The Biggest Lie About Syria - II

Neither an army nor free The “Free Syrian Army”, acting as an umbrella organization for the rebels, is composed of dozens of factions, each of which is distinct from the other and is independent of a central leadership. Being infamous for their war crimes, these groups act upon the interests of the countries that fund them. One of the most widespread fallacies in the war, which is about to leave behind 30 months now in Syria, is to comprehend the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) as a homogenous formation. In fact, the FSA is composed of different factions, which act under the leadership of their own commanders and determine their priorities according to the interests of the countries that back them. Moreover, this organization consists of a wide range of commanders competing with each other, who have become the voice of their financier countries. It seems that the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have recently agreed on a single name. It is none other than Salim Idris, who is the leader of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) that was formed last December in Antalya with the aim of turning it to the general staff of the FSA. Idris, former member of the Syrian Army, has no effect in the field even though he is the key to the arm flow to Syria. Who comprises the FSA? The first armed groups emerged towards the end of March in 2011 when the events in Syria had just begun. Armed militants, particularly backed by Salafist movement in Lebanon, began attacking Syrian security forces in Tel Kelah in Homs and in Banyas in Tartus. However, the greatest attack came in Jisr al-Shughur in Idlib in 6 June 2011, which became the turning point of the conflict in Syria. This attack, in which 120 troops and policemen were killed, was initially reported as a “massacre by the Syrian Army in rebel towns”. Yet, the journalists in the region reported that the townsfolk were blaming the militants infiltrated Syria from the Turkish border. As the attacks increased in June, so did the defectors from the Syrian Army. While a part of these figures was close to the Muslim Brotherhood undertaking underground activities, the other part was taking the advantage of “generous” donations of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. On the 29th of June, Riad Al-Assad, former member of the Syrian Army, escaped to Hatay and announced that he had also defected. Along with other defectors, he declared the formation of the Free Syrian Army in Hatay in July 2011. The first militants of the Free Syrian Army consisted Salafi groups in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood and various tribes affiliated with trafficking along the border with Turkey and Lebanon. Upon the Syrian Army’s victory in the summer of 2012, resulting in the removal of the FSA from its stronghold in Bab Amr in the province of Homs, the flow of mercenary fighters began with the help of financial aids by the countries that backed these groups. Jihadists pouring in from Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and even Afghanistan quickly strengthened the groups united under the FSA. However, these mercenaries soon began joining the fighting forces linked with Al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups. So-called titles The swift growth of the FSA resulted in insufficient leadership of Riad Al-Assad. Hundreds of brigades consisting of a handful of militants had been formed by the end of 2012. These groups usually declared that they were affiliated with the FSA in order to guarantee the flow of money and weapons. In most cases, however, they continued to operate independently. It was this time during which the FSA’s commandership in Turkey began falling apart and the higher ranks of the FSA, which had aligned itself to various financior countries, ended up in a power struggle. Today, the FSA’s Riad Al-Essad, Ahmad Al-Hijazi and Malik Al-Kurdi group do not recognize Salim Idris. Apart from this group, which is close to the Muslim Brotherhood, Mustafa Al-Sheikh, commander of Suqoor al-Sham, one of the biggest brigades in the battlefield, stays distant from both Riad Al Assad and Salim Idris. Also, there is another force formed under Salafi Sheikh Adnan Al-Aroor from Saudi Arabia, which calls itself the Joint Command of the Revolutionary Military Council. Different Strategies The power struggle between these factions on the command-level usually reflects itself in the field with deadly internal competition among these groups. Because of lack of coordination, the FSA-affiliated brigades receive major losses at the hand of the Syrian Army. Speaking of the the FSA’s presence totally becomes impossible particularly in northern Syria. In this region, there are various big brigades mostly operating independently, although they claim that they act under the FSA. Most of these brigades cooperate with Al Qaeda-linked groups and with other radical Islamist brigades. Al Tawhid and Suqoor al-Sham with 15.000 militants participated in attacks particularly against Kurds and Alawites in cooperation with Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS). Moreover, these groups can remain neutral in violences of ISIS and other FSA brigades. When the FSA-affiliated Northern Storm Brigade, consisting former traffickers, was attacked by the ISIS in September in Azaz-Aleppo, the Tawhid Brigade, the strongest fighting force in the region, declared its “neutrality” and acted as a mediator for ceasefire between the two groups. The Northern Storm, identified as “moderate” due to the attack it exposed, later joined the Islamic coalition, which was formed at the end of September and also consisted Al Nusra Front, another Al Qaeda-linked group. Declaring that it will fight for Islam, this new coalition does not recognize the Syrian National Coalition and involves the largest brigades of the FSA. This fact contradicts with the claim that the FSA has a contrary line to Al Qaeda. In South Syria, in Daraa, hundreds of militants from the brigades affiliated with the Supreme Military Council, which was formed through vigorous efforts of the US, have joined Al Nusra Front because it is equipped with high quality weapons and a better financial structure. Yet, it was claimed that these groups trained by CIA in Jordan were composed of the “tribes distant to Al Qaeda”. Ali Örnek - soL International Network for Justice https://www.facebook.com/InternationalNetworkforJustice

