (“by all means available”) could be pursued so long as Russia stayed on the sidelines. The following section is categorical in its emphasis on regime change at all costs, even should the U.S. vacillate for “lack of desire”:

The fact must be stressed that in the case where the Syrian regime is able to pass through its current crisis in any shape or form, the primary goal that it will pursue is taking revenge on the countries that stood against it, with the Kingdom and some of the countries of the Gulf coming at the top of the list. If we take into account the extent of this regime’s brutality and viciousness and its lack of hesitancy to resort to any means to realize its aims, then the situation will reach a high degree of danger for the Kingdom, which must seek by all means available and all possible ways to overthrow the current regime in Syria. As regards the international position, it is clear that there is a lack of “desire” and not a lack of “capability” on the part of Western countries, chief among them the United States, to take firm steps…

Amman-based Albawaba News—one of the largest online news providers in the Middle East—was the first to call attention to the WikiLeaks memo, which “reveals Saudi officials saying President Bashar al-Assad must be taken down before he exacts revenge on Saudi Arabia.” Albawaba offered a brief partial translation of the cable, which though undated, was likely produced in early 2012 (based on my best speculation using event references in the text; Russia began proposing informal Syrian peace talks in January 2012).

Russian Hardware, a Saudi Nightmare

Over the past weeks Saudi Arabia has ratcheted up its rhetoric on Syria, threatening direct military escalation and the insertion of special forces on the ground, ostensibly for humanitarian and stabilizing purposes as a willing partner in the “war on terror.” As many pundits are now observing, in reality the kingdom’s saber rattling stems not from confidence, but utter desperation as its proxy anti-Assad fighters face defeat by overwhelming Russian air power and Syrian ground forces, and as the Saudi military itself is increasingly bogged down in Yemen.

Even as the Saudi regime dresses its bellicose rhetoric in humanitarian terms, it ultimately desires to protect the flow of foreign fighters into Northern Syria, which is its still hoped-for “available means” of toppling the Syrian government (or at least, at this point, permanent sectarian partition of Syria).

The U.S. State Department’s own 2014 Country Report on Terrorism confirms that the rate of foreign terrorist entry into Syria over the past few years is unprecedented among any conflict in history: “The rate of foreign terrorist fighter travel to Syria – totaling more than 16,000 foreign terrorist fighters from more than 90 countries as of late December – exceeded the rate of foreign terrorist fighters who traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, or Somalia at any point in the last 20 years.”

According to Cinan Siddi, Director of the Institute for Turkish Studies at Georgetown’s prestigious School of Foreign Service, Russian military presence in Syria was born of genuine geopolitical interests. In a public lecture recently given at Baylor University, Siddi said that Russia is fundamentally trying to disrupt the “jihadi corridor” facilitated by Turkey and its allies in Northern Syria.

The below leaked document gives us a glimpse into Saudi motives and fears long before Russian hardware entered the equation, and the degree to which the kingdom utterly failed in assessing Russian red lines.

For the first time, here’s a full translation of the text


THE BELOW original translation is courtesy of my co-author, a published scholar of Arabic and Middle East History, who wishes to remain unnamed. Note: the cable as published in the SaudiLeaks trove appears to be incomplete.



[…] shared interest, and believes that the current Russian position only represents a movement to put pressure on him, its goals being evident, and that this position will not persist in force, given Russia’s ties to interests with Western countries and the countries of the Gulf.
If it pleases Your Highness, I support the idea of entering into a profound dialogue with Russia regarding its position towards Syria*, holding the Second Strategic Conference in Moscow, working to focus the discussion during it on the issue of Syria, and exerting whatever pressure is possible to dissuade it from its current position. I likewise see an opportunity to invite the head of the Committee for International Relations in the Duma to visit the Kingdom. Since it is better to remain in communication with Russia and to direct the media not to oppose Russian figures and to avoid insulting them, so that no harm may come to the interests of the Kingdom, it is possible that the new Russian president will change Russian policy toward Arab countries for the better. However, our position currently in practice, which is to criticize Russian policy toward Syria and its positions that are contrary to our declared principles, remains. It is also advantageous to increase pressure on the Russians by encouraging the Organization of Islamic States to exert some form of pressure by strongly brandishing Islamic public opinion, since Russia fears the Islamic dimension more than the Arab dimension.
In what pertains to the Syrian crisis, the Kingdom is resolute in its position and there is no longer any room to back down. The fact must be stressed that in the case where the Syrian regime is able to pass through its current crisis in any shape or form, the primary goal that it will pursue is taking revenge on the countries that stood against it, with the Kingdom and some of the countries of the Gulf coming at the top of the list. If we take into account the extent of this regime’s brutality and viciousness and its lack of hesitancy to resort to any means to realize its aims, then the situation will reach a high degree of danger for the Kingdom, which must seek by all means available and all possible ways to overthrow the current regime in Syria.
As regards the international position, it is clear that there is a lack of “desire” and not a lack of “capability” on the part of Western countries, chief among them the United States, to take firm steps […]

- See more at: http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... 8AQ6q.dpuf

Infuriating.

[conniption]

"SophieCo" Syrian push for peace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF_QTMNjJVs

RT Shows

Published on Feb 26, 2016

Turkey uses refugees to blackmail EU into compliance – ex-MI6 agent.
A ceasefire deal has been brokered between the US and Russia – a product of long and painful negotiations, but the prospect of lasting peace is still slim. With the rebel forces having no unity, and Turkey keen on attacking the Kurdish fighters in Northern Syria, many warn that the truce will crumble shortly. Will sober heads prevail, or will the bloodshed in Syria just open another chapter? We ask former a MI6 agent and EU foreign policy adviser. Alastair Crooke is on Sophie&Co today.
Recorded from RT, SophieCo, February 26, 2016

video and transcript here.

[conniption]

the saker

Is There A Crack in the Dam Holding Back the Truth on Syria?

February 26, 2016
76 Comments

by JiminNH

One cannot help but noticing two rather interesting articles published in mainstream media that just may indicate that the dam holding back the truth about the western-backed invasion of Syria by head-chopping, organ eating, sex slave trading jihadi “rebels” has sprung a few major leaks.

STEVEN KINZER in the BOSTON GLOBE

First came the article by Steven Kinzer, a longtime journalist with the New York Times and now a Professor and Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute, who published a piece in the eminently mainstream Boston Globe entitled “The Media Are Misleading the Public on Syria”. Mr. Kinzer was rather direct, pulling no punches from his very first sentence were he declared: “Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/201 ... story.html

Prof. Kinzer initially focused on the situation in Aleppo, scene of most recent fighting but also a stronghold of al Nusra and its allies for over 3 years. He recapped how upon seizing the city the jihadi’s “rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents: “Don’t send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin.”

He touched upon the destruction of industry in Aleppo, Syria’s second major city and formerly its industrial heartland, briefly mentioning how the rebels “destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey and sold it.

