Weissman writes: "'History will perhaps remember, God forbid, that the third
world war quietly began on Wednesday the 30th of September 2015,' wrote the
left-leaning French magazine L'Obs."
A video grab from footage on the Russian Defense Ministry's official
website, purporting to show a Russia's Su-24M bomber dropping bombs during
an airstrike in Syria. (photo: Russian Defence Ministry/AFP/Getty Images)
Is Bombing Syria Any Better if Putin Drops the Bombs?
By Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News
06 October 15
History will perhaps remember, God forbid, that the third world war quietly
began on Wednesday the 30th of September 2015," wrote the left-leaning
French magazine L'Obs.
Claims, counter-claims, and denials abound, but the outline is clear. In the
Arabian Gulf off the coast of Oman on or around last Wednesday, the American
Navy's USS Forest Sherman claims to have seized a cargo of arms from a
fishing dhow sailing from Iran. The arms were ostensibly intended for
Yemen's Shia rebels, the Houthi, who are fighting Sunni forces led by Saudi
Arabia.
Also last Wednesday, Russia began bombing Syria, reportedly hitting Free
Syrian Army rebels that the CIA trained and armed. We'll look at the
targeting reports in a moment.
Like the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo that led
to World War I, Wednesday's events could well lead to the ultimate
catastrophe, whether by accident or intent. In any case, they dramatize how
the passions of the Islamic holy war between Saudi-led Sunni and Iranian-led
Shia now intersect with the new Cold War, a nuclear-tinged conflict that
pits Putin's Russia against the United States and its NATO allies.
The questions are obvious. Bombing by the US and its allies has proved
bloody, largely ineffective, and often counter-productive against the
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Why should Russian airstrikes prove any
different? Will the Iranians and their allies from Lebanon's Hezbollah
provide the missing boots on the ground? Will Chinese aircraft and soldiers
enter the fray, as news reports now suggest? Will Putin feel compelled to
deploy large number of his own troops? Will all the new bombing slow down or
speed up the flow of refugees into Europe? Or, could Putin's new escalation
lead to a rapprochement that enables Russia, the US, and Iran to clean up
the inhuman mess they helped create in Syria?
Much of the mess grew out of George W. Bush's classically imperial conquest
of Iraq, one of the worst blunders ever in US foreign policy. Barack Obama
then followed up in Syria with his personal brand of hesitant half measures,
poorly thought out, ineptly executed, and widely misunderstood by critics
and supporters alike.
The initial insurgency against Syrian president Bashir al-Assad in 2011 was
part of the Arab Spring, which the Obama administration promoted through the
National Endowment for Democracy and the State's Department's "Democracy
Bureaucracy." Regime change remained the goal, as it had under Bush and his
neo-con advisers. Obama then fanned the flames of Islam's holy war by having
the CIA covertly arm the rebels backed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who wanted
to overthrow both Assad and his Alawite Shia supporters. Wisely, Obama held
back from any major assault on Assad, as a large majority of Americans
opposed deploying the needed ground troops. This made regime change
impossible, and left the administration with a de facto policy of doing just
enough to keep any side from winning.
As the Israeli-American analyst Edward Luttwak explained, "By tying down Mr.
Assad's army and its Iranian and Hezbollah allies in a war against Al
Qaeda-aligned extremist fighters, four of Washington's enemies will be
engaged in war among themselves and prevented from attacking Americans or
America's allies."
"Keep the lid on, but keep the pot boiling" has been a murderous strategy,
shaming the Obama administration. But regime change it was not. And now for
all of John Kerry's harsh words against Assad, Washington still does far
less than needed to pry the Syrian despot out of office.
Enter Putin, who continues to defend Assad as the country's only legitimate
ruler, enabling the Syrian regime to match and even exceed the Americans in
creating the single largest identifiable group of refugees streaming into
Europe. But, for all his legalistic rhetoric about national sovereignty, the
Russian leader is less than committed to keep Assad in power. As far back as
2012, his UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, proposed a peace plan toformer
Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari. As the
Finn recently told the Guardian, Churkin's plan included finding "an elegant
way for Assad to step aside."