Nuclear talks with Iran reach point of no return

Sergey Strokan is a journalist, essayist and a poet

Published time: November 12, 2013 12:19 by Russia Today
http://rt.com/op-edge/geneva-talks-iran-nuclear-590/

Tags

France, Iran, Israel, Nuclear, Politics,Russia, USA

The Geneva talks on a landmark nuclear deal with Iran, between Tehran and the six world powers, are in the final stage, with most parties signaling that agreement is no longer a phantom but a reality realizable within months, if not weeks.

As the day of the crucial negotiating round slated for Nov 20 nears, both diplomats and media are overwhelmed with a feeling of history being made in the walls of the Geneva Intercontinental hotel. 

Is the process really irreversible, as some believe it to be? And if the deal is reached, what will it mean for Tehran and the whole world – an end of a decades-long Iranian crisis, or a new disaster, a “bad deal”, to quote Israeli Prime-Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? 

To spell out Israeli concerns, can it be a deal which would only trigger a nuclear arms race in the vast Middle East region and finally force the Jewish state into a desperate move – to act unilaterally against Iran?

A cup of coffee in the Intercontinental hotel costs $9, but what the real price and the outcome of the enigmatic nuclear deal presumably made on its premises will be is as yet unknown. What is clear is that the moment for such a deal today is the most appropriate since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, with all sides playing high stakes for diplomacy, not war.

To start with, what gives the diplomacy a unique chance is the phenomena of the two leaders in Washington and Tehran.  As for Barack Obama, it is an open secret that he has developed the reputation of “the most anti-Israeli president in US history” (this is how he is seen in Tel-Aviv). While the Israeli leadership was very unhappy with President Obama’s Middle East initiatives from the very start, Obama turned a blind eye on most of Israel’s concerns. Obama made it clear that despite strong bonds of strategic alliance, the US and Israel see different ‘red lines’ in the Iranian crisis. Obama signaled that he can put up with some limited Iranian nuclear program, the scale of which is currently being negotiated in Geneva. However, Netanyahu denies the very idea of Iran enriching uranium and keeping its centrifuges working. According to Netanyahu, the deal with Iran would backlash and America would also find itself vulnerable to future Iranian nuclear strike

During the 2012 US presidential race it was not Barack Obama, but Republican presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, who Netanyahu put his hopes on – and Obama is probably paying him back today. Moreover, the 2009 Noble Peace Prize granted to Mr. Obama as an advance for something not yet achieved is probably forcing him to prove that the decision of the Noble committee was something not to be mocked or ridiculed, as is happening today, but a prophetic move. 

However, it is not only “the most anti-Israeli American president” in Washington, but also “the most pro-Western president” sitting in Tehran who are giving diplomacy a golden opportunity and making all sides reinforce their efforts to reach compromise. The landslide victory of the Islamic reformist cleric, Hassan Rowhani, in June’s presidential election in Iran has revitalized nuclear talks between Tehran and the big six world powers, which had degenerated into a pointless, torturous process and lost its steam under the former Iranian president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad. 

