Truthdig
Is It Our Goal to Prolong the Syrian War?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/is_us_policy_to_prolong_the_syrian_war_2
0170407/
Posted on Apr 7, 2017
By Sam Husseini
(http://husseini.posthaven.com/is-us-policy-to-prolong-the-syrian-war)
Destroyed tanks in front of a mosque in Azaz, Syria, in August 2012.
(Christiaan Triebert / CC 2.0
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/christiaantriebert/7955551210/) )
Many are claiming that Trump is being inconsistent in illegally attacking
the Syrian regime with cruise missiles.
After all, he had been saying the U.S. should focus on defeating ISIS, and
now he seems to be going after Assad. But contradictions from Trump are a
dime a dozen.
A closer examination shows a deeper pattern of remarkable consistency in
U.S. policy toward Syria that is far more critical than the perennial
contradictions of politicians like Trump.
To summarize U.S. actions and non-actions in terms of direct publicly
announced U.S. air attacks targeting the Syrian regime: In 2013, when Assad
was losing the war, Obama refrained from strikes that may well have ended
his regime. Now, four years later, when Assad seems close to winning the
war, Trump with a revamped NSC does a 180 on his previous pronouncements and
attacks Assad.
Push away the personalities. Dispense with the rhetoric. Free yourself from
the spin cycle that much of the media obsess over. Just follow the policy.
The evidence is that the underlying U.S. policy-whether the president is
Obama or Trump-is to prolong the Syrian war as much as possible. Let Assad
off the hook when he's cornered, hit him when he's about to win.
This would not at all be unprecedented. Through the 1980s, the U.S. backed
both sides in the Iran-Iraq War, which resulted in horrific carnage. See
Dahlia Wasfi's piece from 2015-"Battling ISIS: Iran-Iraq war redux
(http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/battling-isis-iran-iraq-war-redux-1538
117706) "-which argued that "Obama's unofficial strategy to fight ISIS may
be that of Reagan's for Iran and Iraq in the 1980s: a long, drawn-out war to
strengthen U.S.-Israeli hegemony in the region."
Since the Arab uprisings of 2011, we've seen a series of actions by the U.S.
government and its allies and clients-from Israel and Saudi Arabia in
particular-to ensure the destruction of secular, at times independent Arab
governments.
Many obsess over "double standards" and apparent contradictions by Trump,
Obama, Clinton and other political figures. But much of this analysis
presumes that these political figures have stated what their actual goals
are.
But a president can't come forward and publicly say that the goal is the
continuation of the war in Syria. That would be to embrace the carnage and
suffering that the policy causes. The president can't just say we're in
cahoots with the authoritarian Israeli and Saudi regimes to keep countries
like Iraq, Syria and Libya in turmoil.
So, politicians claim they are acting to save human life or to stop weapons
proliferation or whatever their pretext is. Then, because it's not their
actual reasons, people see what seem like contractions: "They don't know
what they're doing!" "He's such an idiot!" But they are not really
contradictions, they just highlight that the stated goals are not the actual
goals.
Except at times. Trump did say in a high profile debate
(http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/09/16/cnn-reagan-library-debate-late
r-debate-full-transcript/) in September, 2015: "ISIS wants to fight Syria.
Why are we fighting ISIS in Syria? Let them fight each other and pick up the
remnants."
And this gruesome notion is occasionally brought up in the establishment
media in more polite terms. In 2013, the New York Times reported on
(http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/world/middleeast/israel-backs-limited-str
ike-against-syria.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) how Israel viewed the prospect
of Obama bombing Assad's forces:
Israelis have increasingly argued that the best outcome for Syria's
two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, at least for the moment, is no outcome.
[For the Israeli government], the status quo, horrific as it may be from a
humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory by Mr.
Assad's government and his Iranian backers or a strengthening of rebel
groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni jihadis.
"This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at
least you don't want one to win-we'll settle for a tie," said Alon Pinkas, a
former Israeli consul general in New York. "Let them both bleed, hemorrhage
to death: that's the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers,
there's no real threat from Syria."
The synergy between the Israeli and American positions, while not explicitly
articulated by the leaders of either country, could be a critical source of
support as Mr. Obama seeks Congressional approval for surgical strikes in
Syria.
This notion comes up
(http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/syriasource/syria-the-imperative-of-pr
otecting-civilians) occasionally
(http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/world/middleeast/obamas-uncertain-path-am
id-syria-bloodshed.html) .
It's often claimed that "regime change" is the goal of the U.S., including
by presumed critics of it
(https://husseini.posthaven.com/crosstalk-lives-up-to-its-name) . But that
might be too simple of an explanation. After all, the U.S. government
sometimes claims this is its goal. At times the goal may well be not "regime
change" but No Regime.
Perhaps the U.S. establishments would like subservient leaders in Syria and
Iraq and Libya. But these are significant counties with population, some
resources and some capacity for independence. This is in contrast with Gulf
sheikdoms and other monarchies like Jordan which are effectively client
states of the U.S.
So, if permanent subservience is not possible, then a crippled country, with
the possibility of dismemberment, is a fairly good option for those intent
on ensuring U.S.-Israel-Saudi dominance of the region. At least for the time
being.
Keep the fighting, keep the bleeding. Keep the people of the Mideast divided
and fighting while the U.S. establishment solidifies its plans on how it
will "pick up the remnants."
The phrase "Deep State" has been in vogue of late, as if it's an entity that
Donald Trump were out to undo even as he empowers it. But what does that
really mean? A bureaucracy, perhaps. But more than anything, I think it's an
articulation of policy that the U.S. government pursues that dare not speak
its name.
Sam Husseini is founder of VotePact.org (http://www.votepact.org/) , which
works for left-right cooperation. He is also communications director of the
Institute for Public Accuracy.
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