1. The Syrian Arab Spring in 2011 was about democracy, but once the U.S., and Saudi Arabia drafted Syrian mercenaries to oust Bashar Assad, and then Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia moved in to keep him in power, it became a multi-imperialistic conflict – not a civil war as it is falsely referred to in the media.
2. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir told CNN on Feb. 13, 2016, that “Assad would have to leave Syria, or he would be removed militarily,” on quote. Fact-of-matter: The U.S. and Saudi Arabia treat Syria as their own real estate, and want to throw out Assad as if he were a squatter! They did that to Mohammed Morsi in Egypt, too!
3. Russia’s responses to the U.S. and Saudi Arabia colonization plan of Syria: “We will deal with people willing to be part of the political process.” (Washington Post, Feb. 13, 2016) Assad is part of the political process, foreign mercenaries are not!
4. “Political process” for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia means Bashar Assad must go, sooner or later. To Russia, Syrians would decide Assad’s future – not them!
5. The U.S. claims that Russia is bombing “Moderate rebels,” not the Islamic State in Syria. “Moderate for the U.S. means Saudi Arabian mercenaries, like the “Jaysh al Islam,” and the “Jaysh al-Mujajirin Wa-al Ansar,” a Chechen group that Russia want to finish in Syria – rather than let it survive and return to the Caucasus region later to continue Jihad against Russia!
6. BBC reported on December 13, 2015 that there were as many as 1.000 rebels groups across Syria. At the beginning the U.S. had only 1 group of U.S. mercenaries, “The Free Syria Army (FSA),” and called all other groups terrorists! The FSA was a complete fiasco, and the U.S. made a U-Turn, after the Russian intervention, and adopted all the Syrian rebels it had earlier designated terrorists -except the Islamic State and Al Nusra- as “Moderate Rebels!” The U.S. logic? Muslim Jihadists are better than Russian control. The U.S. did that in Afghanistan, too.. It adopted the Taliban, called them “freedom fighters” to fight the Soviet invasion, but after the Soviet forces left it called them “terrorists” because they refused to become subservient to the U.S. stooge regime in Kabul.
7. What is the U.S.-Saudi plan for Syria? Support all rebels except ISIS and al-Nusra, the two strongest, until Bashar Assad and Russia are evicted, and then form a New Syrian Army lavished with hefty Saudi salaries for loyalty, appoint as commander a brutal Syrian General like Egypt’s al-Sissi to hunt and eliminate any opponents, and then run Syria like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Emirates, and North Korea.
8. The Syrian Arab Spring’s dream was to replace the Dynasty of the Assad family with democracy. But the U.S. and its Arab despots in the Gulf moved in to replace Assad and shrink the influence of his allies, Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah. Russia reacted militarily to protect its ally, as the U.S. reacted against Nazi Germany in WWII to protect is allies in Europe and against Japan to protect its allies in the Pacific. And Saudi Arabia invaded Bahrain to protect its ally King Khalifa from being overthrown! Why is Russia guilty for doing the same in Syria? Winston Churchill was right when he said that “In a war, the first casualty is the truth, and it needs lies as bodyguards until the war is over!
9. Now Turkey exploits the Syrian anarchy and started bombing the Kurdish Pesmerga, armed, funded, and trained by the U.S., Germany and France, for its own gains, while the French president Francois Hollande and German chancellor Angela Merkel frantically beg Turkey to stop bombing their ally who fights the Islamic State! Syria has sunk into a convulsion of foreign states and their rebels groups or armies have no rules other that killing anybody they deem as an opponent! Russian prime minister Dmitri Medvedev reflected on that by angrily tell reporters that the West tries to elevate the Syrian conflict to the level of the U.S.-Russia Cuban missiles crisis in 1962!
10. The Syrian Epilogue: The Russian involvement in Syria has bolstered Bashar Assad, and the U.S. and Saudi Arabia hate to end up as losers after a 5 years of gargantuan effort to oust him. Worse yet, the global public opinion -having seen all the Syrian devastation and the millions of refugees that have flooded Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Europe, and having witnessed the U.S. and Saudi Arabia war and devastation in Yemen, and the U.S. manipulations to install Khalifa Hiftar as Libya’s Sissi (dictator), have turned around and accepts that Assad is better for Syria because all other Syrian warmongers are just worse!
The global view of the Syrian conflict? Academics around the world that supported the ouster of Bashar Assad at the beginning of the Syrian Arab Spring, including myself, have turned around now and vow that Bashar Assad is the best to put Syria back together. It is an unpleasant “The rat or the snake” analogy that the global academic community had to accept – after 5 years of war and unspoken Syrian infrastructure devastation, and a catastrophic refugee calamity. For humanity, therefore, one Pol Pot was enough. The “Syrian Killing Fields” don’t need another Pol Pot or another Fatah al-Sissi, or another Khalifa Hiftar encore there.
Would any of the U.S. candidates running for president change U.S. policy if elected? No! They can’t! The number (1) principle in American Political Sciences is “Continuity,” except where a Vietnam-like quagmire would turn it-up-side-down! Plus, all of the U.S. presidential candidates are just ordinary dreamers looking to fill the misfits pages of the U.S. presidential history – like George W. Bush! They are not Thomas Jefferson, the co-author of the U.S. Constitution! They are front-men of the U.S. Military and Industrial Complex. Jefferson was his own man with high morals. His motto: “No action can be deemed virtuous when it emanates either from malicious or sinister motives!” That describes Barack Obama’s Middle East policy today.
Nikos Retsos, retired professor
