Why U.S. intervention in Syria is a mistake

Click on Mike Whitney for a transcript of this interview.

U.S. actually backs al Qaeda rebels in Syria

It’s surprising how little of the “war on terror” has been directed against the actual killers who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” included Iraq and Iran, two nations whose rulers were enemies of al Qaeda, and North Korea, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

The U.S. attacks on Iraq and Libya, and the attempted overthrow of the Assad government in Syria, created chaos and lawlessness in which al Qaeda could flourish.  The rulers of Libya and Syria had proven their willingness to co-operate with the United States, so what U.S. policy showed is that there is nothing to be gained in being a friend of the USA.

Now the U.S. government is supporting the Nusra front, an al Qaeda unit, in Syria, as an alternative to the Islamic State (aka ISIS or ISIL) insurgents there.  Joseph Cannon of Cannonfire wrote an illuminating post about this.

If the U.S. government’s top priorities were to eliminate al Qaeda and ISIS, we would co-operate with their enemies, namely Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.  They are more effective fighting forces than the U.S.-trained Iraqi army.

Why don’t we?  Is it because Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, and not al Qaeda and ISIS, are the main enemies of Israel and Saudi Arabia?  Do the Pentagon and State Department think it is possible to get control of Middle East oil by military force?  Or does continuous war have a self-perpetuating momentum that nobody is willing to stop?

U.S. Mideast policy: Links & comments 12/5/14

Malarkey on the Potomac: Five bedrock Washington assumptions that are hot air by Andrew J. Bacevich for TomDispatch (via the Unz Review).

The five false assumptions are:

• The presence of U.S. forces in the Islamic world contributes to regional stability and enhances American influence.
• The Persian Gulf constitutes a vital U.S. national security interest.
• Egypt and Saudi Arabia are valued and valuable American allies.
• The interests of the United States and Israel align.
• Terrorism poses an existential threat that the United States must defeat.

I strongly recommend reading Bacevich’s whole article.

41 men targeted for U.S. drone strikes, but 1,147 killed by Spencer Ackerman for The Guardian.

A sixth false assumption is that flying killer drones are a safe, precise and effective way to wage war.  In fact, the U.S. government is making enemies at a faster rate than it is killing them off.

Iraq’s 50,000 ‘Ghost Soldiers’ by Patrick Cockburn for The Independent (via the Unz Review)

A seventh false assumption is that the U.S. government can use foreign fighters as proxies for American troops.  Either the foreign fighters have their own aims, which may not be identical with U.S. interests, or they are more interested in collecting pay than fighting.  In Iraq, certain military officers and contractors collect pay for troops that don’t even exist.

U.S. to Use Psych Tests to Vet Syrian Rebels for Moderateness by Peter Van Buren.

This may seem like satire, but it isn’t.

 

Fear of showing weakness is itself a weakness

Why is President Obama arming proxy armies in Syria to fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) and the Assad government, despite warnings from his advisers that such policies have not worked in the past?

I think he is following in the footsteps of American presidents for the past 50 years, who have waged war and sponsored covert operations not to protect the American people and not in all cases to further the interests of U.S.-based corporations, but to avoid the appearance of seeming week.

Take the Vietnam Conflict.  Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson are now known to have had misgivings about military intervention in Vietnam.  What they feared was the effect on American prestige of suffering a defeat, and the effect on their own popularity of having “lost” a country to Communism.

When Richard M. Nixon was became President in 1969, he inherited the Vietnam War, he was not responsible for the hopeless situation, yet he kept on fighting nevertheless.  What was wanted, according to Henry Kissinger, was to save the USA and the Nixon administration from humiliation by having a “decent interval” between the withdrawal of the last American troops and the triumph of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese.

Our country would have been better off if Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had never committed the United States to defending South Vietnam, or if President Nixon had wound up the war quickly.  Our nation would not have been so divided, our military would not have been demoralized and our leaders would not have been preoccupied for the next 40 years with wiping out the humiliation of that defeat.

Or take the 35-year cold war waged by the United States against Iran.  I see no inherent conflict of interest between the governments of Iran and the United States.  In fact, Iran and the USA share common enemies in Al Qaeda and its successor, the Islamic State (ISIS).  But for the United States to reconcile with Iran would seem weak, after the humiliation suffered by the taking of U.S. embassy personnel as hostages by Iranian radicals in 1979.  It is that, more than any public interest or business interest, that prevents the United States from seeking peace with Iran.

