‘Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. What could the possible outcome regarding the Syrian Civil War be? Does the US really want Russia to be part of a negotiated settlement? Is the Syrian opposition becoming more dangerous to the US and its allies? CrossTalking with Ariel Cohen and Nabil Mikhail (15 May 2013)’.
‘U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Afghanistan where he and President Hamid Karzai discussed efforts to bring the Taliban into reconciliation talks. VOA State Department Correspondent Scott Stearns reports from Kabul that the previously unannounced visit follows agreement on the U.S. handover of its last Afghan prisoners.Karzai discussed efforts to bring the Taliban into reconciliation talks. The previously unannounced visit follows agreement on the U.S. handover of its last Afghan prisoners. Scott Stearns reports from Kabul (25 March 2013)’ .
‘It has been 10 years since the US-led invasion of Iraq, which marked a turning point in the West’s so-called war on terror. The pretext of the Iraq war was security and freedom, but the bombastic and openly pronounced objective was no less than remaking the greater Middle East region. For the US, Iraq became a quagmire and a humiliation – a strategic and moral failure that the country has spent the last four years trying to forget. But how much has America’s calculus of war really changed? And as Africa becomes the new frontline in the ‘war on terror’, have the Europeans learnt from America’s mistakes? Empire explores the merits, objectives, costs and morality of these wars with our guests: John Nagl, a retired Lieutenant Colonel who co-authored the US army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual; Jean Marie Guehenno, the director of the Center of International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University, and former United Nations under secretary general for Peacekeeping Operations; Barbara Bodine, a professor at Princeton University and a former US Ambassador to the Republic of Yemen who also served with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq; and Christopher Hedges, a senior fellow at The Nation Institute, former New York Times Middle East bureau chief, and author of several books, including War is a Force That Gives us Meaning and Empire of Illusion’ .
On Sunday, 20 January, the news agency Reuters reports that a ‘senior aide to Iran’s supreme leader warned against the overthrow of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, saying his fate was a “red line”, in one of the Islamic state’s strongest messages of support for the Damascus government. Iran has steadfastly backed Assad’s rule since an uprising against his rule began almost two years ago and regards him as an important part of the axis of opposition against arch-foe Israel’.[1] Following President Obama’s much-publicised declaration that Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his adversaries would constitute a red line, now finally, President Assad’s only regional allies have come out with their own declaration. Speaking on Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen satellite television, Ali Akbar Velayati, who could very well be Ahmadinejad’s successor in June, declared the following: “If the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is toppled, the line of resistance in the face of Israel will be broken . . . We believe that there should be reforms emanating from the will of the Syrian people, but without resorting to violence and obtaining assistance from the (United States of) America”.[2]
It is assumed that about 60,000 people have perished in Syria as a result of the violent opposition to the Assad regime, which the mainstream media are at pains to portray as yet another chapter in the ongoing saga of the Arab Awakening. As I pointed out in a piece published in Hürriyet Daily News, it would even be foolhardy to regard these uprisings across the wider Arab world as spontaneous emanations of any popular will.[3] Even so, it seems to me that the situation in Syria is in many ways similar to the violent “Assisted Rebellion” in Libya, as an orchestrated uprising that could be seen as a proxy-conflict in the New Cold War between the U.S., its NATO allies and the up and coming superpowers of Russia and China, while at the same also targeting the Islamic Republic of Iran.[4]
At the same time, Turkey, that appears to have been part of the Syrian conflict since the very beginning,[5] is now in the process of receiving the promised Patriot missiles to “protect” its borders against Syrian incursions: ‘Germany has sent 240 soldiers to southern Turkey as part of a NATO mission using Patriot missiles to deter cross-border airstrikes from war-torn Syria. Units are also being provided by the Netherlands and the US. The main German contingent flew out of Berlin Sunday [, 20 January], headed for Kahramanmaras, 100 kilometers (62 miles) inside Turkey’s border with Syria, where two German Patriot units are to be fully operational by early February [2013]. An advance Bundeswehr team is already on site and the missiles with launch equipment arrived by ship in Turkey on Monday [, 21 January]. The deployment will number some 350 German soldiers, including medics’, as reported by the Deutsche Welle.[6] Using a somewhat warped form of logic, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere explains that these Patriot missiles are supposed to produce a “deescalating effect” on the Assad regime. The Minister explained further that “We learnt during the Cold War that deterrence can only function when in doubtful moments one is ready to use the weapons . . . Should Syrian rockets be fired at Turkey then NATO will use the Patriot missiles”.[7]
[1] “Assad’s overthrow “red line” for Iran: supreme leader’s aide” Reuters (20 Jan 2013). http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/20/us-syria-crisis-iran-idUSBRE90J08320130120.