A brief internet search finds few western media ever touching upon this “liberation” of Syrian’s industrial capital and it finding “refuge” in the waiting arms of Turkey’s business sector, reminiscent of how the western press for over 18 months failed to even inquire into ISIS’ illicit oil trade with Turkey. While an article in the UK’s Guardian in 2013 touched upon the industrial looting, albeit in an article that seemingly lamented how the looting of assets degraded the progress against the Syrian army, no American press has written about this unseemly fact that demonstrates how the Turkish sponsors of the mythical “moderate Syrian rebels” profit from their destruction of a once vibrant industrial neighbor.

Mr. Kinzer briefly pulled back the veil of the western media’s recent pattern of intentionally conflating the multiplicity of jihadi militias that range from al Qaeda affiliate al Nusra Front to Salafist Ahrar al Sham to the now virtually non-exist FSA as generic “rebels” For example he writes “Washington-based reporters tell us that one potent force in Syria, al-Nusra, is made up of “rebels” or “moderates,” not that it is the local al-Qaeda franchise. Saudi Arabia is portrayed as aiding freedom fighters when in fact it is a prime sponsor of ISIS.”

While it is not every day that you read in a respected American newspaper like the Boston Globe that Saudi Arabia is the prime sponsor of ISIS, it is unfortunate that Mr. Kinzer did not refer to the August 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency Memo, declassified thanks to a FOIA suit by the so-called “conservative think tank” Judicial Watch, that reveals exactly that, and more.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/document-a ... -14-812-2/

Had he done so, he could have supported his opinion with factual references to the contents of the Memo which show that not only do the Saudi’s back ISIS, but the US does as well, when it is listed as one of the “Supporting Powers” to the insurgents, and that there was a possibility of “establishing a Salafist Principality in eastern Syria, and this is exactly what the Supporting Powers want….”

Of course, that “Salafist Principality” is the Islamic State Caliphate.

Another unfortunate omission is that while applauding unnamed “Astonishingly brave correspondents in the war zone, including Americans” and recognizing that they report “at great risk to their own safety,” Mr. Kinzer failed to put a name to the face of that intrepid group, such as the late American-Iranian journalist Serena Shim who died in suspicious circumstances in Turkey after her reporting revealed that Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (called “MIT”) shipped arms and ammo to the rebels in humanitarian cargo trucks.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... obane.html

While such information as provided in Mr. Kinzer’s article is likely well known to readers of this blog, it would be nothing short of mind-boggling to the average American or westerner who, thanks to the media manipulation Mr. Kinzer so rightly criticizes, is oblivious to the realities of the “moderate Syrian rebels”, most of whom are not from Syria, and even ISIS itself being nothing but a western backed proxy army engaged in yet another illegal regime change operation.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, Jr. in POLITICO.COM

The next major article, actually a tour de force, was written by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and posted on the online magazine Politico.com. Considering his past history of being able to publish in major print media, perhaps it says something that this incredible article is only posted on an on-line news source.

Kennedy discussed at great length the history of nefarious conduct by the US CIA and allies in a number of coups in the Middle East, including Syria, Iraq and Iran, going back to the immediate post WW2 western intervention in Syria. He gave a solid run-down of CIA coup activity, and those who ran them, such as the notorious Allen Dulles and his expert regime changers Kermit Roosevelt and Rocky Stone.

He provided a bit of information from the “Bruce-Lovett Report” that showed how, unknown to most Americans but well known “on the Arab street,” the CIA was involved in coup plots in 5 Arab states, including Syria, between WW2 and its 1957 publication. Unfortunately, he did not provide a link to that report, and a search of the internet does not produce a copy of what must be interesting reading to those wishing to prevent history being repeated.

Mr. Kennedy focused extensively on the history of US, and allied (UK and French), coup activity in Syria. He mentioned how the post-WW2 patriots of Syria expelled the Nazi-allied Vichy French and declared their independence, but were immediately set upon by the CIA which orchestrated a coup after the democratically elected Pres. Shukri-al-Quwatli hesitated to approve a US backed “Trans Arabian Pipeline” to pump crude oil from Saudi Arabia to Lebanon. That coup set in motion a period of instability and several coups before another election saw Mr. Quawatli re-elected.

Not surprisingly, that re-election trigged yet another coup. This time, however, the US worked with the Muslim Brotherhood, invoking for the first time the use of what we would know refer to a Islamic jihadi terrorists, in their coup efforts that included the assassination of key military and intelligence figures. The plotters planned to use “false flag” events as a pretext to get US allies Iraq, then ruled by a UK-allied King, and Jordan to invade Syria. When the coup was discovered, the Syrians seized the US embassy and coerced a confession from CIA agent Stone, promptly denied by the Eisenhower administration. In response the US geared up for war, and attempted to get Turkey to invade, a plan squelched only by the lack of support among the then-independent Arab League. His article then outlines the reverberations of the CIA’s conduct, culminating in a number of revolutions in the Arab world, and their turn toward the embrace of the Soviet Union.

The article discussed US involvement in Iraq, to include aid the CIA provided to Saddam Hussein in his rise to power through his invasion of Iran at our direction. Interestingly, some familiar names popped up even then; the diabolical Donald Rumsfeld delivered both golden cowboy spurs and a list of chemical weapons to Hussein for use in the Iran-Iraq war.

Kennedy spent considerable time writing about the present Syrian conflict, and eloquently outlined the role of the proposed Qatar-Syria-Turkey pipeline, refused by Syrian Pres. Assad in favor of the Iran-Iraq-Syria “Friendship Pipeline”, in the fomenting of the war. He wrote:

“Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link.”

His review of events includes the involvement of Turkey, which would have greatly profited from the proposed Qatari pipeline in transit fees, in fomenting and fueling the conflict that has now cost an estimated 400,000+ people their lives, and of course Saudi Arabia, both for economic reasons and in pursuit of its war against Iran and the “Shiite Crescent.”

He touched upon the US’s funding of what are now known as the typical “color revolution” processes of funding opposition media and political groups, linking to this 2011 WaPo article on the subject:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us ... story.html

He also delved into the US’ conscious decision, once again, to rely upon the fundamentalist Sunni jihadi warriors in their effort to topple Assad. He linked to a 2008 Rand report on the “Long War” to demonstrate the extent to which the US was ready to help foment and fan the flames of the “Shia-Sunni conflict” in order to attain geopolitical goals. The link is here:

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pu ... _MG738.pdf

Perhaps most significantly, his is one of the few mainstream western media articles that touches in detail upon the above mentioned declassified 2012 DIA memo on the creation of the “Salafist Principality.” Kennedy did a good job of recapping the substance of that Memo, the release of which should have been explosive if our “free press” was not quite so controlled.

Kennedy “toed the party” line in some regards in his article, such as his discussion of Russian involvement in the pipeline matters, referring to the EU support for the Qatari pipeline “which would have given its members cheap energy and relief from Vladimir Putin’s stifling economic and political leverage” and war effort, and further suggesting that we remain involved in the mid-east partly for “guaranteeing the security of Israel’s borders” from the chaos in the region that the readers of this blog may well find to be instigated on behalf of that country. Despite any such minor blemishes, the tenor and substance if the piece is rarely seen in western media.

