{"id":366756,"date":"2018-06-26T02:03:11","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T01:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=366756"},"modified":"2018-06-26T02:03:12","modified_gmt":"2018-06-26T01:03:12","slug":"u-s-government-continues-trying-to-seize-syrian-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/u-s-government-continues-trying-to-seize-syrian-territory\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Government Continues Trying to Seize Syrian Territory"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

On June 25th, U.S.-aided fighters in southern Syria were fleeing from the Syrian Government\u2019s Army, southward toward U.S.-allied Israeli-controlled areas in the Golan Heights and toward America\u2019s ally Jordan; and, according to the AP\u2019s news-report<\/span><\/a>, \u201cThe majority of these rebels in southern Syria were U.S- and Jordan backed, although some local al-Qaida-linked militants still operate there.\u201d The U.S. has relied heavily upon Al Qaeda in southern Syria, to lead the jihadist groups against Syria’s Government, ever since 2012.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The expectation when Donald Trump came into the U.S. White House had been that his predecessor\u2019s war to conquer Syria or at least to seize territory there, would end. But Trump instead continues that invasion and occupation of Syria, and he even does so under the very same excuse that Obama had used, which is the \u2018humanitarian\u2019 one, of protecting people against Syria\u2019s Government and against ISIS, which is one of the dozens of fundamentalist-Sunni \u2018rebel\u2019 groups of jihadists (ISIS and Al Qaeda being only the most famous ones) who have been brought in from all over the world and financed mainly by the Sauds, and armed and advised mainly by the Americans. They\u2019ve been fighting to overthrow Syria\u2019s Government. The rulers of the U.S., who bombed Iraq and Libya to hell and have done the same to Syria and now also to Yemen, say that their motivation is \u2018humanitarian\u2019. Even George W. Bush did, when he invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003 (but he mainly gave the reason, \u201cSaddam\u2019s WMD,\u201d which didn\u2019t any longer even exist). Somehow, most Americans think that this Government in Washington represents them; but I am an American and I don\u2019t think that the U.S. Government represents the American people<\/span><\/a>. It certainly doesn\u2019t represent us in Syria.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, perhaps now, the actual end of the invasion of Syria is, at last, in sight. The commentator \u201cbernhard,\u201d who blogs on geostrategy at his \u201cMoon of Alabama\u201d site, headlined on June 22nd, “Syria – Damascus And Its Allies Prepare To Remove U.S. Forces From Al-Tanf\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and he (or she) explained the reasons why the U.S. invaders are now clearly in an untenable military-strategic position in the Syrian war. Basically, it\u2019s because, as he(she) states at the end, \u201cThe al-Tanf position [U.S. military base in Syria] is indefensible against any larger force. The U.S. forces there can still move out without a fight. If they do not leave voluntarily, force will be used to remove them.\u201d On the other hand, a year ago, on 29 June 2017, he\/she had headlined \u201cU.S. Retreats From Al-Tanf \u2013 Gives Up on Occupying South East Syria\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and that turned out to have been at least a year premature.<\/span><\/p>\n

The knowledgeable Middle-Eastern commentator, Abdel Bari Atwan, headlined, also on June 22nd, \u201cSyria\u2019s Southern Front:<\/span><\/a> The army is determined to retake the area. Israel is determined to prevent it.\u201d Atwan stated:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMore than 40,000 soldiers have been deployed [by Syria\u2019s Government] in preparation for the southern offensive [by the U.S. and its allies], according to reliable sources, suggesting that a decisive showdown is imminent. It is doubtful that the Syrian army, feeling confident after the battle for Ghouta, would launch such an operation without a green light from its Russian ally, as has been the case in similar instances. This follows the dead-end reached in negotiations between Russia and the US aimed at achieving an acceptable settlement, due to the intransigence of the armed groups, their insistence on all their conditions being met and the support some receive from Israel. It is not in Israel\u2019s interest for these groups to evacuate as their counterparts did in Eastern Ghouta and Aleppo and for the Syrian army to retake control.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

