Lazare writes: "The Obama administration claims Syrian rebels in Ahrar
al-Sham deserve protection from government attack although they have close
ties to Al Qaeda and joined its official Syrian affiliate in a slaughter of
Alawites."
Syrians carry a wounded man after airstrikes hit the town of Duma in 2015.
(photo: Sameer Doumy/Getty Images)
US Downplays a New Syrian Massacre
By Daniel Lazare, Consortium News
21 May 16
The Obama administration claims Syrian rebels in Ahrar al-Sham deserve
protection from government attack although they have close ties to Al Qaeda
and joined its official Syrian affiliate in a slaughter of Alawites, writes
Daniel Lazare.
On May 12, at dawn, members of Al Nusra and an allied Syrian rebel group
known as Ahrar al-Sham stormed the Alawite village of Al-Zahraa, reportedly
killing 19 people and abducting 120 others. In typical Salafist fashion,
Ahrar al-Sham then posted a grisly YouTube video showing jihadis chanting
Allahu akbar God is great and pointing in triumph to a bloody female
body sprawled across the floor.
The incident, which occurred about 10 miles north of Aleppo, couldnt have
been more embarrassing for the United States since, just a day earlier, it
had blocked a Russian proposal to formally designate Ahrar al-Sham as a
terrorist group.
Under intense questioning, State Department spokesman John Kirby grew
visibly flustered as he struggled to defend US policy.
Im not going to get into internal deliberations one way or the other, he
said of the discussions among the 17 members of the International Syria
Support Group, the United Nations body in charge of Syrian peace talks in
Vienna. When a reporter from the Russia Today TV network demanded to know
why, he sputtered:
Im telling you look, youre putting I love how you do this, try to put
everything on the United States. The International Syria Support Group is
an international it represents the international community. Iran is a
member. Russia is a member. Saudi Arabia I could go on and on and on. All
of them collectively made this decision.
This was nonsense since it was the U.S. that led the charge against the
resolution to classify Ahrar al-Sham as terrorist and Russia that was forced
to back down. Kirby was simply dodging the issue. But if his inability to
take responsibility shows anything, it is how uncomfortable at least some
Washington officials have become with the Obama administrations Syrian
policy.
Obamas Quagmire
And its no wonder. Syria is Obamas Vietnam, a quagmire that grows messier
and messier the harder he tries to escape and Ahrar al-Sham shows why. One
of the largest rebel factions in Syria, the so-called Free Men of Syria,
began in 2011 as more or less an Al Qaeda spin-off with Mohamed Baheya, a
long-time aide to Osama bin Laden and his successor Ayman al-Zawahiri,
occupying one of the groups top spots. But for tactical reasons, it chose
to adopt a more moderate tone.
Last July, for instance, it published op-eds in the Washington Post and the
London Telegraph declaring that Syria should not be controlled by a single
party or group and that any future government should aim at striking
balance that respects the legitimate aspirations of the majority as well as
protects minority communities and enables them to play a real and positive
role in Syrias future.
It sounded reasonable enough, especially once Robert S. Ford, Obamas former
ambassador to Syria, followed up a few days later with an article for
Washingtons Middle East Institute arguing that Ahrar is worth dealing with
because it believes that religious minorities should be allowed to hold
low-level political positions provided they possess the right
qualifications.
Did the White House take its ex-ambassadors advice? The answer, all too
typically, was yes and no. Aware that the group opposes democratic self-rule
and believes in imposing sharia at gunpoint, Obama kept it at an arms
length. But at the same time he resisted pressure to classify it as
terrorist and made no objection when it joined forces with Al Nusra, Al
Qaedas official affiliate in Syria, to form a new coalition calling itself
Jaish al-Fatah, or Army of Conquest.
When Turkey and Saudi Arabia supplied the new alliance with U.S.-made TOW
missiles so it could launch a major offensive in Syrias northern Idlib
province in March 2015, the administration held its tongue as well. [See
Consortiumnews.coms Climbing into Bed with Al-Qaeda.]
It was a policy of neither-nor that allowed the administration to maintain
plausible deniability while doing nothing to ruffle the feathers of Ankara
or Riyadh as they cheered Ahrar al-Sham and Al Nusra on.
Besides, Turkey and Saudi Arabia had a point. However bigoted and
reactionary, Ahrar al-Sham was a large and effective force at a time when
secular rebels were increasingly rare. As long as the White House continued
to back regime change, it couldnt help collaborating with distasteful
groups that were nonetheless effective on the battlefield.