[2] “Assad’s overthrow “red line” for Iran: supreme leader’s aide”.
[3] Cfr. C. Erimtan, “Behind the scenes of Egypt’s revolution”. http://tiny.cc/fz7tf.
[4] Cfr. C. Erimtan, “The Arab Awakening and the never-ending Cold War”. http://tiny.cc/p7q3b.
[5] Cfr. “Op-Ed: The Road to Intervention in Syria” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (06 June 2012). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/op-ed-the-road-to-intervention-in-syria/.
[6] “German Patriot missile troops arrive in Turkey” Deutsche Welle (21 Jan 2013). http://www.dw.de/german-patriot-missile-troops-arrive-inturkey/a-16536356.
[7] “German Patriot missile troops arrive in Turkey”.
Many people in Turkey accuse the country’s charismatic prime minister of being America’s lapdog . . . and his personal relationship with the U.S. President appears to be cordial and close. The recent attacks on Turkey have now catapulted Turkey into the front seat. War sables are being rattled, while the U.S. appears to be looking on from afar. Now there are numerous voices claiming that Tayyip Erdoğan is readying Turkey’s Armed Forces to publicly intervene in Syria, acting as a proxy-army for the Obama White House. Is Erdoğan now really doing Washington’s dirty work or will he and the West wait till after the November elections to actively removed Assad from power??? On the other hand, Turkey and the U.S. have been supporting the so-called Free Syrian Army since April 2011.[1]
On Monday, Iran’s English-language propaganda broadcaster aired this analysis: ‘Prime Minister Erdoğan of Turkey has told his country to prepare for war against Syria relying on an unproven shelling that landed in Turkey from Syrian territory. The Turkish military has fired mortar shells into Syria for the fourth day in a row after a number of projectiles slammed into the southern border province of Hatay. Press TV has interviewed Michael Chossudovsky, Center for Research on Globalization, Montreal about the recent steps Turkey has taken and how the plan for NATO involvement inside Syria may unfold (8 Oct 2012).
Professor Chossudovsky’s words may very well be persuasive and insightful, but his assertion that Turkey has designs on Syrian territory seems nothing but far-fetched. On the other hand, it does sound good whether true or not. In the New York Times, then, Rick Gladstone posits that “Syria escalated tensions with Turkey on Monday [, 8 Oct.], accusing its neighbor and former friend of imperialist delusions reminiscent of Ottoman dynastic rule, as Syrian Army gunners exchanged artillery blasts with their Turkish counterparts across the border for the sixth consecutive day”.[ii] Now, who is firing into Turkey??? Assad’s army, the FSA, or some as-yet unknown third party???
The vocal anti-NATO activist Rick Rozoff, for his part, opines that Turkey, “[h]aving shelled targets inside Syria daily for a week after a mortar shell landed inside its southeastern territory on October 3, which Ankara blamed on the Syrian military, the Turkish armed forces have again, as they did two months ago, moved tanks, armored personnel carriers, missile defenses and troops to the border and have deployed 25 warplanes to a base in Diyarbakır in the Kurdish region of the country, both actions allegedly targeting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) though in fact part of a general military mobilization that will not be limited to strikes against that group’s fighters and supporters. Turkey’s Doğan News Agency reported that 25 F-16 fighter jets and other aircraft arrived at the air base on October 8 and Today’s Zaman announced that 12 F-16s struck what were identified as PKK sites on Mount Qandil on the Iraqi-Iranian border. The following day Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh denounced the violation of his nation’s sovereignty, stating “These Turkish attacks on Iraqi territories are not acceptable and we will take the necessary diplomatic measures” and adding, “We do understand the reasons behind such acts, yet we do not tolerate such breaches.” Recently the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Iraqi parliament announced its intention to demand Turkish military forces leave the north of the country where committee member Safia al-Suhail stated there were 16 Turkish military bases inside Iraq near the two countries’ border. Revealingly, on October 8 Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki arrived in Moscow where he visited the foreign ministry and will meet with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to discuss closer ties in the military and energy spheres”.[3]