Mr. Rowhani has to produce something tangible for Islamist hardliners at home who are warning him of betraying national interests. His trump card could be an end to the nuclear standoff and the era of isolation and suffocating sanctions.  The same way Mr.Obama has to outwit US neocons and the army of his critics abroad by telling them that his stick-and-carrot policy did work, while the war scenario with Iran proved irrelevant. 

All in all, as both Presidents Obama and Rowhani have invested heavily in the present day’s big nuclear gamble; they find themselves in the same boat and should stick together. Their domestic political considerations and their international standing mean they can’t allow themselves a last-minute failure of the much-anticipated deal.  

And finally, what we also see today in Geneva is an unprecedented unanimity within the ranks of the big six world powers, with US and Russian diplomats not trading jabs or making grim statements, as it used to be, but praising each other’s roles regarding Iran. This week, Russia’s Foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, went as far as acknowledging the leading role of the American delegation during the latest round of talks in Geneva, headed by State Secretary Kerry.  I can hardly recall a similar moment of harmony in US-Russian relations and it was only this September when President Putin called Mr.Kerry “a liar”.  

As for France, which is somehow standing aside and playing bad cop in Geneva, it alone can surely not go as far as putting the brakes on a nuclear deal with Iran. It may sound like gossip, but one of the political Cassandras here this week whispered into my ear that in Geneva the “French are working for Saudi money”, hinting at lucrative contacts and other business interests.

So, it looks like the negotiating process with Iran has already crossed the point of no return and the question of the historic nuclear deal is a matter of not “if”, but “when”. There is no doubt that in the days and weeks to come we will witness desperate attempts by Israel to step on the brakes and press all the alarm buttons, but it looks like it is too late now.  

A nuclear Iran is a fast-growing reality, so the task of the day for the world community is not to deny, but to harness the Iranian atom – to put it under well-calculated international scrutiny, free of any prejudice and paranoia.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Israel boosts attack on Iran nuclear deal after ‘productive’ Geneva talks News | 11.11.2013 | 06:01 Israel is ramping up its effort to prevent a deal with Iran, which is seen as a serious threat to its national security. It comes after French intervention stalled high-level talks aimed at resolving the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program. As delegations from Iran and six leading nations were locked in negotiations in Geneva, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was continuing to advocate against dealing with Tehran. Over the weekend, Netanyahu called British PM David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to promote Tel Aviv’s position, he told his Cabinet on Sunday. “I told them that according to the information reaching Israel, the deal that appears to be in the offing is bad and dangerous,” Netanyahu said. “Not just for us but also for them. I suggested that they wait and give it serious consideration, and it’s good that that is indeed what was decided. We will do everything we can to convince the leaders not to reach a bad agreement.” "I asked them what was the rush? I suggested they wait," he said in remarks relayed by his office. Netanyahu added that he spoke on the phone to French President Francois Hollande on the Iranian talks. France took the lead in stalling negotiations with Iran this weekend, and the French leader is to visit Israel next Sunday. Netanyahu himself is to visit Moscow on November 20 just as talks are to resume in Geneva. Israel will also be able to voice its objections to a delegation of senior US officials, led by Wendy Sherman, the U.S. Undersecretary of State for political affairs, which is due to arrive in Jerusalem on Sunday. The officials are to update Netanyahu’s government on the developments in Geneva. In addition to lobbying President Obama’s administration, Israel is planning a lobbying campaign aimed at the US Congress, Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday. "Before the talks resume, we will lobby dozens of members of the US Congress to whom I will personally explain during a visit beginning on Tuesday that Israel's security is in jeopardy," he told Israeli army radio. Iran was engaged in marathon talks with the P5+1 group of nations in Geneva this week, which it was hoped would produce an agreement on Tehran’s nuclear power program. Iran was expected to offer more transparency and agree to limitations on uranium enrichment in exchange for an eventual lifting of crippling economic sanctions imposed by the US and the EU. Netanyahu’s government has been extremely vocal in objecting to the Obama administration’s rapprochement with Iran after the election of Hassan Rouhani as the country’s new president. Apparently, stalling tactics is what the Netanyahu government sees as a solution in the situation. "In another two and a half years there will be someone else in the White House, but we will still be here,"Israel's deputy Defense Minister, Danny Danon, told public radio Sunday. A failure to strike a deal that would at least partially lift economic sanctions against Iran may also undermine Rouhani’s power base at home. The conservative section of the Iranian establishment is far from approving his policy towards the US, and a lack of concrete results in the talks may cost the Iranian president support. The possible recovery of Iran, a leading Shiite nation in the Middle East, is also viewed with disdain by the Sunni monarchies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. US Secretary of State John Kerry will be flying to Abu Dhabi to meet his counterpart in the UAE, Sheikh Abudllah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and is expected to discuss the Iran negotiations. Israel reportedly forged a shaky alliance with these usually strictly anti-Israel nations, as they are united in their common goal to undermine Iran.  RT  http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/11/11/israel-boosts-attack-iran-nuclear-deal-after-productive-geneva-talks.html