SUMMATION:

One cannot recommend more strongly the reading of these articles, and the citation of it when communicating the information therein whenever and wherever possible as we all contribute to challenging the false western narrative in the mainstream media. Hopefully these cracks in the dam holding back the truth on Syria will help open the floodgates of knowledge regarding the US and allied proxy war against Syria that is, as Kinzer wrote, one of the most shameful episodes in modern American history.

Only through the active spreading of heterodox voices like these will Kennedy’s concluding remarks have a chance of coming true:

“America’s founding fathers warned Americans against standing armies, foreign entanglements and, in John Quincy Adams’ words, “going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Those wise men understood that imperialism abroad is incompatible with democracy and civil rights at home…. Over the past seven decades, the Dulles brothers, the Cheney gang, the neocons and their ilk have hijacked that fundamental principle of American idealism and deployed our military and intelligence apparatus to serve the mercantile interests of large corporations and particularly, the petroleum companies and military contractors that have literally made a killing from these conflicts.

It is time for Americans to turn America away from this new imperialism and back to the path of idealism and democracy. We should let the Arabs govern Arabia and turn our energies to the great endeavor of nation building at home. We need to begin this process, not by invading Syria, but by ending the ruinous addiction to oil that has warped U.S. foreign policy for half a century.”
_______

2 of 76 comments:

Anonymous on February 26, 2016 · at 4:15 am UTC

Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/02 ... g-roberts/

Veronica on February 26, 2016 · at 5:16 am UTC

Here’s a link to the article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It didn’t seem to be anywhere in the above article by JiminNH