Proxy war and the arming of Al Qaeda

The American people have no desire to send U.S. troops into more foreign wars, so the U.S. government is arming Syrian rebels to serve as our proxies for overthrowing the rule of Bashir al-Assad.   By channeling arms to the “moderate” rebel forces, the Obama administration hopes to prevent Assad from being replaced by radical Al Qaeda jihadists.

Forces in Syria as of March

As Pepe Escobar wrote in his latest column for Asia Times, the problem with that is the troops aligned with Al Qaeda are the fiercest fighters, and they’re getting all the weapons and support they want from the Saudi Arabian government.   They also are working to overthrow the Shiite government of Anwar al-Maliki in Iraq.  A possible result of the Syrian rebellion is two new governments aligned with Al Qaeda—Syria and Iraq.

Such governments, unlike the Saddam, Qaddafi and Assad regimes, really might be a threat to Americans—not to the existence of the United States, but to us Americans as individuals.  This is another good reason for the U.S. government to make peace with Iran and form an alliance against Al Qaeda.

Another example of bad consequences of a proxy war is given by Ian Welsh (whose web log is the newest addition to my Blogs I Like links page).   He wrote about how the attack by Muslim terrorists on the Nairobi Mall in Kenya was blowback from a U.S.-inspired Kenyan invasion of Somalia.

I am reminded of Adam Smith’s comment about how masterminds who think they can manipulate other people like pieces of a chessboard forget that the chessmen are playing their own games, which may be different from what the mastermind intended.

I think there are two good rules for the United States for intervening in foreign wars.

1. Don’t arm our avowed enemies.
2. Don’t attack people who are not our enemies.

What Putin has to say to Americans about Syria

If I were a Russian, I don’t think I would be a supporter of President Vladimir Putin.  Russia is a country where opponents of the regime die mysteriously, a tightly-knit group of self-described oligarchs control finance and industry and holdovers from the old Soviet Union are entrenched in government.  But I think Putin made a lot of sense his New York Times article about Syria yesterday.

The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders.  A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa.  It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.

Vladimir Putin

Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multi-religious country.  There are few champions of democracy in Syria.  But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government.  The United States State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations.  This internal conflict, fueled by foreign weapons supplied to the opposition, is one of the bloodiest in the world.

Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria?  After all, after fighting in Libya, extremists moved on to Mali.  This threatens us all.

He also stated:

It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest?  I doubt it.  Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.”

He ended the article with these words:

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust.  I appreciate this.  I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.”

It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.  There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy.  Their policies differ, too.  We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

via NYTimes.com.

President Putin, it is true, has his own reasons for not wanting the Syrian government to be overthrown.  Syria has been a Russian client state since the days of the old Soviet Union.  It provides the Russian Federation with its only naval base on the Mediterranean.   It is a potential outlet for a natural gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea region of Russia and Central Asia.

And while the Russian government’s proposal for a turnover of Syrian chemical weapons to an international authority sounds good, it would be impossible to implement while the country is in the middle of a civil war.  After all, the United States promised in 1990 to get rid of our chemical weapons stockpiles by 2012, and has not managed to do so.

But the governments of the United States, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have reasons for supporting the rebels which have more to do with pipeline routes, geopolitical advantage and Sunni-Shiite struggles than with humanitarism.  There is nothing at stake in Syria’s civil war that justifies a U.S. attack on Syria.

The Syrian enigma: Links & comments 9/10/13

When I first heard the charges that the Syrian government had used nerve gas against rebel forces, I disbelieved them.  It didn’t make any sense to me that Bashar al-Assad would do something that was not only wicked but foolish.  Then I gradually became convinced there is something to the charges.  Who else but the Syrian government would have the capability to launch such attacks?

Now I don’t know what to believe.

Letter Detailing Syria’s Case to Congress Has More Verifiable Claims Than U.S. Case to Date by Brad Friedman for the BRAD BLOG (which I have added to my Blogs I Like page)

Mohammed Jihad al-Lahman, Speaker of the Syrian People’s Assembly, wrote a letter to members of the U.S. Congress appealing to them to refrain from attacking his country.