Möglicher Iran-Einsatz: Israel soll bald US-Spezialflugzeuge erhalten

lhttp://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/haaretz-israel-erhaelt-us-spezialflugzeuge-fuer-moeglichen-iran-einsatz-a-931520.html

James Petras: Israeli Bombers Over Syria – Al Qaeda´s Air Force

Posted by: James Petras Posted date: November 09, 2013 In: Analysis

Introduction

Israel has committed repeated acts of war against countries that opposed its Zionist policies of colonization and annexation of Palestinian territory in East Jerusalem and the West Bank .  Israeli leaders have secured arms and diplomatic support for their attacks through their Zionist proxies in the United States Congress and the Executive Branch.

 The current series of Israeli bombing raids and missile strikes against Syria are designed to strengthen the armed Syrian opposition and Islamist mercenaries seeking to destroy the government in Damascus .  Israel intends to sabotage the upcoming round of peace negotiations. The Zionist state does not want a peaceful resolution to the current regional conflict.  Its foreign policy depends on perpetual regional wars and political instability.   Toward this end, Tel Aviv has the unconditional support of the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organization and all other Zionist organizations in the US .

Armed Conflict and Intervention in Syria

For almost three years, Syria has increasingly transformed into a battleground and humanitarian disaster.  At first, there were domestic Syrian political and social organizations staging protests against the Baathist government.  The early protestors included secular liberals, Muslims, democrats and socialists.  They had engaged in mostly peaceful protest against the authoritarian, but multi-cultural, secular regime of Bashar Assad.  The government clamped down heavily and arrested many protestors. 

This heavy-handed response help to split the Syrian opposition: Peaceful, civil-society protestors remained in the country, although diminished in numbers, while many others went underground or fled to bordering countries and formed the early core of the armed opposition. They received military and financial support from NATO countries and Turkey , as well as from the corrupt Gulf Monarchies, especially Saudi Arabia .  A cross-border war was launched in which US and European special military forces played a leading role in organizing, training and directing a makeshift collection of armed Syrian groups. Turkey provided arms, training camps and logistical support. The funding came from the rich kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Monarchies, which have spent hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Saudis recruited radical Islamist and Al Qaeda mercenaries and Wahhabi terrorists to fight the Damascus regime – targeting secular Syrians, Shiites, Alawites, Syrian Christians and Kurds.  In just a few years, the conflict underwent a radical change in character and in intensity from internal broad-based civil strife to an armed foreign-backed invasion with vicious sectarian overtones.  Hundreds of thousands of Syrians fled from their home when thousands of mostly foreign, Islamist fighters attacked and occupied their cities, towns and villages – conducting campaigns of ethnic cleansing against non-Sunni and non-Arab Syrians. 

The government in Damascus responded by mobilizing ground troops and its air force to recover its vital highways and cities and drive out this increasingly foreign occupation.  This became especially critical toward the end of 2012, when Al Qaeda-linked extremists, funded by the Saudi and Gulf monarchies, gained ascendancy at a number of key fronts.  These violent extremists overran and displaced the Western-backed ‘internal’ armed opposition who made up the so-called ‘moderates’.  The Saudi proxies attacked Kurdish militia in the semi-autonomous Syrian northeast in order to secure cross border supply routes to Iraq thus regionalizing the war.  This heralded the tremendous increase in terrorism and bombing against the Shiite government in Baghdad and majority Shia population.