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... ica-213601

~~~

An Online Chat With John Pilger
Thursday, Feb 25, 2016

[parel]

8,681 candidates have registered for Syria's April 13 parliamentary elections. These elections are due by the constitution, regardless of any international process. The last Syrian Peoples' Council (Majlis al-Sha'ab) elections were four years ago, in May 2012. The last Presidential election was in June 2014. The NATO and Saudi-backed armed groups have never expressed any interest in elections, only a 'caliphate'. -

Higher Judicial Committee for Elections: Number of candidates for the parliamentary elections reached at 8681 until Tuesday


1 March، 2016

Provinces, SANA-The Higher Judicial Committee for Elections (HJCE) announced on Tuesday that the number of candidates who submitted their applications for the parliamentary elections of the 2nd Legislative term reached at 8681 until 8 p.m. Tuesday.

The committee added that the number of candidates was distributed as the following: 710 in Damascus, 614 in Damascus countryside, 1034 in Aleppo, 825 in Aleppo regions, 292 in Idleb, 1410 in Homs, 536 in Hama, 1379 in Lattakia, 462 in Tartous, 242 in Deir Ezzor, 432 in Hasaka, 154 in Raqqa, 250 in Daraa, 167 in Sweida and 174 candidates in Quneitra.

The Committee said on Sunday that the Candidacy Committees for the 2nd Legislative term of Parliamentary elections will continue receiving applications of candidates until 8 p.m. of Wednesday, March 2nd.

Mazen

[Grizzly]

God I hate what we do to humanity with all my being. i hope they know not all American hate.

[parel]

The Caesar Photo Fraud that Undermined Syrian Negotiations

pdf file to the report here

[parel]

This is not going to end in the same way as with the other 7 countries the US has destroyed in the past 15 years.

Syrian army prepares for final push to victory

By Zen Adra - 01/03/2016 2




(Damascus, Syria)— As international community and Syrian government welcome the newly-reached agreement on a temporary truce in Syria, the U.S. administration and its Saudi allies seek to wreak havoc in war-torn Syria and exploit the humanitarian ceasefire to al-Qaeda terrorists’ benefit, though the Syrian army vowed to crush any insurgent group that doesn’t abide by the international deal. Yesterday, Syrian Arab Army (SAA) units advance deeper into rebel-held Darayya, southern Damascus suburb, inflicting large causalities on al-Nusra Front militants —al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria—, destroying their heavy weaponry and severing their supply routes. Media sources close to Syrian opposition corroborated the reports of hasty withdrawal of radical militants from Darayya-Muadamiya front. In the meantime, the Syrian Army and Popular Committees gain ground in northern Syria by wresting control of main rebel bastions of Ein al-Ghazal and Maza’la —north-western strategic town of Kensaba, close to key Lattakia-Aleppo highway—. Army soldiers also killed and captured scores of Chinese-Uyghur terrorists and seized several pick-up vehicles equipped with heavy machine guns. Concurrently, the Syrian troops retake strategic heights of Qamoua’a, Kafarsand and al-Koroum Khasat in Latakia’s northern countryside. Syrian Arab Air Force also conducted several sorties against al-Nusra Front terrorist targets in Homs and Hama, killing 13 foreign rebels. In Eastern city of Deir ez-Zor, the Syrian army explored and later blew up a tunnel in al-Sana’a neighborhood, liquidating 65 ISIS terrorist. Syrian Army engaged with ISIS gunmen in Hama-Aleppo highway and road connecting Khanaser to Ithriya, inflicting more losses on ISIS mercenaries.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/sy ... o-victory/ | Al-Masdar News

[backtoiam]

hmmm that is an interesting sudden turn in events unless I fell asleep in the middle of the movie again, which is possible...

Vladimir Putin announces start of withdrawal of Russia's troops from Syria

Russian president says military campaign has achieved its goals
Ordered Russian military to start withdrawing 'main part' of forces in Syria
Putin has called Assad to inform him of the Russian decision

By Gianluca Mezzofiore For Mailonline

Published: 12:49 EST, 14 March 2016 | Updated: 14:22 EST, 14 March 2016

Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian military to start withdrawing 'main part' of forces in Syria, saying the military campaign had 'largely achieved' its goals.

Putin, at a meeting in the Kremlin with his defence and foreign ministers, said the pullout should start from Tuesday.

He also ordered that Russia intensify its role in the peace process to end the conflict in Syria.



Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to inform him of the Russian decision.

'The task that was set before our defence ministry and armed forces has as a whole been completed and so I order the defence ministry to from tomorrow start the withdrawal of the main part of our military contingents from the Syrian Arab Republic,' Putin told Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in televised comments.

Putin's decision comes ahead of the 5th anniversary of the start of the conflict in Syria. The move should help serve as a stimulus for Syria's political talks in Geneva, aimed at resolving the conflict.

The Russian president said the airbase in Hemeimeem in Syria's coastal province of Latakia and a naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartous will continue to operate.

He said both must be protected 'from land, air and sea'.

The Kremlin said Assad 'noted the professionalism, courage and heroism of the officers of the Russian armed forces that took part in the military operations and expressed deep appreciation to Russia'.

Syria's State TV quoted Assad as saying Russia will decrease its presence to levels 'in line with the situation on the ground and the continuation of the cessation of hostilities'. The collaboration between the two allies, Assad added, has secured 'victories against terrorism and returned security to the country'.

Russia's military campaign, which began on 30 September last year, has helped shore up the faltering Syrian government, allowing it to recapture territory from rebels.

Syrian peace talks resumed in Geneva on Monday following a ceasefire that largely held in Syria, despite accusations of violations from both Assad's government and its foes.

The Islamic State group and al-Qaida's branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, are excluded from the cease-fire, which is intended to bolster indirect Syrian peace talks that began Monday.

The UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, who restarted peace talks between the Syrian government and the opposition in Geneva on Monday, said he had no comment on Putin's announcement.

Earlier in the day, he warned that the only alternative to the negotiations is a return to war, and described political transition in the country as 'the mother of all issues.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Syria.html

[backtoiam]

Turkey “Invades” Syria on the Eve of Geneva “Peace Talks”

Witnessing his Ottoman Empire remake dream crumbling on the ground in northern Syria, sultan Turkish President Recep Erdogan launched his highly touted (mini-)invasion into Syria this weekend. After a near month and a half of constant daily artillery shelling into Syria from the Turkish side of the border, Ankara has just stepped up its desperate aggression in the five year war to rid Syrian president Assad. Russian Foreign MinisterSergey Lavrov meeting in Geneva for peace talks resuming on Monday stated that Turkey is advancing its “creeping expansion” into Syrian territory which of course violates both the recent US-Russian ceasefire as well as all international law.

In a Sunday interview with Russia’s REN TV, Lavrov disclosed that Turkish troops have ensconced themselves several hundred meters (yards) into Syria to prevent its declared enemy the Syrian Kurds (YPG) from fortifying their positions and connecting the Kurds’ east-west corridor to take control over nearly the entire Syrian-Turkish border. The Russian minister stated:

According to our information, they [Turkish forces] are digging in a few hundred meters from the border inside Syria.

Though Erdogan’s own generals have strongly advised against an all-out invasion of Syria, knowing the grave consequences for Turkey and its military would be catastrophic against the Russian coalition’s superior air and firepower, in the face of recent decisive victories achieved against Turkey’s proxy allies the ISIS and al Nusra terrorists, debate over whether Erdogan will actually bully his armed forces into launching a ground war invasion into Syria has been heavily speculated by both Turkish and Middle East press. In February Turkey and Saudi Arabia’s most powerful leaders were publicly announcing to the world their intention to invade Syria in a protracted ground war risking World War III. Saudi jets were even deployed to Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base.

But in the month since the Saudi-Turkish hot-air pre-invasion plans were uttered, Russian jets providing continual air support to the Syrian Arab Army and Syrian Kurds have only advanced deeper into Aleppo and Latakia provinces, scattering the terrorists in flight or pushing them to retreat toward their final jihadist stronghold Raqqa. With the Russian-Syrian definition per the truce agreement anyone still left fighting against Syrian forces are terrorists, they are clearly winning both in strategy and America’s “war of terror.” The US led Western coalition has had to resort to subterfuge in order to keep its war on terror still alive, making major concessions that have the terrorist all but defeated and on the run. With the main anti-Assad opposition groups honoring the February 27th truce, the terrorists left fighting on their own are currently being routed on multiple fronts. The top ISIS commander has just been reported “clinically dead,” kept barely alive by machines after a US air strike struck his compound a few days ago.