Among other things he offered evidence that the gas attacks were made by the Syrian rebel forces.  He said that Turkish and Iraqi authorities captured rebel forces with nerve gas weapons, that Syria appealed to the United Nations back in March to investigate nerve gas attacks by rebels and that the Syrian government turned over evidence of rebel use of nerve gas to the Russian and Chinese embassies.

All these allegations can easily be checked, and ought to be checked before any congressional vote.

Syria crisis: Obama welcomes Russia’s chemical weapons proposal by Dan Roberts and Julian Borger of The Guardian.

The Russian government called on Syria’s leaders to place their chemical weapons under international control and eventually to destroy them.  Since Syria depends on Russian backing, there is a good chance this will be accepted.

It provides a good opportunity for Barack Obama and John Kerry to climb back off the limb they’ve gotten out on.  I wonder how much the crisis is due to President Obama having said the use of chemical weapons is a “red line”, believing when he said it that the line never would be crossed.

However, if Bashar al-Assad agrees to place Syria’s chemical weapons under international control, some good will have come from President Obama’s threats.   Assuming the agreement is carried out, of course.

Russia balks at French plan for U.N. Security Council resolution on Syrian chemical arms by the Washington Post [added later]

It turns out that the Russian government would “welcome” the Syrian government handing over its chemical arms to an international authority, but aren’t offering to take responsibility for implementing this and wouldn’t support a threat of military action if they didn’t comply.  So less has changed than I thought.

How U.S. Grand Strategy in Syria Led to the Idea of Missile Strikes by Juan Cole for Informed Comment.

Juan Cole, a Middle East historian, wrote that there are two factions among the Syrian rebels—radical Sunni Muslims linked to Al Qaeda in the north of Syria, backed by Turkey and Qatar, and another less radical faction in the south of Syria backed by Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United States.

According to Cole, the purpose of the planned U.S. attack is to weaken the Syrian forces on the southern front and help the rebel faction favored by the United States.

Can You Pass the Qatar Quiz? by Jeffrey Rudolph for Informed Comment.

How did the tiny Persian Gulf nation of Qatar come to play such a big part in Middle East power politics?  This guest post on Informed Comment helps to explain.

War resolution is a trap for Congress

Why does President Obama want authorization from Congress to attack Syria, when he claims he doesn’t need it and some administration officials say he may go ahead even without authorization?

Surely one reason is that a favorable vote will give him political cover.  Senators John Kerry and Hillary Clinton voted for the Bush administration’s requests for authorization to use military force against Iraq and Al Qaeda.  That made it possible for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to say that they had equal responsibility.

That same will be said by Barack Obama and Joe Biden if Elizabeth Warren or Rand Paul vote for the authorization to use force against Syria, and later criticize administration policy.  It’s a good political ploy.  Let’s hope that a majority of the Senate and the House of Representatives have as good an understanding of the situation as a majority of the American people.

Post-Assad Syria: a haven for al Qaeda?

Overthrowing the Assad regime could create a haven for al Qaeda, larger than the one that Osama bin Laden formerly had in Afghanistan.

The U.S. war on terror evolved in a bizarre way.   Back during the Bush administration, Congress authorized military action against al Qaeda and associated forces.  Osama bin Laden and his followers were Sunni Muslims.   Using that authorization as its legal basis, the U.S. government threatens attacks on governments that are enemies of al Qaeda—the Shiite Muslim government of Iran and the Shiite-friendly government of Syria.

The rebel forces that the U.S. government is supporting in Syria are led by supporters of al Qaeda—the same kinds of people the U.S. is waging drone warfare against in Pakistan and Yemen.  We’re told that, on the one hand, al Qaeda is such a threat that we Americans have to accept perpetual war and perpetual martial law, but now we’re being told that, on the other hand, it is okay to support al Qaeda to attain a geopolitical objective.

LINKS

How U.S. Strikes on Syria Help Al Qaeda by Barak Barfi for The Daily Beast.  The ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), the local al Qaeda affiliate, is the leading force among the rebels and will come out on top if Assad is overthrown.

Does Obama know he’s fighting on the same side as Al Qaeda? by Robert Fisk in The Independent.