The result, as Kirbys dismal performance shows, has been to play down
atrocities, plead ignorance, and then, when that doesnt work, change the
subject to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad alleged misdeeds instead.
When asked about reports that Ahrar al-Sham militants were comingling with
Al Nusra which is to say fighting side by side with Al Qaeda State
Department spokesman Elizabeth Trudeau replied on May 11 that its very
difficult to tease that out because information is incomplete.
When asked who was to blame for the atrocities in Al-Zahraa, her colleague
Kirby refused to say two days later because we dont have a whole lot of
specific information about these attacks right now. Three days after that,
he was still reluctant to assign blame because, he said, the facts remained
up in the air: The only other thing I would say is regardless of who was
responsible for this attack, theres no excuse for killing innocent
civilians, none whatsoever.
Knowing Nothing
If the State Department was in no hurry to find out, it was because it
didnt want to know. We are working with all members of the ISSG, Kirby
went on, to use the appropriate amount of influence that they have
over
groups in Syria to get everybody to abide by the cessation.
If Ahrar al-Sham was guilty of mass murder and abduction, then the U.S.
would use its influence to see to it that its behavior was less
extreme.
Whats going on here? Is Ahrar al-Sham playing the U.S. for a fool? Or is
the Obama administration using such groups to advance its strategic goals?
The answer is a bit of both. The best way to understand bizarre behavior
like this is to see it in the context of a vast imperial breakdown that is
now unrolling across much of the Middle East.
Americas two main partners in the great Syrian misadventure are both in a
state of deepening crisis. Not only is Turkey lurching toward dictatorship
under an increasingly authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but its
economy is crashing as well. The Istanbul stock market fell eight percent
after Erdogan forced Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu out of office on May 5
while the Turkish lire fell nearly six percent in a single day. Corporate
bankruptcies are up, growth is down, and tourist income is falling amid
bombings and civil war in the Kurdish southeast.
But Americas other partner Saudi Arabia is even worse as it lurches
from one disaster to the next. The war in Yemen is costing the kingdom and
its Sunni Arab allies an estimated $200 million day, with the lions share
borne by Riyadh. This is money that the Saudis can ill afford given a budget
deficit projected to reach 13.5 percent of GDP this year due to an 18-month
slump in oil prices.
Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salmans Vision 2030, his grandiose
economic plan for weaning the kingdom off oil, is meeting with widespread
skepticism while the kingdom is so short of cash that it is considering
paying contractors with IOUs. When the Binladin Group, the kingdoms
largest construction company, laid off 50,000 foreign employees late last
month, workers responded by rioting and setting fire to seven company buses.
(Yes, Osama bin Laden was a member of the family that owns Binladin Group.)
Politically, the news is nothing short of ghastly. Under the late King
Abdullah, the kingdom rapidly descended into fear and paranoia as it sent
troops into neighboring Bahrain to crush democratic protests by the
countrys 70-percent Shiite majority and funneled billions of dollars to
anti-Assad rebels in hopes of toppling Syrias pro-Shiite government.
Saudi Extremism
But where Abdullah was actually a mild reformer, believe it or not, his
brother, Salman, who took over in January 2015, is a hardliner whose answer
to criticism by Western human rights groups was to step up the number of
public executions immediately after taking office and then doubling them
again in 2016. Salmans March 2015 agreement with Erdogan to supply Al
Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and other jihadist groups with TOW missiles was in
keeping with this increasingly xenophobic mindset.
It was the response of a beleaguered monarch convinced that Shiite
militants are pressing in on the kingdom from all sides and that the only
way to hold them off is by stepping up aid to Al Qaeda and other Sunni
extremists.
But such efforts have only added to the kingdoms woes. While Al Nusra and
Ahrar al-Sham were able to eke out a short-term victory in Syrias northern
Idlib province, the only effect was to bring Russia into the war and tip the
scales back in favor of Assad.
As a result, the Saudi kingdom now finds itself back on the defensive in
Syria as well as in Yemen where the war against Shiite Houthi rebels is
hopelessly stalled. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabias regional rival Iran is
rebuilding its ties to the world community after the April 2015 nuclear
accord with the U.S. The more the kingdom struggles to assert itself, the
more vulnerable its position grows.
Were the Saudi monarchy to fall, it might be replaced not by a group of
liberals and democrats but rather by Islamists and reactionaries, warned
Fareed Zakaria last month in the Washington Post. This is the nightmare that
causes policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic to wake up in a cold
sweat.
With oil prices off more than 50 percent from their peak in mid-2014, Saudi
Arabias vast oil fields are worth less and less. But the prospect of a
quarter of the worlds proven fossil-fuel reserves coming under the control
of Al Qaeda or ISIS (as Islamic State is also known) is still too much to
bear. So something anything must be done to maintain the status quo.