Apparently a US air strike on Sunday just killed an Israeli citizen fighting alongside the terrorists as well. Of course with his Golan Heights hospital bedside photo-ops,Netanyahu has long been in bed with jihadist terrorists fighting in Syria.

Obama has apparently conceded that his created terrorist monster ISIS doesn’t stand a chance anymore as his proxy terrorists appear to be suffering a rapid defeat in Syria ever since Putin’s game-changing intervention began last fall. Now that the US has ostensibly joined forces with Russia in a ceasefire and ongoing peace talks, even US jets are contributing to the terrorist demise at least with a few better aimed air assaults actually targeting real terrorists now, unlike Obama only pretending to hunt down ISIS before. Barring any major reversals, the war against terrorists in Syria will likely soon be coming to a close as the peace talks start up again this week with US backed opposition groups also meeting in Geneva. Russia has asked the UN to invite the also US supported Syrian Kurds to the talks as well.

Meanwhile, many of the Islamic State terrorists have been fleeing Syria heading in the south into Jordan. At the same time in recent weeks Saudi Arabia has intensified its interventions to destabilize Jordan and Lebanon in a last gasp ploy to relocate, regroup and reconstitute its terrorist safe zones within territory of Syria’s Arabic neighbors. Saudi Arabia entertains the objective of forcing Lebanese Hezbollah troops from the Syrian front back home to deal with Saudi induced instability in Beirut. No doubt this covert action by US main Muslim allies in the Middle East is part of Kerry’s “Plan B.”

Then several weeks ago Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates abruptly ordered its citizens back home and placed a travel ban to Lebanon. With its capital Beirut only 50 miles from Damascus, this move created speculation over the hyped up, but temporarily delayed plan of invading Syria with the Saudi led 34-Sunni nation “antiterrorist” coalition, of which twenty of those nations sent up to 350,000 troops to northern Saudi Arabia allegedly just now completing several weeks of military exercises.

On Saturday the negotiator of the main Syrian opposition group still called for Assad’s removal by either resignation or death as the precursor to a transition government. As the opposition groups take a seat at the negotiation table Monday, Syria has already redlined regime change as non-negotiable. Talk of a transition government in Syria is off the table according to the Syrian defense minister. So right away both France and the US are already grumbling with rhetoric, accusing Syria of sabotaging the Geneva negotiations and pressuring Russia and Iran to get Assad in line despite Assad calling for aparliamentary election to be held next month. But that’s not good enough for the US led coalition still wanting a timeline on Assad’s removal from power. The Kerry promise of Plan B should the peace talks fail that he alone unilaterally came up with right after the truce agreement already is in the making, claiming Syria is failing to adhere to its agreed upon plan.

As if that old regime change dead horse isn’t quite dead enough, ex-NATO commander Admiral Stravridis sounding off as the globalist puppet he is in CFR’s Foreign Policy ragjust claimed that Syria should be partitioned into three separate pieces (a la the Iraq federalist design of course patterned after 1990’s forerunning template Yugoslavia’s “balkanization,” aka destruction (which has become a permanent fixture in American Empire/CFR/globalist mainstay policy). In 2013 the globalist guru himself Henry Kissinger mouthed that same wish-list desire for Syria to be broken up into “more or less autonomous regions.” Then recall the master plan, the Greater Israel Project agenda to redraw borders by partitioning Arab nations according to Zionist design with US Empire busily fighting its expansionist proxy wars.

Stravridis and Washington still hope that for their war efforts the Syrian Kurds can “earn” their own turf in Syria (while labeling the Turkish Kurds wanting the same terrorists), and at least for now Iran and Russian-backed Assad can keep his Damascus government enclave while Kerry’s Plan B of a “moderate” Islamic State caliphate can claim their long planned security zone in eastern Syria for Turkey and Saudi Gulf states to continue waging their proxy terrorist war against Assad. Clearly the US Empire led axis-of-evil still has designs to protect their long term war on terror investment and the same old US imperialistic agenda is merely dragging on in sheep’s clothing under a phony, deceitful disguise of “peaceful settlement.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/turkey-inv ... ks/5514006

[AlicetheKurious]

This new round of talks is a sneaky maneuver to switch the battle-field from the military arena where the Zio-American empire and its proxies have been badly beaten, to the arena of negotiations outside the purview of international law, where they enjoy an unfair advantage.

It could also be a stalling tactic, since it appears the Zio-American empire and its proxies are mobilizing in Libya now. Maybe this whole negotiations charade is a way to put Syria in the fridge for later. Erdogan's job is to keep Syria destabilized and maybe slice off a chunk for himself while the grown-ups are busy elsewhere.

Still, things are definitely not going according to plan for the bad guys, and I believe this is a trend that will continue, God willing.

The joy of people returning to their homes is wonderful, even when those homes are rubble. Their spirits are high, and they're eager to rebuild. Not just in Syria, either.

The liberation of Tikrit yesterday, in Iraq, was a joy to behold, not least because the People's Mobilization forces (who are typically accused by the Zio-American empire and its vassals of being a Shi'ite sectarian terrorist militia) roundly defeated the terrorists, with the surviving terrorists literally scrambling to flee. The People's Mobilization forces freed Tikrit, then promptly handed authority over to the official police and civil administration, then withdrew. The majority of Iraqis in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town, and the civil authorities there, are Sunni. Go Iraq. Go Syria.

[backtoiam]

It is clear that if the current stalemate continues, Syria will remain effectively “balkanized” and split into pieces.

^^^mission accomplished?

March 16, 2016
Russia’s Withdrawal From Syria: the Beginning of the End?

by Farhang Jahanpour


On Monday 14 March, in a surprise move and without any warning to Western leaders, President Vladimir Putin ordered the withdrawal of the “main part” of Russian forces from Syria, and instructed his diplomats to speed up the push for peace. “The effective work of our military created the conditions for the start of the peace process,” he said. “I believe that the task put before the defense ministry and Russian armed forces has, on the whole, been fulfilled.”

He added that with the participation of the Russian military, Syrian armed forces “have been able to achieve a fundamental turnaround in the fight against international terrorism.”

According to Western reports, Russian forces are already being prepared for flights back to Russia and equipment is being loaded onto cargo planes.

Although President Putin’s sudden announcement has given rise to a great deal of surprise and some false assumptions in the mainstream Western media and among political pundits, his decision is a timely, bold and constructive move that may result in some positive developments in the long-running catastrophe in Syria.

One of the reasons for the negative and cynical comments about the Russian move is that in five months President Putin has achieved more in halting the advance of the terrorists in Syria than the West had achieved in five years, if indeed it had been the West’s real intention to defeat the terrorists.

The Syrian uprising started with demonstrations on 28 January 2011 in Damascus and Aleppo in the wake of the “Arab Spring” in Tunisia and Egypt. The demonstrations were initially peaceful, demanding democratic reforms, but from 20 March 2011 they turned violent when the Syrian army started attacks on the demonstrators, and within ten days some 100 people had been killed. Soon it escalated into a sectarian civil war as the result of Western and Saudi meddling, which turned it into one of the most brutal, deadly and destructive conflicts in the Middle East since the Second World War.

The plan to topple President Bashar Assad and replace his government with a Salafi-Wahhabi regime had started even prior to the Arab Uprisings. A US Embassy Cable, dated 3 Feb 2009, is basically about the Turkish and Saudi efforts to counter Iran’s influence in the region by removing President Bashar Assad and cutting off the links between Iran and Hezbollah.

Ambassador James Jeffrey, the then Ambassador to Turkey, writes:

“MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] officials assure me Turkey remains fully committed to a strong relationship with Israel… GPT [Turkish Government] remains focused on removing tools from Tehran’s hands and is convinced the best way to do that is to continue to drive a wedge between Iran and Syria, without whose support Iran’s efforts at destabilization would become far less effective.”

John Hannah, Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, wrote in summer 2011 that a senior Saudi official had told him that the Saudi king Abdullah believed that regime change in Iran would be highly beneficial to Saudi interests. He went on to say: “The king knows that other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself, nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria.” (1)