Putin's escalation makes an elegant exit even more likely. Whatever his many
other motives for upping the ante, Putin has gone out of his way to reassure
the Syrian Alawites that he will protect them whatever happens to Assad, in
whom they appear to have lost confidence. He is building two new military
facilities near Latakia, in the heart of the Alawite region, giving people
there the feeling that Russia will defend them against their Sunni foes.
Bombing the Free Syrian Army carries the same message, since the Sunni group
holds territory close to Alawite population centers.
So, did the Russian warplanes target these anti-Assad rebels in their
opening sortie last Wednesday, as Western sources insist? Or did they target
the Islamic States, as Russia sources say. I would not trust either side.
They both specialize in strategic communication, psychological warfare, and
outright lies. But Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday
that the Russians would target both Islamic State and "a list" of other
groups fighting Assad, all of whom Moscow and Damascus consider
"terrorists." And Western sources confirmed that the Russians did attack
Islamic State on Thursday.
Putin clearly sees the Islamic State militants as a growing threat to Muslim
regions in Russia's southern underbelly. But short of using ground troops,
he has no reason to believe that his airstrikes will be any more effective
than Obama's. And even with a victorious ground offensive, the Russians or
Iranians would have to stay in Syria forever to keep the Islamic State or
other militant jihadis from coming back, just as the Taliban appear to be
coming back in Afghanistan.
Outside military force will never defeat militant "fools of God," especially
those who believe they are helping to usher in the apocalypse, as the
Islamic State ideologues do. Whether led from Washington, Moscow, or Tehran,
imperial interventions will only build support for Islamic State and
strengthen their appeal. Defeating them is a problem that the Arabs, Shia
and Sunni together, and the Kurds in their homelands, need to solve for
themselves.
________________________________________
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly
Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a
magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France,
where he is researching a new book, "Big Money and the Corporate State: How
Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How to Nonviolently
Break Their Hold."
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
A video grab from footage on the Russian Defense Ministry's official
website, purporting to show a Russia's Su-24M bomber dropping bombs during
an airstrike in Syria. (photo: Russian Defence Ministry/AFP/Getty Images)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
Is Bombing Syria Any Better if Putin Drops the Bombs?
By Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News
06 October 15
istory will perhaps remember, God forbid, that the third world war quietly
began on Wednesday the 30th of September 2015," wrote the left-leaning
French magazine L'Obs.
Claims, counter-claims, and denials abound, but the outline is clear. In the
Arabian Gulf off the coast of Oman on or around last Wednesday, the American
Navy's USS Forest Sherman claims to have seized a cargo of arms from a
fishing dhow sailing from Iran. The arms were ostensibly intended for
Yemen's Shia rebels, the Houthi, who are fighting Sunni forces led by Saudi
Arabia.
Also last Wednesday, Russia began bombing Syria, reportedly hitting Free
Syrian Army rebels that the CIA trained and armed. We'll look at the
targeting reports in a moment.
Like the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo that led
to World War I, Wednesday's events could well lead to the ultimate
catastrophe, whether by accident or intent. In any case, they dramatize how
the passions of the Islamic holy war between Saudi-led Sunni and Iranian-led
Shia now intersect with the new Cold War, a nuclear-tinged conflict that
pits Putin's Russia against the United States and its NATO allies.
The questions are obvious. Bombing by the US and its allies has proved
bloody, largely ineffective, and often counter-productive against the
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Why should Russian airstrikes prove any
different? Will the Iranians and their allies from Lebanon's Hezbollah
provide the missing boots on the ground? Will Chinese aircraft and soldiers
enter the fray, as news reports now suggest? Will Putin feel compelled to
deploy large number of his own troops? Will all the new bombing slow down or
speed up the flow of refugees into Europe? Or, could Putin's new escalation
lead to a rapprochement that enables Russia, the US, and Iran to clean up
the inhuman mess they helped create in Syria?