Buying Time
Thus, the administration dithers and stalls in the hope that a magic
solution will somehow appear. Obviously, Obama made a big mistake in August
2011 in calling on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. With Arab
Spring demonstrations erupting across the country and the Baathist regime
seemingly nearing a breaking point, it seemed like an easy call. But it
wasnt.
Five years later, Assad is still in power while Obama finds himself on the
hook to the Saudis, who want to see their bête noire toppled at all costs
and are therefore determined to hold the U.S. to its word. Obama cant
afford another war in the Middle East or a military showdown with Russia.
He also knows that the Free Syrian Army, Americas favorite rebel faction,
is a hollow shell no matter how much money and materiel the CIA sends its
way. So he finds himself cooperating in one way or another with dangerous
Sunni jihadists who, ideologically speaking, are no different from the
terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The upshot is a policy that makes no sense other than as a delaying tactic.
Obama bombs Al Nusra to show hes still serious about beating back Al Qaeda
but includes its inseparable ally, Ahrar al-Sham, among the non-terrorist
groups exempt from Syrian government attack under the terms of the May 5
Aleppo ceasefire agreement. [See Consortiumnews.coms The Secret Behind the
Yemen War.]
Obama condemns terrorism but maintains back-channel communications with
Ahrar al-Sham even though its nothing more than Al Qaeda-lite. He bombs
Islamic State to show that hes serious about combating ISIS but gives it a
free pass whenever it goes up against Assad. [See Consortiumnews.coms How
US-Backed War on Syria Helped ISIS.]
Obama calls for peace but refuses to condemn those responsible for
atrocities like those in Al-Zahraa. Finally, Obama calls for a negotiated
settlement but threatens to impose something called Plan B if Assad
doesnt step down. That mysterious escalation could mean dividing the
country along ethnic or religious lines, arming the rebels with portable
anti-aircraft weapons known as Manpads, or something else entirely.
In truth, Obama is just trying to keep the lid on until Jan. 20 when the
Syria mess becomes somebody elses problem. At that point, he may well wind
up on the Saudi payroll like Bill and Hillary Clinton or Tony Blair
assuming, that is, that the entity known as Saudi Arabia still exists.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Syrians carry a wounded man after airstrikes hit the town of Duma in 2015.
(photo: Sameer Doumy/Getty Images)
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/05/20/us-downplays-a-new-syrian-massacre/htt
ps://consortiumnews.com/2016/05/20/us-downplays-a-new-syrian-massacre/
US Downplays a New Syrian Massacre
By Daniel Lazare, Consortium News
21 May 16
The Obama administration claims Syrian rebels in Ahrar al-Sham deserve
protection from government attack although they have close ties to Al Qaeda
and joined its official Syrian affiliate in a slaughter of Alawites, writes
Daniel Lazare.
n May 12, at dawn, members of Al Nusra and an allied Syrian rebel group
known as Ahrar al-Sham stormed the Alawite village of Al-Zahraa, reportedly
killing 19 people and abducting 120 others. In typical Salafist fashion,
Ahrar al-Sham then posted a grisly YouTube video showing jihadis chanting
Allahu akbar God is great and pointing in triumph to a bloody female
body sprawled across the floor.
The incident, which occurred about 10 miles north of Aleppo, couldnt have
been more embarrassing for the United States since, just a day earlier, it
had blocked a Russian proposal to formally designate Ahrar al-Sham as a
terrorist group.
Under intense questioning, State Department spokesman John Kirby grew
visibly flustered as he struggled to defend US policy.
Im not going to get into internal deliberations one way or the other, he
said of the discussions among the 17 members of the International Syria
Support Group, the United Nations body in charge of Syrian peace talks in
Vienna. When a reporter from the Russia Today TV network demanded to know
why, he sputtered:
Im telling you look, youre putting I love how you do this, try to put
everything on the United States. The International Syria Support Group is an
international it represents the international community. Iran is a member.
Russia is a member. Saudi Arabia I could go on and on and on. All of them
collectively made this decision.
This was nonsense since it was the U.S. that led the charge against the
resolution to classify Ahrar al-Sham as terrorist and Russia that was forced
to back down. Kirby was simply dodging the issue. But if his inability to
take responsibility shows anything, it is how uncomfortable at least some
Washington officials have become with the Obama administrations Syrian
policy.