As the Western-backed opposition retreated, the mercenaries, linked to Al Qaeda, fully expected their sponsors among the despotic Saudi oil billionaires to call on NATO and the US to launch missile strikes against the Syrian government.  Without US and NATO air support, the jihadis would never take Damascus .            

Meanwhile, the Islamist Turkish government had been playing a duplicitous role by allowing its border area to be used for terrorist camps, supply routes and a launch site for cross-border attacks against its neighbor.  This has been very unpopular with the Turkish public.  When it became evident that the Saudi-backed Al Qaeda terrorists were gaining the upper hand over Ankara ’s more ‘moderate’ Islamist Syrian clients, the Turks may have developed concerns that their border would become a regional center for Al Qaeda with thousands of well-armed, battle-tested Islamist mercenaries.  This may explain Ankara ’s recent approach to Teheran hoping to undercut the jihadi clients of the Gulf Monarchies.

 With the Syrian opposition badly split and the US domestic opposition to a new war increasing, the US-NATO regimes withdrew their commitment to the Saudis to act as ‘Al Qaeda’s Air Force’.  In this context, US President Obama eagerly accepted the Russian President Putin’s offer to jointly oversee the dismantlement of Syria ’s chemical weapons stockpile and to set up a peace conference between Syrian opposition  factions, not-linked to Al Qaeda, and the Syrian government.

 Chemical Weapons, Disarmament and Peace:  Who’s in and Who’s Out?          

The Putin-Obama agreement was a significant advance for the US and Russia .  President Obama did not have to face massive domestic and Congressional opposition to a new war with Syria and he was ‘credited’ with accepting a diplomatic solution.  Russian President Vladimir Putin assumed the role of a world statesman in initiating the process, ensuring Syrian compliance and moving the parties toward a peace conference in Geneva to be held in late November.  The European Union and the NATO powers were able to temporarily disentangle from their military commitments to the Syrian ‘rebels’ and their Saudi backers and express their own indignation over US cyber-spying of their citizens and leaders. Furthermore, this gave the Obama Administration the opportunity to open nuclear negotiations with Iran .  Turkey , which had been flooded by desperate Syrian refugees, was facing rising nationalist pressures against its own military role in the Syrian ‘civil war’.  The Russian initiative allowed the Turks to further explore re-opening relations with Syria ’s ally, Iran .

 This advance toward peace and disarmament weakened the military ambitions of the despotic Saudi regime and threatened the hegemonic position of the Israeli junta.  The Saudi-Gulf States strategy had been to destroy the secular Syrian state via a mercenary Al Qaeda ground war supported by massive NATO-US air strikes against Damascus .  The Saudis envisioned a replay of the Libyan invasion that saw the overthrow of the secular Gadhafi.   A bloody jihadist victory in Damascus would strike a blow at Iran , the Saudi’s (and the Israeli’s) ultimate target. 

The US-Russian rapprochement and Obama’s withdrawal of his threat to bomb Damascus had deprived the Saudi’s Al Qaeda mercenaries of their long-awaited Western missile support.  Across the Atlantic , in a fit of pique and high-pitched hysteria at NATO’s refusal to serve as ‘Al Qaeda’s air force’ for their pet mercenaries, the Saudis refused to sit take their appointed seat ‘with the infidels’ on the UN Security Council!

However, Israel was quick to step in with its own bombs and missiles to bolster the Islamist terrorists in Syria !

Israel viewed itself as a casualty of the Obama-Putin agreement; it had been clamoring for more overt Western involvement in the war against Syria .  Israel ’s strategy was to encourage the armed conflict, decimate the Syrian government, society and economy, and create a new client configuration composed of ‘Egypt-Jordan-Syria’ under joint Saudi- Israeli- US auspices (and financing). 

The Israelis had expected US President Obama to unleash a massive NATO air strike against Syrian military installations, arms depots and vital civilian infrastructure.  This would tip the military balance in favor of the armed Syrian opposition and foreign jihadist mercenaries and precipitate the collapse of Damascus .  Indeed the entire US Jewish-Zionist power structure, including the pro-Israel media troika (the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal), called for the US to bomb Syria despite the fact that the majority of America citizens were increasingly vocal in their opposition to US involvement!

