tonight, I want to speak to you about the United States will do with our
friends and allies to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL [1].
His declaration of "War" is too diabolical to withstand parody. Obama conflates the waging of war against ISIS and assisting the rebels opposing Bashir Al-Assad. An assessment of the geopolitical landscape shows Obama's conflation is a deliberate obfuscation, giving him the political cover to use the pretext of fighting ISIS while focusing on his objective of overthrowing Assad.
The current obsession with ISIS overshadows all other factors contributing to the constant bloodshed in the region. This ISIS threat claims American's attention, diverting critical focus away from the fact that the U.S. has identifed Syria as one of several nations needing regime change. For example, during a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Senator Lindsey Graham comments to General Dempsey:
Graham's reference to the FSA's expedient courting of ISIS implies his primary objective is the overthrow of Assad. What empirical evidence can Senator Graham cite that shows the FSA has thoroughly repudiated ISIS as a legitimate ally in opposing Assad? Instead, he resorts to ad hoc fallacies by infusing a special meaning to the word "embrace." I guess the FSA can cooperate but not "embrace" ISIS?????? Graham's tacit justification of ISIS being used to assist with overthrowing Assad exposes the constant cognitive dissonance of U.S. foreign policy.SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA, MEMBER OF ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Do you know any major Arab ally that embraces ISIL?GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: I know major Arab allies who fund them.GRAHAM: Yeah, but do they embrace them? They fund them because the Free Syrian Army couldn’t fight Assad. They were trying to beat Assad. I think they realized the folly of their ways. [2].
This cognitive dissonance results from the U.S. using regime change as an objective of its foreign policy. General Wesley Clark provides a vivid and surreal example of this regime change obsession when he states in an interview conducted in 2007 with Amy Goodman during an episode of her show Democracy Now that:
He-another general who worked with General Clark on the Joint Staff-picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!” [3].
Subsequent actions taken lend some credulity to General Clark's anecdotal conversation with a former colleague. These subsequent actions involved the U.S. supporting foreign mercenaries to execute their desired regime changes. These mercenaries themselves become graver threats to the greater humanity than the regimes they seek to overthrow. Regardless how grave these threats become, the U.S. reasserts its regime-change obsession. Thus, the U.S. cognitive dissonance manifests itself in the U.S. resorting to distorting language in order to apply terms like "moderate" to groups fighting alongside the Syria's al-Qua'ida affiliate, the Nusra-Front. [4].
Someone who believes the U.S. is an indispensable nation could imagine hordes of "moderates" just waiting for a sufficient amount of support, enabling their multitasking skills needed to overthrow Assad and repelling ISIS, ISIL, IS etc. Those of us who acknowledge reality observe that even omnipotent empires like the U.S. encounter limitations. The "New York Times" reports the limited success of the U.S. and its allies supporting "moderate" groups in Syria:
American involvement with the rebels so far has largely been through so-called operations rooms in Jordan and Turkey staffed by intelligence officials from the United States and other countries that have provided arms to limited numbers of vetted rebels. So far, the support provided has included light arms, ammunition and antitank missiles, which have helped the groups destroy government armor but have not resulted in major rebel advances or helped control the spread of ISIS. [5].
Some of you who romanticize that the "indispensable nation" may fear that our leaders may acknowledge reality and see its benevolence is just a fraudulent facade. Fear not, President Obama expresses his commitment to your myopia in his recent address to the nation on September 10, 2014:
Across the border, in Syria, we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition. Tonight, I again call on Congress to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters. In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its people; a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all. [6].
Assad lost his legitimacy? Of course he did after he launched a sarin gas attack against his people in 2013. Putative voices-John Kerry-of whom no one should question assured us that Assad was responsible for the sarin gas attack. Their pathos should mute any doubts about who or what actually authorized the sarin gas attack. Right? Except, however, that MIT performed a detailed study using laws of physics rather than pathos to cast doubt on Assad as the culprit. [7]. In addition to the Obama administration ignoring facts to determine who actually unleashed sarin, they have reassessed over the last month the reliability of the "syrian opposition."
Just last month Obama informed Thomas Friedman that supporting moderate opposition groups in Syria has:
always been a fantasy. This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards. [8].
That was then...this is now. So just a month later Obama's address to the nation infers he believes in fantasy. But, regardless of Obama's sudden reappraisal of the need to support the "moderates" in Syria, one critical question should be integral to any discussions about U.S. policy toward Syria. Has the U.S. objectives in Syria underwent any significant changes within the last decade or so? Other events occurring before both the insurgency began in Syria during 2011 and the ISIS contagion show the U.S. sees Assad as an incorrigible dictator, holding no pretense of legitimate power. One important event was Wikileaks posting copies of U.S. diplomatic cables wherein the U.S. State Department disclosed its funding of Syrian opposition, which began in 2005 and continued to at least September 2010. [9]. The contents within these diplomatic cables adds flesh to General Clark's impromptu conversation mentioned above. But, public discussions usually focus on current tragedies such as daily beheadings. This shortsightedness allows Obama and his large echo chamber in the media and the government to engage in semantic flexibility to speak of "moderates" who are uniquely positioned to oppose Assad and ISIS.
The U.S. State Department in 2011 issued an official Press Statement proclaiming two major factor stopping the Syrian masses march toward democracy: Assad's oppression and their democratic movement being co-opted by an opportunistic al-Qa'ida:
By opting for the use of force against its own people, the Asad regime has created the circumstances that attract the violent extremists of al Qa’ida, who seek to exploit civil strife for their own purposes. The sooner the political transition to a post-Assad Syria begins, the better it will be for the Syrian people and the region. [10].