Curiouser and curiouser, and the plot thickens. The PKK has been stepping up its violent campaign of late,[4] and Turkey’s Armed Forces are always keen to kill PKK terrorists . . . and sixteen military bases on Iraqi soil sounds like a definite attempt to deal a deadly blow to the terror network, operating with impunity from within the KRG’s borders. At the same time, the KRG also appears to function as a transit road for fighters willing to engage the Syrian army. Whereas, Maliki’s Moscow visit seems to foreshadow the opening move of another game of alliance-building – Russia, China, Iran, and now Iraq too. The projected and now defunct Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline would have been detrimental for the Gazprom Nation, but its age-old ties with Syria seem to have led the way to accommodating strange bedfellows. Rozoff continues: “Ahead of a two-day meeting of NATO defense chiefs, including the Pentagon’s Leon Panetta, to convene on October 9, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen proclaimed “I can assure you we have all necessary plans in place to defend and protect Turkey, our ally.” On the same day Turkey’s head of state, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, threatened: “The state that is not ready for war at any moment is not fully developed. Turkey must be ready for war in any case.” Hürriyet Daily News cited an unnamed Turkish official as confirming that NATO “was active on the issue [of escalating military conflict with Syria] behind the scenes,” with his comments paraphrased as follows: “NATO has increased its military presence in the region with vessels patrolling in the Mediterranean Sea under Operation Active Endeavor and routine flights heading to its operations to Afghanistan, but these moves were not announced officially to avoid a reaction.” Last week, only hours before the shelling incident that has provided Turkey the occasion for authorizing ongoing military attacks inside Syria, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told reporters in Moscow that his country had warned NATO and its allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) against conspiring to manufacture pretexts for military intervention inside Syria such as demanding so-called humanitarian corridors or buffer zones inside the latter nation and launching armed provocations on the Turkish-Syrian border. He said, “In our contacts with our partners both in NATO and in the region, including on international forums, we have called on them not to look for pretexts in order to carry out a [military] operation.” The next day just such an incident occurred. [In early] October Ali Akbar Velayati, former Iranian foreign minister and current senior adviser to Ali Khamenei, accused NATO of laying the groundwork for war against Syria, stating, “Today, NATO is ready to issue a threat against Syria and intends to enter Syria under the pretext that one of the members of this organization [Turkey] has been threatened.” Turkish is harboring, arming and training thousands of so-called Free Syrian Army forces while conducting major air strikes inside Iraq and near the Iranian border and massing troops and military hardware on the Syrian border in a campaign to exterminate the PKK, a lawless rampage fully supported by the U.S. and NATO”.[5]
[1] Cfr. “Op-Ed: The Road to Intervention in Syria” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (06 June 2012). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/op-ed-the-road-to-intervention-in-syria/; “Exclusive: Turkey’s Central Role in Syria’s Civil War” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (30 June 2012). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/exclusive-turkeys-central-role-in-syrias-civil-war/.
[2] Rick Gladstone, “Syria Rebukes Turkey as Artillery Fight Continues” The New York Times (08 October 2012). http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/world/middleeast/syria-turkey.html?_r=0.
[3] “Turkey Plotting NATO Attack on Syria by Rick Rozoff” Dandelion Salad (09 Oct 2012). http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/turkey-plotting-nato-attack-on-syria-by-rick-rozoff/.
[4] Cfr. “Turkey and Syria, as Seen by Iran” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (09 September 2012). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/turkey-and-syria-as-seen-by-iran/.
[5] “Turkey Plotting NATO Attack on Syria by Rick Rozoff”.
During a press conference with the Kazakh Foreign Minister Yerlan Idrissov, on Wednesday, 3 Oct 2012, the U.S. Secretary of State made the following remarks on Syria’s possibly accidental bomb attack on Turkey: “With respect to what happened on the Turkey-Syria border, we are outraged that the Syrians have been shooting across the border. We are very regretful about the loss of life that has occurred on the Turkish side. We are working with our Turkish friends. I will be speaking with the Foreign Minister later to discuss what the best way forward would be. But this also comes down to a regime that is causing untold suffering to its own people, solely driven by their desire to stay in power, aided and abetted by nations like Iran that are standing firmly beside the Assad regime regardless of the damage, the loss of life, the violence that is happening both inside of Syria and now increasingly across Syria’s borders with their neighbors. It’s a very, very dangerous situation. And all responsible nations need to band together to persuade the Assad regime to have a ceasefire, quit assaulting their own people, and begin the process of a political transition. So this is an issue that we are seized with and deeply concerned by and will continue working on”.[1]
[1] “Remarks With Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Yerlan Idrissov After Their Meeting” U.S. Department of State (03 Oct 2012). http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/10/198635.htm.