When Obama finally took note of US public opinion and embraced Vladimir Putin’s proposal for Syrian peace and the dismantling of its chemical weapons arsenal, the media troika and the ZPC unleashed hysterical attacks, accusing President Obama of vacillation (for disobeying Netanyahu?), sacrificing Syrian lives (what about the Syrian victims of Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights?) and of betraying the ‘rebels’ (also known as Al Qaeda terrorists).

Israel and Saudi Arabia make logical ‘allies’: Both are sworn enemies of secular Arab nationalism and anti-colonialism; both have sponsored overseas terrorist groups against their opponents; both seek to destroy Iran and both are completely dependent on Western arms relying on imperialist wars to achieve their own regional aims.  At the moment their plans for ‘re-drawing the map’ of the Middle East has met a speed-bump in the form of Obama’s reluctance to launch US missiles and bombs against Damascus.

 The Israeli Air Force at the Service of Al Qaeda

In recent years Israel has committed numerous acts of war throughout the Middle East, including crimes against humanity in Gaza , the West Bank and Lebanon .  It is no surprise that Israel , a colonial state and would-be regional hegemon, would bomb Syrian military bases and weapon depots on six occasions this year, despite the fact that Damascus was struggling for its survival against thousands of Saudi-financed Al Qaeda-linked mercenaries.

Israel ’s deliberate and unprovoked attacks against the beleaguered Syrian state are motivated by dangerous, sinister and cynical considerations on the part of Tel Aviv.

First, the Israel wants a strong Wahhabi-Al Qaeda presence in the region to counter the secular Baathists as well as their Shiite allies in Lebanon and Iran . Their attacks against the Syrian military show their desire for the terrorists to continue ravaging Syrian cities and towns.  This is essentially a tactical alliance between extremist Zionist-Jews and Radical Sunni Muslims.

Second, Israel is calculating that its missile attacks against Syrian bases will provoke an armed response from Damascus which Tel Aviv could use as a pretext to declare war and unite the ‘hawk and dove’ Zionists in Israel, and especially in the US, and mobilize against another ‘existential threat’ to the ‘Jewish State’.  In other words, Israel intends to prod the US Congress and White House to launch an ‘allied’ bombing campaign against Damascus .

Thirdly, Tel Aviv views its missile strikes and bombing raids against Syria as a ‘dress rehearsal’ for its planned attack on Iran .  In the context of Iranian President Rouhani’s recent peace overtures toward the US , bombing Syria and provoking Damascus would scuttle any peaceful accord between the Washington and Teheran.  Israeli pilots are using Syria as a laboratory to test radar and communications, flight patterns, its bombing accuracy, interception technology and assets to further their readiness for a pre-emptive attack on Iran . The purpose for attacking the Syrian government and destroying defensive weapons destined for its Lebanese Shiite ally, Hezbollah, is to destroy any Lebanese capacity to resist Israeli aggression in a regional conflagration.

However, Israel ’s military-driven ‘diplomacy’ has failed. And yet the Jewish state cannot reverse its brutal, colonial policies in the West Bank, re-think its working alliance with Al Qaeda in the Levant or formulate a realistic political settlement with Syria and Iran .  Instead, the characteristic failure and mediocrity of Israeli policymakers have condemned them to rely exclusively on their first, last and only resort – greater brutality and aggression.

Netanyahu showed his disappointment with Obama by announcing the construction of 1500 new ‘Jews-only’ apartments in Occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem .  Meanwhile, the Israeli Foreign Office denounced the Obama Administration for having revealed that Israeli planes and missiles had struck the major Syrian port of Latakia – implying that Washington’s revelation of Israel’s attempted sabotage of the peace talks amounted to a  ‘betrayal’ or ‘crime’ against the Jewish state!

The entire Zionist power configuration in Washington has lined up to support the Jewish state. When Israel commits an act of war against its neighbor, no matter how unjust and brutal the act, Zionists from the most religious to the most secular, the ‘peaceniks’ and neo-cons, all form a united chorus in praise of the righteous and moral ‘Jewish Bombs’ even as they fall on the besieged people of Syria today and Iran tomorrow.  While the pro-Israel media troika in the US doesn’t hesitate to denounce civilian suffering from Pentagon and CIA drones strikes in Pakistan, when Israeli missiles rain on Syria … acts of pre-emptive war by the heirs of the Holocaust … they are described as necessary for the defense of a peace-loving nation…because Bibi Netanyahu said so!!!  That garrulous Harvard Law Professor will argue on the US television ‘talk shows’ that Israel had to pulverize the concrete bunkers of the Syrian military otherwise some anti-Semite might someday find some pebble to toss at some member of the moral Israeli ‘peace force’.  ‘Existential threat’ indeed!