He seems to view Israel as leading the U.S. operation there. This is conceivably true, because everything that Trump has thus far done in the Middle East has served both Israel\u2019s Government and Saudi Arabia\u2019s Government, and both of those Governments have almost identical objectives there. Conceivably, those two Governments together determine what the U.S. Government\u2019s policies in the Middle East will be. And Israel has taken the initiative in Syria, just as the Sauds have taken the initiative in Yemen. But both Israel and the Sauds as well as the U.S. regime want the Saud family to control Syria; in fact, at the U.N.\u2019s peace-talks, in which the \u201cHigh Negotiations Committee\u201d negotiates against the Syrian Government, to replace Syria\u2019s Government, the Saud family itself selects who will and who won\u2019t be members of the High Negotiations Committee: the \u2018Syrian opposition\u2019 there represents actually the Saud family<\/span><\/a>. (See more on that here<\/span><\/a>.) So, actually, both Israel\u2019s rulers and America\u2019s rulers are the Saud family\u2019s agents in Syria; they front for the Sauds, regarding Syria-policy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Atwan concludes:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSyria continues to defy those who have spent the past seven years conspiring against it. This time, eyes should be turned to its south, where new and shocking surprises may be in store for the Israelis and their allies.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The U.S. military base at al-Tanf, in Syria on Jordan\u2019s border, is America\u2019s main training-base for the Saudi-allied \u2018rebels\u2019, and has been key to the fundamentalist-Sunni Arabic, outright jihadist, south-Syrian half, of America\u2019s boots-on-the-ground effort<\/span><\/a>, to seize Syria, or at least to seize territory (especially oil-producing territory, around Deir Ezzor) in Syria. For decades, the jihadists (supporters of the Sauds\u2019 fundamentalist Sunni form of Islam) have been hoping to oust Syria\u2019s ideologically non-sectarian, decidedly secular, Government, and replace it with a Sunni Sharia-law regime. Trump\u2019s troops even have been secretly arming ISIS to overthrow the Government.<\/span><\/a> That plan will be crashing down if these \u2018rebels\u2019 in Syria\u2019s south fail.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without this jihadist operation in Syria\u2019s south, all that will remain of the U.S.-led invasion-occupation operation will be the northern part, which relies instead upon anti-(Syrian)-Government Kurds as the U.S. regime’s boots-on-the-ground proxy forces to seize the northern portion of Syrian territory. So, it\u2019s the Sauds\u2019 jihadists in the south, and the Americans\u2019 Kurdish-independence fighters in the north \u2014 a pincer between the two, for the U.S. alliance to take all of Syria. But there is increasing doubt that the U.S. coalition will be able to seize and hold either portion, or, ultimately, any part, of Syria. <\/span><\/p>\n

In other words: if the southern invaders fail, then Syria\u2019s oil-producing region, around the city of Deir Ezzor, now contested between these jihadists and Syria\u2019s Government, will no longer be in play, and the only function which land-seizure by the U.S. would even possibly serve for the U.S. and its allies, would be for pipeline-construction, in order for oil and gas from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and possibly other fundamentalist-Sunni-owned countries, to become pipelined through Syria into Europe, so as to replace Russia as the EU\u2019s main energy-source. But Turkey\u2019s Government won\u2019t permit a Syrian Kurdistan, any more than Iraq had permitted success of the U.S. regime\u2019s plan for an Iraqi Kurdistan (around Mosul). The big policy-difference between the Turkish Government and the American Government has long been over the U.S. aristocracy\u2019s (along with Israel\u2019s aristocracy\u2019s) desire to use a Kurdistan so as to break up the non-Saudi Arabic countries (such as Syria) in order for Saudi oil and maybe Qatar\u2019s (the Thani family\u2019s) gas to increase market-share in Europe, so as to decrease Russia\u2019s market-share there. <\/span><\/p>\n

Consequently, (unless \u2018bernhard\u2019 turns out to be wrong about al-Tanf, that \u201cDamascus And Its Allies Prepare To Remove U.S. Forces From Al-Tanf\u201d), Donald Trump finally will have to do what he had always been promising to do: exit from Syria \u2014 let the Syrians control Syria. The long effort by the aristocracies of U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Israel \u2014 to supplant Russia and its allies, as suppliers of energy and of energy-related services (such as pipeline-construction) to and in the world\u2019s largest energy-market, the EU \u2014 will have to be abandoned, at least until the CIA and other agencies of the U.S. aristocracy can come up with a different way to squeeze Russia out of the European market. (The U.S. already has been successful at reducing the effectiveness of Russia\u2019s gas-pipelines into the EU through Ukraine.) It\u2019s not necessarily the end for the American plan, however: a new opportunity (perhaps yet another \u2018Arab Spring\u2019) could emerge \u2014 they\u2019ve been at this ever since the CIA\u2019s second coup, which occurred in Syria in 1949<\/span><\/a>, when they took over Syria but their barbarism caused Syria\u2019s generals to restore in 1955 the democratically elected Syrian President, whom President Truman\u2019s people had assisted some of Syria\u2019s generals to overthrow in 1949. <\/span><\/p>\n

As soon as FDR died in 1945, the imperialist faction in the United States \u2014 which has controlled the Republican Party ever since 1865 \u2014 quickly came to control also the Democratic Party; so, now, both of America\u2019s political Parties are determined that the U.S. aristocracy will control the entire world. World peace is the last thing they want, and if they win it, that would be only \u2018peace\u2019 by force \u2014 not democracy.<\/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>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse On June 25th, U.S.-aided fighters in southern Syria were fleeing from the Syrian Government\u2019s Army, southward toward U.S.-allied Israeli-controlled areas in the Golan Heights and toward America\u2019s ally Jordan; and, according to the AP\u2019s news-report, \u201cThe majority of these rebels in southern Syria were U.S- and Jordan backed, although some local al-Qaida-linked militants […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":366758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,519],"tags":[115,96,3604,535,907,524,754,92,76],"class_list":{"0":"post-366756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-newswire","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-cover-up","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-global-news","13":"tag-isis","14":"tag-russia","15":"tag-syria","16":"tag-terrorism","17":"tag-warfare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366756","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=366756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":366759,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366756\/revisions\/366759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}