Last night, a house in the small Turkish border town of Akçakale was hit by a missile from Syria . . .
In spite of the warlike talk in the above CNN clip, Turkey is not quite ready to enter the war directly in spite of having shelled Syrian positions all throughout the night. On another note, Turkey has been supporting the Syrian insurrection behind the scenes. The U.S. and Turkey have been employing the U.S. Air Force Base in İncirlik as a centre for supporting and arming the anti-Assad forces. The CIA has also been active in the area for months, as was admitted in the pages of the New York Times some time ago. Turkey’s other ally, Saudi Arabia, in conjunction with Qatar, has been quite active in its efforts to remove an Arab regime friendly to Tehran and opposed to the preponderance of U.S. influence in the Middle East.
The victims of the attack on the Turkish town of Akçakale have now been taken to a hospital nearby. Al Jazeera‘s Anita McNaught reports from Şanlıurfa, Turkey (3 Oct 2012).
The pro-government Turkish daily Today’s Zaman reports that ‘Turkish artillery hit targets near Syria’s Tel Abyad border town for a second day on Thursday [, 4 Oct], killing several Syrian soldiers according to activists and security sources, after a mortar bomb fired from the area killed five Turkish civilians. Turkey’s government said “aggressive action” against its territory by Syria’s military had become a serious threat to its national security and sought parliamentary approval for the deployment of Turkish troops beyond its borders. “Turkey has no interest in a war with Syria. But Turkey is capable of protecting its borders and will retaliate when necessary,” Ibrahim Kalın, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan, said on his Twitter account’.[1]
The paper continues: ‘In the most serious cross-border escalation of the 18-month uprising in Syria, Turkey hit back after what it called “the last straw” when a mortar hit a residential neighbourhood of the southern border town of Akçakale on Wednesday [, 3 Oct]. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several Syrian soldiers were killed in the Turkish bombardment of a military post near the Syrian town of Tel Abyad, a few miles across the frontier from Akçakale. It did not say how many soldiers died. “We know that they have suffered losses,” a Turkish security source told Reuters, without giving further details. NATO said it stood by member-nation Turkey and urged Syria to put an end to “flagrant violations of international law.” The US-led Western military alliance held an urgent late night meeting in Brussels to discuss the matter and in New York, Turkey asked the UN Security Council to take the “necessary action” to stop Syrian aggression. In a letter to the president of the 15-nation Security Council, Turkish UN Ambassador Ertuğrul Apakan called the firing of the mortar bomb “a breach of international peace and security.” UN diplomats said Security Council members hoped it would issue a non-binding statement on Thursday that would condemn the mortar attack “in the strongest terms” and demand an end to violations of Turkey’s territorial sovereignty. Members had hoped to issue the statement on Wednesday, but Russia – a staunch ally of Syria’s, which along with China has vetoed three UN resolutions condemning President Bashar al-Assad’s government – asked for a delay, diplomats said. Turkey’s parliament had already been due to vote on Thursday on extending a five-year-old authorisation for foreign military operations, an agreement originally intended to allow strikes on Kurdish militant bases in northern Iraq. But the memorandum signed by Erdoğan and sent to parliament overnight said that despite repeated warnings and diplomatic initiatives, the Syrian military had launched aggressive action against Turkish territory, presenting “additional risks. This situation has reached a level of creating a serious threat and risks to our national security. At this point the need has emerged to take the necessary measures to act promptly and swiftly against additional risks and threats,” it said. It was not clear who fired the mortar into Turkey, but security sources said it had come from near Tel Abyad and that Turkey was increasing the number of troops along its border. “Our armed forces in the border region responded immediately to this abominable attack in line with their rules of engagement; targets were struck through artillery fire against places in Syria identified by radar,” Erdoğan’s office said in a statement late on Wednesday. “Turkey will never leave unanswered such kinds of provocation by the Syrian regime against our national security.” Syria said it was investigating the source of the mortar bomb and urged restraint. Information Minister Omran Zoabi conveyed his condolences to the Turkish people, saying his country respected the sovereignty of neighbouring countries’.[2]
In The Guardian, Matthew Weaver and Brian Whitaker write that the “Turkish daily Hürriyet has published the text of a Turkish government motion seeking parliamentary approval for military operation outside its borders. It says Turkey’s opposition is likely to vote against the proposal. The motion was tabled by prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Hürriyet quotes it saying: ‘This situation has reached a stage that poses serious threats and risks to our national security. Therefore, the need has developed to act rapidly and to take the necessary precautions against additional risks and threats that may be directed against our country. Within this framework, on the condition that the extent, amount, and time will be appreciated and determined by the government, I submit according to Article 92 of the Constitution a one-year-long permission to make the necessary arrangements for sending the Turkish Armed Forces to foreign countries and having it [TSK] mandated, according to the principle causes that will be designated by the government’”.[3]
[1] “Turkey renews shelling of Syrian military sites after mortar fire” Today’s Zaman (04 Oct 2012). http://www.todayszaman.com/news-294243-turkey-renews-shelling-of-syrian-military-sites-after-mortar-fire.html.