That misbegotten plan has failed with disastrous consequences.

President Assad is still in place and, as the result of the nuclear deal with the five world powers plus Germany, Iran has repaired its relations with the West and been readmitted to the global economy.

However, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed, millions have been displaced, Syria has been destroyed, terrorism has devastated the Middle East, the latest examples of which being the massive explosions in the heart of Ankara and Baghdad, and the deadly attack in the Ivory Coast all within a couple of days of each other.

Waves of desperate Syrian and Iraqi refugees have put unprecedented strain on European countries, have given rise to the emergence of far-right parties in Europe and America as seen by the triumph of AFD (Alternative für Deutschland) in state elections in parts of Germany on 12–13 March, and to the phenomenon of Donald Trump and other rightwing Republican presidential candidates in America. In view of these challenges, many European intellectuals are wondering if the EU can survive in its present form, while some are asking if Europe can survive.

It has long been clear that the defeat of the insurgents and terrorists could not be achieved only by military means, and certainly not through aerial bombardment alone.

According to some estimates, there are as many as 100,000 insurgents and terrorists belonging to different groups, most of which are fighting each other, as well as Assad’s regime.

Destroying some 1,000 groups with different ideologies is not something that can be accomplished from the air, and even if they were confronted directly, it would result in a bloodbath worse than has already happened.

The United States and the West, as well as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, have long been aiding the insurgents. Therefore, a prolonged conflict with the insurgents would have ultimately involved Russia and Iran in direct conflict and confrontation with the insurgents’ Western and regional backers.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the rebels have already killed 20-30,000 government soldiers. That level of casualties is not sustainable in the long-term. Prior to the Russian involvement, the opposition forces, with the use of deadly anti-tank missiles supplied by their backers, were making advances and occupying more territory.

The Russian support from the air and the Iranian and Hezbollah support on the ground have enabled the Syrian forces to push the terrorists back and to cut off their links to their main supply routes from Turkey.

Hand-in-hand with the military campaign, there has been a move towards peace talks and a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. The missions of the first two UN envoys, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi, failed mainly due to lack of support from Western powers.

However, prolonged war and the disastrous consequences of the Syrian conflict have created a more auspicious opportunity for the latest UN envoy Staffan de Mistura to succeed in his peace efforts. The close contacts between the US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov have also resulted in both countries pushing for a ceasefire and a diplomatic resolution of the conflict.

As the result of the combination of these factors, Staffan de Mistura succeeded in establishing a ceasefire that has held more or less for over two weeks. The hope is that peace talks in Geneva would not only consolidate the ceasefire, but would also pave the way for a lasting solution, resulting in new elections and perhaps ultimately establishing a federal state, providing greater autonomy to different ethnic and religious groups in Syria, while safeguarding the territorial integrity of the country.

Of course, there is no guarantee that ISIS, al-Nusra Front and other terrorist organizations, which are not included in the ceasefire, would continue to abide by it.

However, the fact that so far they have not launched any major attacks on government-held territories or military forces indicates that if they do not receive the encouragement of their backers, they are unlikely to continue with their dastardly actions. In any case, if the government and all other moderate opposition groups observe the ceasefire, the violation of the ceasefire by the Jihadi forces would single them out as the real obstacle to peace and would turn the population against them even more than before.

The Syrian people are tired of war and bloodshed and are welcoming a period of calm and stability.

It is in the context of these hopes and aspirations that the Russian move seems so positive and so welcome.

It shows that President Putin understands the limited efficacy of military force, and having pushed back the terrorists and brought about a temporary truce in Syria, he is now trying to put the onus on the Syrian government and the opposition groups to find a lasting solution to the conflict.

The partial withdrawal of the Russian forces will concentrate the minds of all the parties involved in the conflict and their backers, and will force those involved in the clashes to reach an agreement by themselves, rather than rely on the efforts of foreign powers.

It is interesting that prior to the Russian withdrawal, Iran had also started withdrawing her forces from Syria.

According to U.S. and other Western military officials, Iran started to withdraw its elite fighters from Syria in early December 2015. Western officials have said that they have seen significant numbers of Iranian Revolution Guards Corps troops withdrawing from Syrian combat zones.

According to Iranian sources, Iran had sent a few hundred military “advisors” to Syria to help the Syrian armed forces fight against the terrorists. Western sources have given larger estimates for Iranian troops. In late October 2015 General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that there were 2,000 Iranian troops helping the Syrian forces. In any case, according to the Times of Israel, Iran had withdrawn all her military advisor and military forces from Syria by February 2016. (2)

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif welcomed the news of Russia’s withdrawal as a “positive sign.” He told reporters: “The fact that Russia announced they are withdrawing part of its forces indicates that they don’t see an imminent need for resort to force in maintaining the cease-fire”.

Staffan de Mistura also said that the withdrawal was a “significant development” that he hopes will have a “positive impact” on the talks. He warned the warring parties there was no “Plan B” other than the resumption of conflict if the limited truce ended and if peace talks, which aim to agree a “clear roadmap” for Syria, failed to make progress.

The visit of Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to Tehran early in March 2016 was very significant. Both sides reaffirmed their desire to expand their economic relations, and significantly, they also promised to work together to resolve local conflicts. “We may have different views but we cannot change our history or our geography,” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said. “It is extremely important for Turkey and Iran to develop some common perspectives in order to end our region’s fight among brothers, to stop the ethnic and sectarian conflicts.”

“We believe staunching the bloodshed will establish an important basis for political negotiations. To this end, Turkey and Iran will, together and separately, undertake initiatives with the sides with which they have influence,” Davutoglu told reporters after meeting Rouhani, who he said would visit Turkey in the near future. There have been rumors that Iran has been trying to mediate between Turkey and Syria.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani echoed the sentiment. State News Agency IRNA quoted him saying: “We believe regional issues should only be resolved by the regional countries and nations. Iran and Turkey’s cooperation would be constructive in bringing lasting peace to the region.”

Iranian Vice-President Eshagh Jahangiri told Press TV: “We have our differences on some regional issues, but we are determined to manage the differences to reach stability in the region … Iran and Turkey would both benefit from regional security and stability.”

So receiving the Turkish prime minister in Iran, far from being a snub to Russia, seems to have been an effort at mediation, finding a solution to the Syrian conflict, and might have also been connected to the withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria.

Meanwhile, the silence from Saudi officials about Russian and Iranian withdrawals has been deafening. Now that the bulk of the forces supporting President Assad have withdrawn and there is a glimmer of hope that the present truce will hold and lead to a lasting ceasefire, the Saudis and the members of their coalition should give peace a chance and should give up the dream of toppling President Assad through talks, something that they have failed to achieve as the result of five years of support for a vicious and murderous insurgency.

Syrian officials have said that Assad’s opponents are deluded if they think they will take power at the negotiating table.

It is clear that if the current stalemate continues, Syria will remain effectively “balkanized” and split into pieces. This cannot be in the interest of Arab League members if they are really interested in the territorial integrity of Arab countries. Furthermore, the scourge of terrorism that has destroyed Syria and Iraq will not be confined to those countries and will affect other regional countries. It is time to turn a new page and engage in the reconstruction of Syria.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/16/ ... f-the-end/

[backtoiam]

Kurds Declare Autonomous “Federal” System In Syria
Brandon TurbevilleSyria

March 16, 2016

By Brandon Turbeville
