It took Reuters quite a while to be
allowed to report that US President Barack Obama
had approved an intelligence finding [1] letting
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) loose in its
support for the weaponized "rebels" fighting for
regime change in Syria.
By now even
fishermen in Fiji knew about this "secret" (not to
mention that everyone and his neighbor across
Latin America knows a thing or two about the CIA's
regime change adventures). Reuters cautiously
describes the support as "circumscribed". That's
code for "leading from behind".
Whenever
the CIA wants to leak something it uses a faithful
scribe, such as David Ignatius from the Washington
Post. Already on July 18 Ignatius was reproducing
his briefing, [2] according to
which "the CIA has been
working with the Syrian opposition for several
weeks under a non-lethal directive ... Scores of
Israeli intelligence officers are also operating
along Syria's border, though they are keeping a
low profile."
How lovely. How low profile
do you get along Syria's borders? An Instagram
surrounded by a bunch of grinning truck drivers?
As for the Mossad's "low profile", the
spin in Tel Aviv is that Israel is able to
"control" the swarm of hardcore Wahhabis and
Salafi-jihadis now infesting Syria. Even if that
is manifest nonsense, one juicy point is clear;
Israel is in bed with al-Qaeda-style Islamists.
What this means is that the Not Exactly
Free Syrian Army (FSA), crammed with Muslim
Brotherhood diehards and infiltrated by
Salafi-jihadis, is following the agenda not only
of their financiers and weaponizers - the House of
Saud and Qatar - but also Tel Aviv, alongside
Washington and its trademark poodles London and
Paris. So this is not just a proxy war - it's a
multiple, concentric proxy war.
Meet
the triangle of death Tel Aviv's agenda is
clear; a weakened Syrian government, an
overextended army in disarray, sectarian hatred
all around and a relentless slouching towards
balkanization. The ultimate goal; not only the
Lebanonization, but the Somalization of Syria and
environs.
Turkey's agenda remains
incredibly murky - apart from the wishful thinking
of post-Assad Syria becoming a mild, civilized
version of the AKP reign in Ankara (it won't
happen).
As reported by ATol for months
now, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
until a while ago was running a command and
control center in Iskenderun, in Hathay province.
Recently, it was finally leaked to Reuters the
news of a joint Turkey-Qatar-Saudi Arabia "secret"
base in Adana, 100 kilometers from the Syrian
border. Adana happens to be the home of Incirlik,
the immense NATO base. A local ATol source for
weeks has been reporting of frantic cargo
movements at Incirlik.
It was Saudi Deputy
Foreign Minister Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Saud
who requested, in person, for the base to be set
up, to Ankara's delight.
Ankara-Riyadh-Doha; talk about a triangle
of death. Yet the spin from Qatar is once again of
the "leading from behind" variety. Turkey is doing
the military heavy lifting; the CIA is "hands
off"; and Qatar is just taking pictures like an
innocent tourist (while directing operations via
its military intelligence). The heavy-duty guys
are all unspecified "middlemen".
Obama has
not authorized a drone war - yet - and the CIA may
not be weaponizing the "rebels"; that's the
"triangle of death's" business. An inflation of
Russian rocket-propelled grenades bought in the
black market has been responsible for recent
"rebel" surges in Damascus and Aleppo. Now an
inflation of shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles and
surface-to-air missiles is to be expected; NBC
News has already reported about a "gift" of nearly
two dozen surface-to-air missiles to the FSA -
delivered via, where else, Turkey.
Qatar
and Saudi Arabia are taking no prisoners. No one
in Washington seems to be looking back to
post-jihad Afghanistan before making a decision.
By the way, this is the 1980s Afghan jihad all
over again - with Saudi Arabia and Qatar playing
the role of Pakistan, the FSA as the glorious
mujahideen "freedom fighters" and Obama as Ronald
Reagan; the only element missing is Obama
approving a "memorandum of notification" to his
initial intelligence finding, authorizing
Washington to weaponize the freedom fighters and
introducing a swarm of drones.
Now that's
the recipe for a certified 2013 Hollywood
blockbuster.
Riyadh, for its part, is
forcing Jordan's King Playstation to install a
buffer zone in his territory for the over 100
gangs that comprise the FSA - as revealed by the
Saudi-financed al-Quds al-Arabi. And guess who was
the henchman forcing the deal? No less than
vanishing Saudi intel chief Prince Bandar, who may
or may not have been killed in a bomb attack two
weeks ago (see Where
is Prince Bandar?, Asia Times Online, August
2, 2012).
The Grim Reaper wins It's
worth repeating till the Grim Reaper comes to
collect; spectacular blowback looms large.
The prolonged siege of Aleppo is at hand.
The NATO-Gulf Cooperation Council "secret base" in
Turkey, plus free-for-all weaponizing, are
empowering an extremely nasty mix of unemployed,
semi-illiterate young Sunni Syrians, sectarian
born to kill army defectors, assorted criminals
and multinational Salafi-jihadis. This video [3]
shows everything one needs to know about the FSA.
And this [4] shows what kind of "democracy" they
are aiming for.
Saudi Wahhabis want a
hardcore Sunni Islamist Syria - complete with
Christians, Allawites, Druzes and Kurds as
third-rate citizens (or prime candidates for
beheading). Qataris want a Muslim Brotherhood
protectorate.
The Obama administration's
foreign policy makers must be on (lousy) crack.
Just because they are engaged on an all-out war
against not only Iran, but also Shi'ites all
around, how could they possibly bet on a
Somalization of Syria profiting Wahhabi
intolerance? A grinning Grim Reaper awaits in the
wings.
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