The Syrian conflict and gas pipeline routes

Is the revolt in Syria part of an age-old conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims?  Iran and Iraq have Shiite majorities, Hezbollah represents the Shiites in Lebanon and Syria’s government has long cultivated the Shiites.  The rebels in Syria are Salafi Sunni Muslims supported by the Sunni Muslims of Saudia Arabia, the Gulf oil sheikdoms and the Muslim Brotherhood.

But if it is part of an age-old conflict, why does this conflict lie dormant for generations and then suddenly flare up?  Pepe Escobar of Asia Times has an explanation.  He wrote that the religious conflict is being instigated to block plans by the governments Iran, Iraq and Syria to build a pipeline from the Mediterranean to the rich Persian Gulf natural gas field lying between Iran and Qatar.

Yellow lines show proposed pipeline routes.  Dark lines are existing pipelines.

The Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline is an economic threat to Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms, who are the main financiers of the Syrian revolt.  It would enable Iran to export oil even if the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf were closed.

The proposed pipeline also is contrary to the economic interests of Turkey, whose government supports the Syrian revolt.  Turkey has access to the natural gas of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.  The Turkish government’s goal is to extend a pipeline to the heart of Europe and offer an alternative to Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas.  The Nabucco pipeline could serve Iran, but the Turkish government for now has decided to deny access for now.

What is the national interest of the United States in this?  An Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline would not necessarily compete with U.S. companies engaged in hydraulic fracturing for natural gas.  The gas would only be available to customers that could be reached by the pipeline.  But there would be no detriment that I could see to U.S. consumers.

The U.S. objection is that it would hamper the U.S. not-so-cold war against Iran, which is being waged largely in support of Israel and Saudi Arabia and partly in revenge for the U.S. national humiliation in the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979.  I don’t think economic warfare against Iran is in the interest of the American people.  I think the policy of the United States should be to wind down that war rather than extend it.

U.S. aligns with al Qaeda rebels in Syria

The United States government proclaims it is committed to all-out war against the radical terrorists of al Qaeda, who supposedly are as great a threat as the followers of Hitler and Stalin in earlier eras.  Because of this threat, our government claims unprecedented powers to eavesdrop on citizens and create “kill lists.”  Yet to achieve certain objectives, such as the overthrow of the governments of Libya and Syria, the U.S. government aligns itself with the very forces it considers an existential threat.

There have been three troublesome factions in Middle East politics—Sunni Muslim theocrats, such as al Qaeda and the Taliban, Shiite Muslim theocrats, such as the ayatollahs in Iran, and secular dictators, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Qaddafi in Libya and Bashar al-Assad in Syria.  The problem is that a U.S. attack on any one of these factions strengthens the other two.  I wouldn’t want to live under any of the above, and, all other things being equal, I would be glad to see them out of power.   But I imagine a lot of people living in the Middle East think it is better to live under a tyrant than to suffer foreign invasion, civil war and a society reduced to chaos.

The invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam empowered the Shiites, who are the majority of the people of Iraq.   Shiites also were an important part of the Northern Allliance, which helped overthrow the Taliban.  So the U.S. invasions of these two countries actually strengthened the position of the Iranian ayatollahs, who were part of George W. Bush’s so-called “Axis of Evil.”

In the same way, the overthrow of Libya’s Qaddafi and the arming of the rebels in Syria has strengthened al Qaeda, a long-time enemy of Qaddafi and Assad.

While the U.S. government supports the overthrow of governments that have nothing to do with al Qaeda, it maintains its alliance with Saudi Arabia, where al Qaeda is said to still have financial backers and whose government sponsors the fanatic, intolerant Wahhabist or Salafist sect of Islam, to which al Qaeda gives its allegiance..  The U.S. government may fire drone missiles into villages in Yemen, but for various reasons, including oil, it won’t touch Saudi Arabia.

Likewise, the U.S. government is allied to the government of Pakistan, whose Inter-Service Intelligence agency (its version of the CIA) was the original backer of the Taliban.  The U.S. may fire drone missiles into tribal areas of Pakistan, but it won’t and can’t go after Taliban backers in the ISI.

What to do?  As a first step, maybe we Americans should just stop intervening in the affairs of countries we don’t understand.