The head of the Syrian radical opposition Ahmad Assi Jabra was quick to push blame on the Syrian authorities and demanded the international community in the capacity of the United States, England and France to act immediately. Moreover Ahmad presented its Western allies with a long list of targets to be leveled to the ground right away. In their turn, the Western leaders were quick to accept these claims, waiting for no investigation whatsoever, and started to threaten Syria with air strikes and bombardments.
The Syria President Bashar Assad rejected all blames by calling them “an insult to the common sense”. From a political viewpoint, as well as from the military one, an attack with chemical weapons carried out by the Syrian regular troops is an absurd. The Syrian generals have conducted a number of extremely successful operations, cleansing whole cities from rebels. Therefore they have no reason whatsoever to resort to WMDs, especially in the crowded areas where the Syrian regular troops are stationed. The Syrian authorities admitted that they have found evidence that it were the rebels who launched an attack against the regular troops and civilians. The National TV have shown the footage demonstrating the containers with chemical substances marked “made in Saudi Arabia” and the gas-masks marked “made in the USA” lying in the underground tunnels taken from the rebels minutes ago.
It was Carla Del Ponte, the Chief Prosecutor of United Nations international criminal law tribunals that first observed that: “in this case there are more evidence against the Syrian rebels than the regular troops”. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that “the acusations against the Assad regime are absolutely absurd” and initiated the UN inspection in Syria. But the United States wasn’t willing to wait and see what the UN inspection could have found in Syria, the White House representatives said they have the sufficient amount of clues against the Assad regime so the United States won’t need an UN approval to launch a military attack against Syria. At the same time the Obama administration announced that they want to postpone the Geneva-2 meeting preparations they were carrying out with the Russian side, the meeting was originally scheduled on August 28. The Syrian shores are surrounded by three carriers battle groups that are cappable to unleash hundreds and hundreds of bombs and cruise misiles against the Syrian troops. The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs warned the White House that the American military intervention in Syria may have grave consiquences. He reminded that: “all the previous cases of the American agression, may it be Iraq or Libya, have worsen the political climate in these countries, causing violence, as the terrorist activities increased and spread across the region”.
It’s cristal clear that the anti-Syrian propaganda based on the myth of the usage of the chemical weapons by the Assad regime is a planned operation. The aim of this operation is relatively simple – to put a hault to the peace talks in Syria and provide an excuse for military intervention. The thing is – this operation was executed extremly poorly, since the masterminds behind it were quite sure that “it will do like this” since it was to be supported by NATO. One can’t help but remember the same foul play with Sadam Hussein’s imaginary weapons of mass destruction that allowed the West to invade Iraq in 2003. Should one remind you how the United States resorted to the wide array of chemical weapons in Vietnam, which resulted in tens of thousands of Vietnamese people suffering from chronic illnesses today. Therefore the true interest of the NATO forces in Syria, despite all claims about the protection of the civilians, is the toppling of Bashar Assad. When Syria is done, the NATO forces may proceed to the desctruction of Iran along with supressing Hezbollah in Lebanon. It’s only natural that Israel supports this kind of plan, since the destruction of the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance is of such strategical importance for this country that it outweighs the prospects of having radical Islamists in control of Syria.
At the same time the United States strives to show “who’s the boss”, since the world’s perception of this country as a “sole superpower” has recently been in decline for a number of reasons. The major one – is the support the White House provides to the Sunni’s “political Islam”. The American dimplomants were massacred in Libya in 2012 by the same radical Islamists the White House was supporting in the anti-Gaddafi war. They’ve supported the toppled Morsi which caused both the Egyptian military and the Muslim Brotherhood representatives to criticize Washington. The amusing inability to bring down the Assad regime, which the President Obama condemned back in 2011 as “non-legitimate”. And finally the “Snowden case” and the Russian role in it. Edward Snowden has managed to show the world how the paranoid Pentagon spies on most anybody in this world. All of these have spoiled the United States’ public image big time. The possible military intervention in Syria – is only a step down the path of destroying the regional independent sources of power and stability, following Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya. It seems that the United States are true to their favorite formula: “smaller countries are easier to govern (and bully)”.
The possible NATO agression against Syria may have grave consiquences indeed. If one is to take into consideration that the Syrian army is one of the most well-organized and well equiped entities on the Middle East, the NATO attack won’t be anything like a pleasant walk in a park. The conflict should spread across the region, and Iran, Lebanone, Iraq and, quite possibly, the palestinian forces. Israel will found itself in a hot spot, and it may and will not only be attacked by the regular troops, the terrorist are bound to say their word in this conflict.
Russia has been doing its best to prevent the agression through all the dimplomatical means possible. Must the agression actually occur, this will mean that the White House has admitted that from now on it will completely ignore Russia, China, Iran and the list goes on. Should the Assad regime fall, Syria will become an infinite source of instability and terrorism, causing disturbances in the region. In this regard it is only logical for the major players to enchase the support of the Assad regime, providing it with all the necessary weapons to protect itself against the dogs of war. This is the only measure to save the innocent lives of Syrian people.
The selfish hegemonism of the White House policy goes against all norms of the international law. Russia should demand that the United States provides evidence, if there’s any, to support their claims. If there’s no evidence to be provided, than the UN Security Council must condemn the United States as an agresssor.
Boris Dolgov, Cand. Sc. (History), is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Arabic and Islamic Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This article was written exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.