Image: RT.com

Kurds in Northern Syria are expected to declare a federal system in Syria, with the areas they have seized in the northern part of the country acting as an autonomous zone. The announcement is expected to come in a matter of hours according to media sources on the ground in the Kurdish-controlled areas. According to these reports, a conference to declare the federation of three Kurdish entities in Syria will take place in Rmelan.

Kurdish journalist, Barzan Iso, confirmed the rumors to RT when he reported that “Now the conference has just started in Rmelan, about 200 representatives of Rojava have joined [the event]. They represent different ethnicities and nationalities. There are Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Syriacs, Turkomans, Armenians, Circassians and Chechen. Also we have representatives from the Syrian democratic forces, YPG, women defense units. This conference is supposed to announce a federation as a political project for Rojava region in northern Syria.”

The “new project” would replace the currently autonomous zone of Rojava by formally creating a Federation of Northern Syria incorporating the 250 miles of Kurdish-held territory along the Syria-Turkey border with the section of the northwestern border near the Afrin area. At least, this is the plan as relayed by Idris Nassan, an official working in the Foreign Affairs Directorate of Kobane (Ayn al-Arab). The new system would entail “widening the framework of self-administration which the Kurds and others have formed,” he said.

Rojova only received a degree of autonomy in 2013, when Syrian forces were overwhelmed by Western-backed terrorists and were forced to abandon much of the territory now occupied by Kurdish militias such as the YPG and others. In place of the SAA, the NDF and other Syrian patriot militias, as well as Kurdish forces, remained and fought terrorists gallantly to the point of securing large swaths of border territory.

Before 2013, Rojova was never an autonomous region nor was there a separate Kurdish entity in Syria. After all, the “Kurdish” areas are occupied by many more religions and ethnicities than Kurds, including Syrian Arabs, Assyrians, and Turkmen. In January 2014, however, the PYD (Democratic Union Party) declared all three “Rojovan” cantons autonomous. This included Afrin, Kobane, and Jazira. The Rojova “interim Constitution,” known as the Charter of the Social Contract, came immediately after. The charter called for the peaceful coexistence of all religious and ethnic groups residing under its jurisdiction and reaffirmed that Rojova would remain part of Syria.

Still, the representative of the PYD party in Moscow, Abd Salam Ali, told RIA Novosti that “Within days, probably today, self-governing [bodies] of three Kurdish cantons in Syria’s north will declare a federation.” But Ali pointed out that autonomy did not mean separation from Syria, merely the establishment of a looser centralized governing system and the “federalization” of the Kurdish area. He said that the new “Kurdistan” will remain part of Syria.

Turkey, of course, opposes the move fearing both that the Syrian Kurds will begin to represent a significant threat on its borders and that, more importantly, the Syrian Kurds will unite with the Turkish Kurds and begin to wrest territory from Turkey itself. Ironically, the Kurdish announcement resulted in Turkey laughably suggesting that it “supports Syria’s national unity and territorial integrity.” Indeed, if Turkey has finally come around to supporting Syria’s national sovereignty, it is a revelation had by Turkish leaders only hours ago.

Aside from the ridiculous claim that Turkey respects Syria’s territorial integrity, the Turks reiterated their position that any “administrative restructure” must come via the adoption of a “new constitution” for Syria.
This Book Could Save Your Life (Ad)

The legitimate Syrian government is also rejecting any federation plans for obvious reasons. Bashar Jaafari, head of the Syrian government delegation at the United Nations’ Geneva talks, was quoted as stating that “Drawing any lines between Syrians would be a great mistake.” He also pointed out that Syrian Kurds are an important part of the Syrian people.

It should be noted that the Kurdish move comes as it becomes clear that the Kurds will not be included in the Geneva talks. While Turkey is obviously pleased at the exclusion of the Kurds, the Russians have repeatedly contended that they should be involved in the process. Even Staffan de Mistrua, the UN Envoy to Syria, has agreed that the Kurds should be included.

Rodi Osman, head of the Syrian Kurdistan Office in Moscow, implied that the declaration of the federalized Kurdish territory may have been a response to having been excluded from the peace talks. He stated to RIA Novosti:

The second round of inter-Syrian talks is underway in Geneva, but Syrian Kurds were not invited. It means that the future of Syria and its society is decided without Kurds. In fact, we are pushed back into a conservative, old-fashioned system which does not fit well with us. In light of this, we see only one solution which is to declare the creation of [Kurdish] federation. It will serve the interests of the Kurds, but also those of Arabs, Turks, Assyrians, Chechens and Turkomans – all parts of Syria’s multinational society. Given the complicated situation in Syria, we would become an example of a system that may resolve the Syrian crisis.

Syrian Representative to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari stated that the talks should not have begun with the “absence of half or two thirds of all the opposition” since doing so has left the talks “very weak.”

Kurdish exclusion from political negotiations, however, is not the only possibility as to why the Kurdish federalism has been announced, since the idea is the very concept proposed by the United States only weeks ago.
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/03/kur ... syria.html

[seemslikeadream]

Neocons Red-Faced Over ‘Red Line’
March 10, 2016


Exclusive: Official Washington’s neocons love to condemn President Obama for not enforcing his “red line” after a sarin attack in Syria in 2013, even though one neocon now admits that U.S. intelligence lacked the proof, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic has penned an opus on President Barack Obama’s foreign policy which starts with a long segment dissecting Obama’s supposed failure to enforce his “red line” against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad using sarin gas to kill hundreds of civilians outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013. For Official Washington’s foreign-policy elite, Obama’s flinching from a bombing campaign against Assad was a historical inflection point for which Obama deserves hearty condemnation.

But if you read far enough into this story of Obama’s “feckless” behavior, you encounter a curious admission from Goldberg: that U.S. intelligence was unsure whether Assad was responsible for the attack.


U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks on Syria at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 30, 2013. [State Department photo]

As Goldberg writes, “Obama was … unsettled by a surprise visit early in the week from James Clapper, his director of national intelligence, who interrupted the President’s Daily Brief, the threat report Obama receives each morning from Clapper’s analysts, to make clear that the intelligence on Syria’s use of sarin gas, while robust, was not a ‘slam dunk.’
“He chose the term carefully. Clapper, the chief of an intelligence community traumatized by its failures in the run-up to the Iraq War, was not going to overpromise, in the manner of the onetime CIA director George Tenet, who famously guaranteed George W. Bush a ‘slam dunk’ in Iraq.”

What I was told by intelligence sources at the time was that the evidence against Assad was anything but a slam dunk. It was not even “robust,” as Goldberg insists. There were serious doubts among intelligence professionals about many of the “certainties” that Official Washington’s neocon-dominated foreign policy establishment had quickly accepted as true about the sarin attack, blaming Assad.

In the face of that “group think,” Clapper surely did not want to go too much against the grain – he’s far too timid a bureaucrat for that – but his analysts were balking at once again being pushed into justifying another hasty war.

This resistance from the U.S. intelligence community should have been easy to spot, except that the neocons were whipping Official Washington into another war stampede. They saw the sarin attack as the catalyst for another “regime change,” so the last thing they wanted was a sober analysis of the evidence. They wanted a “group think” to take hold and to bait a reluctant Obama into action by portraying him as a wimp if he didn’t start bombing right away.

Rush to War

The neocon strategy almost worked. Across Official Washington and the mainstream U.S. news media, there was a classic rush to judgment. However, when Secretary of State John Kerry made a bellicose case for war on Aug. 30, 2013, and released a supporting “government assessment,” what was most remarkable to me was that there was not a shred of verifiable evidence implicating Assad.

Indeed, it made little sense that Assad would have launched a sarin attack when United Nations inspectors had just arrived in Damascus to examine suspected chemical weapons cases that Assad was blaming on jihadist rebels.

The fact that Kerry had to rely on a new confection, called a “government assessment” prepared by political operatives rather than the traditional “intelligence assessment” expressing the consensus judgment of the 16 intelligence agencies, was a further tip-off that the U.S. intelligence community was not onboard. After Kerry’s speech, I reported on the startling lack of evidence in the “dodgy dossier.”

