{"id":266812,"date":"2016-09-10T23:37:43","date_gmt":"2016-09-10T23:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=266812"},"modified":"2016-09-11T12:21:32","modified_gmt":"2016-09-11T12:21:32","slug":"u-s-caves-russia-syria-wont-continue-protecting-al-qaeda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/u-s-caves-russia-syria-wont-continue-protecting-al-qaeda\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Caves to Russia on Syria \u2014 Won\u2019t Continue Protecting Al Qaeda"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

On Friday, September 9th, America\u2019s Secretary of State John Kerry, and Russia\u2019s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, came to an agreement<\/span><\/a> on Syria, for the second time. (The previous agreement fell apart). Like the first \u2018cease-fire\u2019, this one concerns the ongoing occupation of many parts of Syria by foreign jihadists, who have been hired by America\u2019s allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in order to overthrow Syria\u2019s President, Bashar al-Assad. (It\u2019s nothing like a democratic revolution there<\/span><\/a>; it\u2019s a war over pipelines<\/span><\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The main sticking-point in these negotiations has been much the same as it was the first time around: America\u2019s insistence that Russia and Syria be prohibited from bombing Al Qaeda in Syria, which is the international group under the name of \u201cAl Nusra\u201d there. The United States has not tried to protect ISIS in Syria \u2014 only<\/i> Al Nusra (and their subordinate groups), and it protects them because Nusra has provided crucial leadership to the jihadist groups that the United States finances in Syria for overthrowing and replacing Assad. Whereas the U.S. government doesn\u2019t finance all<\/i> of the jihadist groups in Syria (as the allied royal owners of Saudi Arabia and of Qatar do), the U.S. does designate some<\/i> jihadist groups as \u2018moderate rebels\u2019, and this second round of cessation-of-hostilities will protect these groups<\/i> (but this time not<\/i> the Nusra fighters who lead them) from the bombings by Syria and by Russia. This new agreement is a complex sequence of sub-agreements laying out the means whereby Syria and Russia will, supposedly, continue to bomb Nusra while avoiding to bomb the U.S.-financed forces in Syria. Now that the U.S. has 300 of its own military advisors occupying the parts of Syria that the U.S.-sponsored jihadists control<\/span><\/a>, Nusra will (presumably) no longer be quite so necessary to America\u2019s overthrow-Assad campaign. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the joint announcement on Friday night in Geneva, Secretary Kerry said, \u201cNow, I want to be clear about one thing particularly on this, because\u00a0I\u2019ve seen reporting that somehow suggests otherwise: Going after Nusrah\u00a0is not a concession to anybody.\u00a0It is profoundly in the interests of\u00a0the United States to target al-Qaida \u2014 to target al-Qaida\u2019s affiliate in\u00a0Syria, which is Nusrah.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

However, as the Washington Post<\/i> had reported on February 19th<\/span><\/a> regarding the impasse\u00a0 <\/span>during the negotiations for the first round of cessation-of-hostilities: \u201cRussia was said to have rejected a U.S. proposal to leave Jabhat al-Nusra off-limits to bombing.\u201d The reason for this protection was that Nusra\u2019s \u201cforces are intermingled with moderate rebel groups.\u201d However, the reporter there didn\u2019t mention that Nusra was \u201cintermingled\u201d because it was providing essential military leadership for these \u2018moderate rebel groups\u2019. In other words: the U.S.-designated \u2019moderate rebel groups\u2019 were providing cover for America\u2019s support, actually, of Al Qaeda in Syria. <\/span><\/p>\n

America\u2019s main international ally in the Syrian conflict is the Saud family, and during the lead-up to the first round of cessation-of-hostilities, back on 8 December 2015, I had headlined \u201cThe Saud Family to Select West\u2019s \u2018Moderate\u2019 Jihadists Who Will Take Over Syria\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and I reported that \u201cThe Saud family, Saudi Arabia\u2019s royals, have called together a meeting on December 15th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, of their fellow fundamentalist Sunnis who are fighting against the secular Assad government to take over Syria, and the Sauds will announce after the conference which groups will have the West\u2019s blessings.\u201d They selected Jaysh al-Islam<\/span><\/a>, a group that\u2019s committed to the same principles as Al Qaeda is, but that doesn\u2019t have the same foreign-reputational problems; and, moreover, their leaders, the Alloush family, have agreed to present themselves to the West as posing no threat outside the Muslim world, so as not to scare off Western publics. <\/span><\/p>\n