Much of the mess grew out of George W. Bush's classically imperial conquest
of Iraq, one of the worst blunders ever in US foreign policy. Barack Obama
then followed up in Syria with his personal brand of hesitant half measures,
poorly thought out, ineptly executed, and widely misunderstood by critics
and supporters alike.
The initial insurgency against Syrian president Bashir al-Assad in 2011 was
part of the Arab Spring, which the Obama administration promoted through the
National Endowment for Democracy and the State's Department's "Democracy
Bureaucracy." Regime change remained the goal, as it had under Bush and his
neo-con advisers. Obama then fanned the flames of Islam's holy war by having
the CIA covertly arm the rebels backed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who wanted
to overthrow both Assad and his Alawite Shia supporters. Wisely, Obama held
back from any major assault on Assad, as a large majority of Americans
opposed deploying the needed ground troops. This made regime change
impossible, and left the administration with a de facto policy of doing just
enough to keep any side from winning.
As the Israeli-American analyst Edward Luttwak explained, "By tying down Mr.
Assad's army and its Iranian and Hezbollah allies in a war against Al
Qaeda-aligned extremist fighters, four of Washington's enemies will be
engaged in war among themselves and prevented from attacking Americans or
America's allies."
"Keep the lid on, but keep the pot boiling" has been a murderous strategy,
shaming the Obama administration. But regime change it was not. And now for
all of John Kerry's harsh words against Assad, Washington still does far
less than needed to pry the Syrian despot out of office.
Enter Putin, who continues to defend Assad as the country's only legitimate
ruler, enabling the Syrian regime to match and even exceed the Americans in
creating the single largest identifiable group of refugees streaming into
Europe. But, for all his legalistic rhetoric about national sovereignty, the
Russian leader is less than committed to keep Assad in power. As far back as
2012, his UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, proposed a peace plan toformer
Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari. As the
Finn recently told the Guardian, Churkin's plan included finding "an elegant
way for Assad to step aside."
Putin's escalation makes an elegant exit even more likely. Whatever his many
other motives for upping the ante, Putin has gone out of his way to reassure
the Syrian Alawites that he will protect them whatever happens to Assad, in
whom they appear to have lost confidence. He is building two new military
facilities near Latakia, in the heart of the Alawite region, giving people
there the feeling that Russia will defend them against their Sunni foes.
Bombing the Free Syrian Army carries the same message, since the Sunni group
holds territory close to Alawite population centers.
So, did the Russian warplanes target these anti-Assad rebels in their
opening sortie last Wednesday, as Western sources insist? Or did they target
the Islamic States, as Russia sources say. I would not trust either side.
They both specialize in strategic communication, psychological warfare, and
outright lies. But Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday
that the Russians would target both Islamic State and "a list" of other
groups fighting Assad, all of whom Moscow and Damascus consider
"terrorists." And Western sources confirmed that the Russians did attack
Islamic State on Thursday.
Putin clearly sees the Islamic State militants as a growing threat to Muslim
regions in Russia's southern underbelly. But short of using ground troops,
he has no reason to believe that his airstrikes will be any more effective
than Obama's. And even with a victorious ground offensive, the Russians or
Iranians would have to stay in Syria forever to keep the Islamic State or
other militant jihadis from coming back, just as the Taliban appear to be
coming back in Afghanistan.
Outside military force will never defeat militant "fools of God," especially
those who believe they are helping to usher in the apocalypse, as the
Islamic State ideologues do. Whether led from Washington, Moscow, or Tehran,
imperial interventions will only build support for Islamic State and
strengthen their appeal. Defeating them is a problem that the Arabs, Shia
and Sunni together, and the Kurds in their homelands, need to solve for
themselves.
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly
Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a
magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France,
where he is researching a new book, "Big Money and the Corporate State: How
Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How to Nonviolently
Break Their Hold."
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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