The State Department here made a questionable causal argument by stating Asad's use of force against his people caused popular anger, creating moral and political cover that al-Qa'ida exploited to promote its own jihadist agenda. Reality, though, undermines this narrative. The aforementioned U.S. State Department Press Statement was made by a neocon queen Victoria Nuland. Once again the pathos of these regime changers warrant our questioning their commitment to serving humanity. Nuland's advocacy of regime change under false pretenses is heard in her now infamous phone conversation with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine during which she directed an expletive toward the E.U. (transcript http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957). Nuland's stating "The sooner the poltiical transition to a post-Assad Syria beings...." suggests Assad's downfall is a fait accompli. Nuland serving in the U.S. State Department presupposes preferences for diplomacy. But, the major media outlets refuse to waste time analyzing possible diplomatic solutions. Instead, they prefer to condition everyone to accepting a deposed Assad as a precondition for Syria developing viable democratic institutions.
Many major media outlets serve as propaganda purveyors for the state that promote a narrative of Syria that Assad's overthrow is both inevitable and justifiable. Many analyses offer varying explanations of the circumstances under which Assad's regime will end, but they all concur that its downfall is inevitable. Former U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross wrote in an op-ed published in "USA Today" that: "It is time to raise the status of the Syrian National Council" because it could "create an aura of inevitability about the SNC as the alternative to Assad. [11]. Another establishment voice, Ed Hussain, Adjunct Senior Fellow of Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, states that Assad's resilience shown thus far in defending his regime from overthrow, too many destabilizing factors will eventually deliver the death knell to it:
In the long term, it's inevitable that President Bashar al-Assad will fall in one way or another. He can't hold onto power while most governments and people in the region and most actors in the international community are piled against him. The power balance inside Syria, due to the the sectarianism, the presence of al-Qaeda fighters, the support Syria gets from Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, and, to some extent, even Iraq, will probably allow Assad to hold on to power in the short term. But in the long term, he cannot remain in power with an ongoing domestic military resistance, sectarian distrust, a hostile region, and global isolation pitted against him. [12].
Marwan Muasher, Vice President for Studies at the foreign policy establishment's other stalwart, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, continues this viral meme of "inevitability" during an interview wherein he offers his insight on the prospects for resolving the Syrian conflict:
Unfortunately, the more armed the opposition is, the more difficult it is going to be for reconciliatory steps to be taken later on, after, I think, the regime changes.And in my opinion, the regime will change; it will be a matter of when, rather than if it will change.[13].
Many voices in the media and the foreign policy establishment avoid weighing other causal factors contributing to this conflict, including the U.S. conceiving regime change as an integral component of its foreign policy aims, the supporting of foreign opposition such as al Quaeda's-offshoot the FSA, the practice of speciously accusing Assad's regime of attacking opposition with sarin gas. Their ignoring these factors more easily allows their repeating the mantra of "inevitability," Hopefully the U.S. public's consciousness will shift sufficiently so that it pressures the power elites to abandon its pathologically dual obsessions of regime change and its belief in better living through bombing.
[1]. "Remarks of President Barack Obama Address to the Nation September 10, 2014. Copy of speech read on "The Wire: What Matters Now." http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/09/watch-obama-isil-speech-live/380010/
[2]. Washington's Blog. "Top U.S. Military Official: Our Arab 'Allies' Support ISIS: Member of Senate Armed Services Committee Agrees. Global Research September 17, 2014. http://www.globalresearch.ca/top-u-s-military-official-our-arab-allies-support-isis/5402441
[4]. Paul Joseph Watson. "Obama Plans to 'Fight ISIS by Arming ISIS: so called 'moderate' Syrian rebels are openly aligned with Islamic State militants." Propaganda Matrix. September 10, 2014. http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/september2014/100914_obama_plans.htm
[5]. Ben Hubbard, Eric Schmitt, and Mark Mazetti. "U.S. Pins Hopes on Syrian Rebels With Loyalties All Over the Lap." The New York Times. September, 11, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/world/middleeast/us-pins-hope-on-syrian-rebels-with-loyalties-all-over-the-map.html?_r=0
[6]. Ibid. Obama's Address.
[7]. Richard Lloyd and Theodore A. Postol. "Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence in the Damascus Nerve Agent Attack of August 21, 2013." MIT Science, Technology , and Global Security Working Group. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1006045-possible-implications-of-bad-intelligence.html
[8]. Friedman, Thomas. "Obama on the World: President Obama Talks to Thomas L. Friedman About Iraq, Putin, and Israel."Aug. 08, 2014. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/opinion/president-obama-thomas-l-friedman-iraq-and-world-affairs.html?_r=0
[9]. Whitlock, Craig. "U.S. secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by Wikileaks show." Washington Post. April 17, 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretly-backed-syrian-opposition-groups-cables-released-by-wikileaks-show/2011/04/14/AF1p9hwD_story.html
[10]. Nuland, Victoria. Department Spokesman, Office of the Spokesperson. Press Statement. "Terrorist Designations of the al-Nusra Front as an Alias for al-Qua'ida in Iraq." December 11, 2012. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/12/201759.htm
[11]. Skelton, Charlie. "The Syrian opposition: who's doing the talking?" the guardian. July 12, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-doing-the-talking
[12]. Husain, Ed. "Syria's Regime Change Challenge." interview conducted by Bernard Gwertzman. Council on Foreign Relations. February 05, 2013. http://www.cfr.org/syria/syrias-regime-change-challenge/p29921
[13]. Voenno-Promyshlennyi Kurier, op-ed. "The Fall of Bashar al-Asad's Regime is Inevitable." interview with Marwan Muasher conducted Natalia Bubnova. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. February 29, 2012. http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/02/29/fall-of-bashar-al-assad-s-regime-is-inevitable
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