Rank cant and mendacious special pleadings aside, the Saudis and their Israeli allies intend to finance, arm and serve as Al Qaeda’s air force against the Assad regime in Syria .  They mean to undermine any Syrian or Iranian peace process, that is, unless the US and Russia prevent them from provoking a major regional conflagration – threatening the welfare of hundreds of millions of people.

Conclusion

The Middle East has always been a mosaic of complex and changing alliances, marking shifts in the balance of imperial power.  During the past decade, the US , Israel , Saudi Arabia and their satraps in Jordan , Egypt and Lebanon have ruled the roosts.  Iraq , as an independent modern secular nation and multicultural society, was shattered and under the US military boot; the Taliban were in retreat … Iran was isolated … Syria was surrounded by invading foreign armed and trained terrorists and mercenaries. 

Time passed and circumstances changed.  The US was forced to retreat from the horrific sectarian conflict it created in Iraq , while Iran gained political influence and stature in the region. Turkey captured lucrative regional markets.  In Afghanistan , the Taliban have recovered, advanced and are preparing to take power as soon as the US withdraws support from its lackey in Kabul .  The White House temporarily lost a dictator in Egypt , only to gain a new dictatorial client, but the junta in Cairo faces an uncertain future with massive popular unrest.  The King of Jordan may still be on the CIA/Mossad payroll but that country is a backward satrapy forced to rely on police state tactics. 

The corrupt Gulf Monarchies repress their dissident majorities at home while using their countries’ incredible oil wealth to subsidize jihadi terrorists abroad.  Their legitimacy and support is fragile:  Petro-billions, bombs and US military bases do not constitute a state!

Tactical relations are in flux.  The Saudi monarch rejects the UN, repudiates the US for its rapprochement with Iran and embraces —its own hot air.  Surely the Saudis understand that siding with Israel ’s air force against an Arab nation is a dangerous and desperate ploy that could backfire.

The Syrian and Iranian governments will continue with their peace agendas, democratic openings and calls for social co-existence, such as Hezbollah has successfully secured in Lebanon .  The Russians support their overtures. If they are successful, even the US and Europe would reap immense economic benefits from a demilitarized and sanctions-free Middle East and Persian Gulf .  The world economy would see lower energy prices and greater security, while the flow of rentier capital to the speculators in the City of London and Wall Street flood would reverse and benefit their own countries.  We stand at the crossroads between turning toward peace or reverting to regional war, crisis and chaos.

Source: Global Research

American Geopolitics: Greater Israel (I)

In the Shadow of American Geopolitics, or Once Again on Greater Israel (I) Thirty years ago, American strategists introduced the idea of «The Greater Middle East», denoting the space from Maghreb to Bangladesh, and declared this vast territory to be a zone of US priority interests. In 2006, the programme of American domination in this region was renewed and defined more concretely: the then US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice introduced the term «The New Middle East», highlighting a plan to redraw the borders in the Middle East from Libya to Syria, Iraq, Iran and even Afghanistan. It was all referred to as a strategy of «constructive chaos»...  Olga CHETVERIKOVA | 11.11.2013 http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/11/11/in-shadow-of-american-geopolitics-or-once-again-on-greater-israel-i.html

"Journalisten müssen sich der Macht entgegenstellen" Snowden Mitarbeiterin Sarah Harrison

Sarah Harrison wandte sich mit einem offenen Brief an die deutsche Öffentlichkeit. Darin beschreibt die Journalistin es als ihre Pflicht, "sich der Macht entgegenzustellen". Gleichzeitig wirbt sie dafür, Snowden Asyl in Deutschland zu gewähren. tagesschau.de dokumentiert das Statement der Snowden-Vertrauten im Wortlaut.

          http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/harrisson-erklaerung100.html