Then, on 25 January 2016, I headlined “U.S. & Allies Make bin Laden Admirer a Negotiator in Syria Peace Talks\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and I reported that \u201cThe Saud family actually required Alloush to head the anti-Assad delegation,\u201d but that \u201cKerry and the rest of the West weren\u2019t entirely comfortable with that demand. A \u2018compromise\u2019 was reached: there will be two heads: Alloush, and another figure supported by the Sauds: Asad al-Zoubi.\u201d I closed by observing that \u201cLavrov faced a bad choice: either take the blame for preventing the peace talks, or else accept the Saud family\u2019s \u2018compromise\u2019 position; and he chose the latter.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Gareth Porter bannered on February 16th, \u201cObama\u2019s \u2018Moderate\u2019 Syrian Deception\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and he reported that, \u201cInformation from a wide range of sources, including some of those the United States has been explicitly supporting, makes it clear that every armed anti-Assad organization unit in those provinces is engaged in a military structure controlled by\u00a0Nusra militants.\u00a0All of these rebel groups fight alongside the Nusra Front and coordinate their military activities with it,\u201d and he stated that \u201cinstead of breaking with the deception that the CIA\u2019s hand-picked clients were independent of Nusra, the Obama administration continued to cling to it.\u201d Porter was pretending that the U.S. leadership originated at the CIA, instead of at the White House \u2014 which was actually the case. The CIA was simply doing what the U.S. President wanted it to do there. Porter continued his upside-down attribution of leadership and responsibility in the matter, by adding that, \u201cPresident Obama is under pressure from these domestic critics as well as from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other GCC allies to oppose any gains by the Russians and the Assad regime as a loss for the United States.\u201d In no way was\/is it obligatory for the U.S. President to adhere to \u201cdomestic critics\u201d and \u201cGCC [royal Arabic] allies,\u201d much less for him to be ordered-about by his own CIA \u2014 quite the contrary: \u201cThe buck stops at the President\u2019s desk.\u201d Obama isn\u2019t forced to hire and promote neoconservatives to carry out his foreign policies \u2014 he chooses them and merely pretends to be blocked by opponents. <\/span><\/p>\n

On February 20th, Reuters headlined \u201cSyrian opposition says temporary truce possible, but\u00a0deal seems far off\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and reported that, \u201cA source close to peace talks earlier told Reuters [that] Syria\u2019s opposition had agreed to the idea\u00a0of a two- to three-week truce. The truce would be renewable and supported by all parties except Islamic State, the source\u00a0said. It would be conditional on the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front no longer being attacked by\u00a0Syrian government forces and their allies.\u201d In other words: up till at least<\/i> that time, the U.S. was still at one with the Sauds\u2019 insistence upon protecting Al Qaeda in Syria. <\/span><\/p>\n

On March 1st, Steve Chovanec headlined, \u201cProtecting al-Qaeda”<\/span><\/a>, and he made clear that the group that Obama was backing, the Free Syrian Army (so named with assistance from their CIA minders), were almost as despised by the Syrian people as were ISIS itself. Citing a Western polling firm\u2019s findings, he noted that, \u201cAccording to\u00a0a recent poll\u00a0conducted by ORB, it was found that most Syrians more or less hold both ISIS and the FSA in equal disdain, 9% saying the FSA represents the Syrian people while 4% saying that ISIS does. The similarity in [Syrians\u2019] opinion is reflective of the similarity in [those two groups of jihadists\u2019] conduct.\u201d Furthermore, as I have noted, both from that polling-firm and another Western-backed one, the vast majority (82%<\/span><\/a>) of Syrians\u00a0 <\/span>blame the U.S. for the tens of thousands of foreign jihadists who have been imported into their country, and 55%<\/span><\/a> of Syrians want Assad to be not only the current President but their next President, as a consequence of which the U.S. government refuses to allow Assad to run for the Presidency in the next election. (Indeed, that\u2019s largely the reason why Obama has been trying to overthrow Assad and replace him with a jihadist government, like the Sauds.) <\/span><\/p>\n

On March 3rd, results were summarized from a poll in the U.S., Germany, France, and UK, on the question, “Which country has played a leading role in the fight\u00a0against ISIS?”<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Each respondent was asked to list three countries. \u201cAbout 80% of Americans believe that Washington is the main force in the\u00a0fight against the terrorist organizations ISIS and \u2018Jabhat al-Nusra\u2019 in\u00a0Syria. In second place, according to residents of the US, is France (36%),\u00a0the third \u2014 Great Britain [percentage not mentioned].\u201d But, \u201cin the opinion of\u00a0the citizens of Germany, Russia and the United States contribute almost\u00a0equally to the fight against terrorists in Syria (36% and 38% respectively).\u00a0In third place according to the survey is France (25%).\u201d The article noted that, \u201caccording\u00a0to the Pentagon, Russia, just in February 2016, inflicted 7725 airstrikes on\u00a0ISIS positions in Syria, while the US conducted 3267.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Clearly, the U.S. Government\u2019s top objective in Syria is to overthrow Assad, whereas the Russian Government\u2019s top objective there is to prevent America\u2019s allies from seizing the country. As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has well explained and documented<\/span><\/a>, the U.S. CIA has been trying ever since 1949 to overthrow Syria\u2019s government and replace it with one that the Sauds (and etc., including U.S. oil, gas, and pipeline companies) want. So, this is normal American foreign policy. This doesn\u2019t mean that our Presidents have to behave this way \u2014 only that they do (even if the U.S. \u2018news\u2019 media don\u2019t report it, and many U.S. \u2018historians\u2019 likewise ignore it decades later).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse On Friday, September 9th, America\u2019s Secretary of State John Kerry, and Russia\u2019s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, came to an agreement on Syria, for the second time. (The previous agreement fell apart). Like the first \u2018cease-fire\u2019, this one concerns the ongoing occupation of many parts of Syria by foreign jihadists, who have been hired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":266321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[115,1036,32,96,535,698,907,1009,59,524,754,523,49,76,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-266812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-cia","11":"tag-cover-up","12":"tag-global-news","13":"tag-hillary-clinton","14":"tag-isis","15":"tag-islamic-state","16":"tag-military","17":"tag-russia","18":"tag-syria","19":"tag-ukraine","20":"tag-usa-news","21":"tag-warfare","22":"tag-white-house","23":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}