Obamas Quagmire
And its no wonder. Syria is Obamas Vietnam, a quagmire that grows messier
and messier the harder he tries to escape and Ahrar al-Sham shows why. One
of the largest rebel factions in Syria, the so-called Free Men of Syria,
began in 2011 as more or less an Al Qaeda spin-off with Mohamed Baheya, a
long-time aide to Osama bin Laden and his successor Ayman al-Zawahiri,
occupying one of the groups top spots. But for tactical reasons, it chose
to adopt a more moderate tone.
Last July, for instance, it published op-eds in the Washington Post and the
London Telegraph declaring that Syria should not be controlled by a single
party or group and that any future government should aim at striking
balance that respects the legitimate aspirations of the majority as well as
protects minority communities and enables them to play a real and positive
role in Syrias future.
It sounded reasonable enough, especially once Robert S. Ford, Obamas former
ambassador to Syria, followed up a few days later with an article for
Washingtons Middle East Institute arguing that Ahrar is worth dealing with
because it believes that religious minorities should be allowed to hold
low-level political positions provided they possess the right
qualifications.
Did the White House take its ex-ambassadors advice? The answer, all too
typically, was yes and no. Aware that the group opposes democratic self-rule
and believes in imposing sharia at gunpoint, Obama kept it at an arms
length. But at the same time he resisted pressure to classify it as
terrorist and made no objection when it joined forces with Al Nusra, Al
Qaedas official affiliate in Syria, to form a new coalition calling itself
Jaish al-Fatah, or Army of Conquest.
When Turkey and Saudi Arabia supplied the new alliance with U.S.-made TOW
missiles so it could launch a major offensive in Syrias northern Idlib
province in March 2015, the administration held its tongue as well. [See
Consortiumnews.coms Climbing into Bed with Al-Qaeda.]
It was a policy of neither-nor that allowed the administration to maintain
plausible deniability while doing nothing to ruffle the feathers of Ankara
or Riyadh as they cheered Ahrar al-Sham and Al Nusra on.
Besides, Turkey and Saudi Arabia had a point. However bigoted and
reactionary, Ahrar al-Sham was a large and effective force at a time when
secular rebels were increasingly rare. As long as the White House continued
to back regime change, it couldnt help collaborating with distasteful
groups that were nonetheless effective on the battlefield.
The result, as Kirbys dismal performance shows, has been to play down
atrocities, plead ignorance, and then, when that doesnt work, change the
subject to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad alleged misdeeds instead.
When asked about reports that Ahrar al-Sham militants were comingling with
Al Nusra which is to say fighting side by side with Al Qaeda State
Department spokesman Elizabeth Trudeau replied on May 11 that its very
difficult to tease that out because information is incomplete.
When asked who was to blame for the atrocities in Al-Zahraa, her colleague
Kirby refused to say two days later because we dont have a whole lot of
specific information about these attacks right now. Three days after that,
he was still reluctant to assign blame because, he said, the facts remained
up in the air: The only other thing I would say is regardless of who was
responsible for this attack, theres no excuse for killing innocent
civilians, none whatsoever.
Knowing Nothing
If the State Department was in no hurry to find out, it was because it
didnt want to know. We are working with all members of the ISSG, Kirby
went on, to use the appropriate amount of influence that they have
over
groups in Syria to get everybody to abide by the cessation.
If Ahrar al-Sham was guilty of mass murder and abduction, then the U.S.
would use its influence to see to it that its behavior was less
extreme.
Whats going on here? Is Ahrar al-Sham playing the U.S. for a fool? Or is
the Obama administration using such groups to advance its strategic goals?
The answer is a bit of both. The best way to understand bizarre behavior
like this is to see it in the context of a vast imperial breakdown that is
now unrolling across much of the Middle East.
Americas two main partners in the great Syrian misadventure are both in a
state of deepening crisis. Not only is Turkey lurching toward dictatorship
under an increasingly authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but its
economy is crashing as well. The Istanbul stock market fell eight percent
after Erdogan forced Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu out of office on May 5
while the Turkish lire fell nearly six percent in a single day. Corporate
bankruptcies are up, growth is down, and tourist income is falling amid
bombings and civil war in the Kurdish southeast.
But Americas other partner Saudi Arabia is even worse as it lurches
from one disaster to the next. The war in Yemen is costing the kingdom and
its Sunni Arab allies an estimated $200 million day, with the lions share
borne by Riyadh. This is money that the Saudis can ill afford given a budget
deficit projected to reach 13.5 percent of GDP this year due to an 18-month
slump in oil prices.
Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salmans Vision 2030, his grandiose
economic plan for weaning the kingdom off oil, is meeting with widespread
skepticism while the kingdom is so short of cash that it is considering
paying contractors with IOUs. When the Binladin Group, the kingdoms
largest construction company, laid off 50,000 foreign employees late last
month, workers responded by rioting and setting fire to seven company buses.
(Yes, Osama bin Laden was a member of the family that owns Binladin Group.)
Politically, the news is nothing short of ghastly. Under the late King
Abdullah, the kingdom rapidly descended into fear and paranoia as it sent
troops into neighboring Bahrain to crush democratic protests by the
countrys 70-percent Shiite majority and funneled billions of dollars to
anti-Assad rebels in hopes of toppling Syrias pro-Shiite government.
Saudi Extremism
But where Abdullah was actually a mild reformer, believe it or not, his
brother, Salman, who took over in January 2015, is a hardliner whose answer
to criticism by Western human rights groups was to step up the number of
public executions immediately after taking office and then doubling them
again in 2016. Salmans March 2015 agreement with Erdogan to supply Al
Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and other jihadist groups with TOW missiles was in
keeping with this increasingly xenophobic mindset.
It was the response of a beleaguered monarch convinced that Shiite
militants are pressing in on the kingdom from all sides and that the only
way to hold them off is by stepping up aid to Al Qaeda and other Sunni
extremists.
But such efforts have only added to the kingdoms woes. While Al Nusra and
Ahrar al-Sham were able to eke out a short-term victory in Syrias northern
Idlib province, the only effect was to bring Russia into the war and tip the
scales back in favor of Assad.
As a result, the Saudi kingdom now finds itself back on the defensive in
Syria as well as in Yemen where the war against Shiite Houthi rebels is
hopelessly stalled. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabias regional rival Iran is
rebuilding its ties to the world community after the April 2015 nuclear
accord with the U.S. The more the kingdom struggles to assert itself, the
more vulnerable its position grows.
Were the Saudi monarchy to fall, it might be replaced not by a group of
liberals and democrats but rather by Islamists and reactionaries, warned
Fareed Zakaria last month in the Washington Post. This is the nightmare that
causes policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic to wake up in a cold
sweat.
With oil prices off more than 50 percent from their peak in mid-2014, Saudi
Arabias vast oil fields are worth less and less. But the prospect of a
quarter of the worlds proven fossil-fuel reserves coming under the control
of Al Qaeda or ISIS (as Islamic State is also known) is still too much to
bear. So something anything must be done to maintain the status quo.
Buying Time
Thus, the administration dithers and stalls in the hope that a magic
solution will somehow appear. Obviously, Obama made a big mistake in August
2011 in calling on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. With Arab
Spring demonstrations erupting across the country and the Baathist regime
seemingly nearing a breaking point, it seemed like an easy call. But it
wasnt.
Five years later, Assad is still in power while Obama finds himself on the
hook to the Saudis, who want to see their bête noire toppled at all costs
and are therefore determined to hold the U.S. to its word. Obama cant
afford another war in the Middle East or a military showdown with Russia.
He also knows that the Free Syrian Army, Americas favorite rebel faction,
is a hollow shell no matter how much money and materiel the CIA sends its
way. So he finds himself cooperating in one way or another with dangerous
Sunni jihadists who, ideologically speaking, are no different from the
terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The upshot is a policy that makes no sense other than as a delaying tactic.
Obama bombs Al Nusra to show hes still serious about beating back Al Qaeda
but includes its inseparable ally, Ahrar al-Sham, among the non-terrorist
groups exempt from Syrian government attack under the terms of the May 5
Aleppo ceasefire agreement. [See Consortiumnews.coms The Secret Behind the
Yemen War.]
Obama condemns terrorism but maintains back-channel communications with
Ahrar al-Sham even though its nothing more than Al Qaeda-lite. He bombs
Islamic State to show that hes serious about combating ISIS but gives it a
free pass whenever it goes up against Assad. [See Consortiumnews.coms How
US-Backed War on Syria Helped ISIS.]
Obama calls for peace but refuses to condemn those responsible for
atrocities like those in Al-Zahraa. Finally, Obama calls for a negotiated
settlement but threatens to impose something called Plan B if Assad
doesnt step down. That mysterious escalation could mean dividing the
country along ethnic or religious lines, arming the rebels with portable
anti-aircraft weapons known as Manpads, or something else entirely.
In truth, Obama is just trying to keep the lid on until Jan. 20 when the
Syria mess becomes somebody elses problem. At that point, he may well wind
up on the Saudi payroll like Bill and Hillary Clinton or Tony Blair
assuming, that is, that the entity known as Saudi Arabia still exists.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