[2] “Turkey renews shelling of Syrian military sites after mortar fire”.
[3] Matthew Weaver and Brian Whitaker, “Turkey seeks parliaments approval military opearation” The Guardian (04 Oct 2012). http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/04/turkey-syria-threat-security-live?CMP=NECNETTXT8187.
The Arab broadcaster presents an apologist view of foreign involvement in the Syrian uprising: ‘At the frontline in Aleppo city, the young fighters are mainly from the countryside of the province. It has not been easy to stand up against the Syrian army, especially when the city did not rise up when rebels stormed some poor neighbourhoods and set up bases. While the majority of the fighters in Aleppo are Syrians, the war has however attracted Arabs who feel obliged to help the opposition who are mainly Sunni Muslims. Al Jazeera‘s Zeina Khodr reports from Aleppo city (22 August 2012)’.
The U.S., Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar . . . and also Germany is now involved, as explained by Antiwar.com news editor Jason Ditz: in “what is the first confirmed instance of a foreign military directly aiding Syria’s rebels, German media outlets are reporting that the German Navy is using a spy vessel to collect information about Syrian troop movements and is forwarding that intelligence to the rebel fighters. The boat, which patrols the eastern Mediterranean for NATO, can collect information on troop movements as deep as 375 miles inland. The spy boat is also forwarding intelligence to the rebels provided by US and British spy agencies. Several NATO member nations have expressed interest in involving themselves in a war in Syria, but Germany was not generally considered among the most hawkish group, led by France. The German government declined comment on the report, as did British and US officials asked about their role in the scheme”.[1]
[1] Jason Ditz, “German Military Directly Aiding Syrian Rebels” Antiwar.com (19 August 2012). http://news.antiwar.com/2012/08/19/german-military-directly-aiding-syrian-rebels/.
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has raised the threat of a military attack on Iran regarding its nuclear energy program in an effort to reassure what they call Israel during a trip to Tel Aviv. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to dismiss the tough talk though, saying American statements of solidarity with Israel and hints at military attacks are not working. Iran however has denied the Western accusations that Tehran is seeking a military objective in its nuclear energy program. According to a Fatwa from the Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei Iran is prohibited to follow such an objective. Russian President Vladimir Putin was in London on Thursday to discuss the Syrian issue with David Cameron. So far, Russia and China have opposed any kind of UN resolution that could be seen as supporting Libyan-style Western military intervention. “Britain has retaliated in part by blocking a Russian arm shipment to Syria but the weaponry keeps getting through at least to those favored by the West,” said George Galloway (6 August 2012).
Going to Geneva: A Resolution for the War in Syria???
‘In Beijing the Chinese government gave its support to Iran’s participation in a proposed international conference aimed at ending the Syrian conflict. Speaking to reporters, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Iranian input was essential for a negotiated end to the conflict (21 May 2013)’.
Category:
Current Affairs, Turkey, Americana, Iran, Obama, Middle East, Oil and Gas, China, Political Commentary, Saudi Arabia, Syria, NATO, CIA, New Cold War