So, on Aug. 31, 2013, when Obama began to back away from the rush to war, the President deserved praise for showing reasonable caution. After all, what sense would it make to punish the Syrian government for launching a sarin attack if, in reality, the atrocity was carried out by someone else, in this case, one of the radical jihadist groups trying to trick the U.S. government into intervening in the war on their side?

It’s now clear that if Obama had launched a major bombing campaign against the Syrian military, he might have inadvertently cleared a path for Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front or the Islamic State to seize control of Damascus, touching off an even more devastating human catastrophe. But “regime change” in Syria was a neocon obsession, even if it carried the risk of terrorist groups gaining control of a major Middle Eastern nation.

In the weeks and months after the sarin attack, the case against Assad continued to crumble. The U.N. inspectors recovered only one rocket carrying sarin and it was incapable of traveling the distance that would have indicated that it was fired by the Syrian military. Then, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh reported in 2014 that intelligence officials had traced the attack to radical jihadists in apparent collaboration with Turkish intelligence. More recently, I’ve been told that U.S. intelligence now agrees with Hersh’s reporting.

In other words, Clapper’s recognition that there was no “slam dunk” case implicating Assad has been vindicated by subsequent evidence. But Official Washington’s foreign-policy elite simply can’t accept these findings, instead maintaining the myth that Assad flouted Obama’s “red line” and that Obama lost his nerve and thus undermined U.S. “credibility.” This myth is so beloved among neocons and their liberal-interventionist allies that it can’t be surrendered regardless of its lack of evidentiary support.

After all, admitting that another neocon “group think” was dangerously misguided – after the Iraq War WMD fiasco – might finally topple some of these self-important pundits from their endowed think-tank chairs. Americans might finally recognize that these pompous know-it-alls are really just vacuous know-nothings.

So, instead of an article praising Obama for his realism and restraint – for demanding hard evidence before launching another U.S. war in the Middle East – we get Jeffrey Goldberg’s opus analyzing why Obama chickened out on the “red line” and how that failure has impaired U.S. foreign policy.

[seemslikeadream]

Kerry’s Secret War Plan for Syria
March 14, 2016


Secretary of State Kerry urged President Obama to launch secret missile attacks inside Syria without admitting the U.S. role, a plan that Obama rejected, according to a new report cited by Gareth Porter.

By Gareth Porter

Jeffrey Goldberg’s newly published book-length article on Barack Obama and the Middle East includes a major revelation that brings Secretary of State John Kerry’s Syrian diplomacy into sharper focus: it reports that Kerry has sought on several occasions without success over the past several months to get Obama’s approval for cruise missile strikes against the Syrian government.

That revelation shows that Kerry’s strategy in promoting the Syrian peace negotiations in recent months was based on much heavier pressure on the Assad regime to agree that President Bashar al-Assad must step down than was apparent. It also completes a larger story of Kerry as the primary advocate in the administration of war in Syria ever since he became Secretary of State in early 2013.

Goldberg reports that “on several occasions” Kerry requested that Obama approve missile strikes at “specific regime targets,” in order to “send a message” to Assad – and his international allies – to “negotiate peace.” Kerry suggested to Obama that the U.S. wouldn’t have to acknowledge the attacks publicly, according to Goldberg, because Assad “would surely know the missiles’ return address.”

Goldberg reports that Kerry had “recently” submitted a “written outline of new steps to bring more pressure on Assad.” That is obviously a reference to what Kerry referred to in Senate testimony in February as “significant discussions” within the Obama administration on a “Plan B” to support the opposition that would be more “confrontational.” Kerry made no effort in his testimony to hide the fact that he was the chief advocate of such a policy initiative.

But Goldberg’s account makes it clear that Obama not only repeatedly rejected Kerry’s requests for the use of force, but also decreed at a National Security Council meeting in December that any request for the use of military force must come from his military advisers in an obvious rebuff to Kerry. Immediately after Kerry had suggested that a “Plan B” was under discussion in the administration, it was a senior Pentagon official who dismissed the idea that any confrontational move was under consideration, including the well-worn idea of a “no-fly zone.”

Kerry’s campaign for cruise missile strikes actually began soon after he became secretary in February 2013. At that point Assad was consolidating his military position, while al-Nusra Front (Al Qaeda’s affiliate0 and its extremist allies were already in a dominant position within the armed opposition, according to U.S. intelligence. It was hardly a favorable situation for trying to build an opposition force that could be the instrument of the negotiated settlement he had in mind.

At Kerry’s urging Obama signed a secret presidential “finding” in May 2013 for a covert CIA operation the objective of which was to provide enough support to the rebels so they wouldn’t lose, but not enough so they would win. But that was a compromise measure that Kerry believed would be inadequate to support a negotiated settlement.

He wanted much more, an urgent program of aid to the opposition, and he resorted to a shady bureaucratic tactic to advance his aim. Beginning in March 2013 and throughout that spring, the armed opposition accused the Assad regime of using Sarin gas against opposition population centers on several occasions. The evidence for those accusations was highly doubtful in every case, but Kerry seized on them as a way of putting pressure on Obama.

In June 2013, he went to the White House with a paper assuming the truth of the accusations and arguing that, if the United States did not “impose consequences” on Assad over his supposed use of chemical weapons, he would view it as “green light” to continue using them. At a National Security Council meeting that month, Kerry urged shipments of heavy weapons to the rebels as well as U.S. military strikes, but Obama still said no.

After the Aug. 21, 2013 Sarin attack in the Damascus area, Kerry was the leading figure on Obama’s national security team arguing that Obama had to respond militarily. But after initially agreeing to a set of U.S. missile strikes on regime targets, Obama decided against it. One of the reasons was that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper acknowledged to him privately that the intelligence was not a “slam dunk,” according to Goldberg’s account.

In lieu of a missile strike, however, Obama agreed in October 2013 to a very risky major escalation of military assistance to the Syrian opposition. That fall the Pentagon sold 15,000 U.S. TOW anti-tank missiles to the Saudis, and throughout 2014, the Saudis doled them out to armed groups approved by the United States. Dispensing anti-tank missiles was a reckless policy, because it was recognized by then that many of the groups being armed were already fighting alongside Nusra Front in the northwest. The missiles were crucial to the capture of all of Idlib province by the Nusra-led “Army of Conquest” in April 2015.

Kerry was ready to take a risk on Nusra Front and its allies becoming unstoppable in order to jump-start his strategy of diplomatic pressure on Assad. But Kerry overplayed his hand. The Assad regime and Iran feared that the newly strengthened military force under Nusra Front control might break through to take over the Alawite stronghold of Latakia province. They prevailed on Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene with Russian airpower.

As the Russian campaign of airstrikes began to push back the extremist-led military forces and even threaten their lines of supply, Kerry’s strategy to pressure the Assad regime to make a major diplomatic concession became irrelevant.

Kerry’s demands for U.S. cruise missile strikes became even more insistent. Without them, he argued, he couldn’t get the Russians to cooperate with his peace negotiations plan. Goldberg quotes a “senior administration official” as saying, “Kerry’s looking like a chump with the Russians, because he has no leverage.”

Obama, who had already succumbed in 2014 to domestic political pressure to begin bombing the Islamic State, saw no reason to get into even deeper war in Syria in support of Kerry’s plan – especially under the new circumstances. Assad was not likely to step down, and in case, the war would only end if Nusra Front and its Salafist-jihadi allies were no longer able to get the heavy weapons they need to fight the regime.

The real origin of the present Syrian peace negotiations is thus Kerry’s ambition to pursue the illusory aim of winning a diplomatic victory in Syria by much greater pressure on the Assad regime. Ironically, in setting in motion the military build-up of an Al-Qaeda-dominated armed opposition, Kerry sowed the seeds of the military reversal that ensured the failure of his endeavor. As a result he became the rather pathetic figure shown in Goldberg’s account pleading in vain for yet another US war in Syria.

Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of the newly published Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.[This article originally appeared in Middle East Eye at http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/ke ... k5IX9.dpuf]