SPEAKING
FREELY Syria: another US stepping
stone By Ardeshir Ommani
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
The Syrian armed
opposition is not independent from the United
States and reactionary Arab regimes in its
objective to capture power, not through the ballot
box by imposing a civil war. The degree of its
dependency and servitude manifests itself when US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unambiguously
called on "friends of democratic Syria" to unite
and rally against President Bashar Assad. This
proclamation was ushered the day after the US
sponsored authorization for military intervention
into Syria was rejected by China and Russia, who
were forced to veto the US plan for invasion of
Syria.
In the continuation of her command,
Clinton reiterated that the
"international
community", just like George W Bush's "coalition
of the willing" had a duty to promote a political
transition that would see President Bashar
al-Assad step down.
Clinton gave her
directive to the whole world while visiting
Bulgaria, one of the 10 poorest countries of
Europe, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of less
than US$53 billion in 2010, the Per Capita Income
of $13,449 and the General government gross debt
as high as 19.7% of the country's GDP. The purpose
of interposing Bulgaria's poor economic conditions
is not to denigrate the country or its people, but
to show that US Imperialism with its plans of
domination, destruction and plunder uses even the
most poverty-stricken nations to turn against
other struggling countries such as Syria, Iran and
not too long ago Libya to accomplish its criminal
purpose. Following in the footsteps of Cheney,
Rumsfeld and Company just before the invasion of
Iraq, Clinton lashed out at Russia and China as a
stepping stone to declare "faced with a neutered
Security Council we have to redouble our efforts
outside of the United Nations with our allies and
partners…."
I think we have seen this
movie before. The first character that appears on
the stage is a spokesman for the Arab League (AL).
It makes no difference whether he is elected or
appointed by the Saudi Arabian King and Prime
Minister and more importantly he has received
Hillary Clinton's or General David H. Petraeus,
the Director of the CIA's blessings. Following his
assignment, the Arab League emissary who has been
ushered to the UN General Assembly room by Susan
Rice, US Ambassador to the United Nations, pleads
for establishing a "no fly zone" to save the lives
of the innocent Syrians for God's sake!
If
there is no contest to the resolution
well-prepared by the US government, then
Washington gets to work and with the help of the
coalition of the willing, permission in hand,
begins the bombarding of Syrian logistics, every
kind of arms depot, the electrical grids, the
factories, food depots, water reservoirs, city
sewer systems and schools and hospitals. Does this
scenario have precedence? Yes, about six months
after extracting the license to impose a "no fly
zone" over Libya, the Western powers with carpet
bombings flattened that country, liberated the
country's light sweet crude oil and succeeded to
install one of the senior ENI SpA executives
(Italy's major oil company) as Libya's oil
minister and in two months the Western oil
companies were sucking out 1.3 million barrels a
day.
This time the job of preparing the
draft resolution was given to the Moroccan
representative to the UN who was on a fast track.
The plan demanded the Syrian government withdraw
all of its armed forces from all populated areas
back to its barracks. However, it ignored Russia's
demand that the Syrian opposition distance itself
from extremist groups that commit violence and
crimes against civilians. The second Russian
demand that was totally ignored was that 'armed
groups must stop attacks against state
institutions and the public while the Syrian armed
forces are leaving the cities.' The refusal to
include these provisions into the draft resolution
meant only one thing: dissolution of the Syrian
state and a total "regime change".
Instead
of being apologetic, the co-authors of the draft
began slamming the integrity of the Russian
government. For instance, Morocco's representative
charged the Russian government with ignoring the
"Arab's common stances". France's delegate went as
far as calling Russia and China accomplices in
crimes committed by the Syrian regime. For Russia
and China who had seen the terrible consequences
in Libya, there was only one alternative and that
was vetoing the resolution.
This time
around, in the case of Syria, China and Russia had
learned their bitter lesson and resisted being
fooled for a second time. But the US and its
allies had stacked the cards in favor of passing
the resolution and doing unto Syria what they did
to Libya. More telling, the US did not accept any
alteration in the resolution, which forced China
and Russia to veto the motion and defeat it.
As far back as in November 2011, NATO in
collaboration with the pro-imperialist and
reactionary Arab Sheiks of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar,
United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey were
planning to invade Syria, set up a colonial regime
and overthrow a social democratic secular
government. According to an article on Al Bawaba,
an Arabic/English internet site, Senior European
sources revealed that Arab jet fighters and
possibly Turkish warplanes, backed by American
logistical support would impose a no-fly zone in
Syria's sky after the Arab League issues a
decision calling for armed intervention. The
sources told Kuwait's al Rai daily that the Syrian
trucks, tanks and military vehicles would not be
excluded from the targets of the invading jets.
The fates of Libya and Syria could not be
more similar. While deep in economic crisis, the
US and Europe are looking to regenerate capitalism
through widespread war with the developing
countries before being ready for war with Russia
and China.
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
of Asia Times Online's regular contributors.
Ardeshir Ommani, President
of the American Iranian Friendship Committee
(AIFC), is a writer and political analyst with a
background in Political Economy. AIFC was created
in 2004 to promote peace and dialogue between the
US and Iran, and prevent any NATO instigated war
on the Iranian people.
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