Why Russia is Serious About Fighting Terrorism and
the US Isn’t
By Maram Susli
October 20, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" - "NEO"
- Russia in the few days it has been of fighting terrorism in Syria
has achieved far more than the US coalition. According to the New
York Times, Russia’s fighter jets are conducting nearly as many
strikes in a typical day as the American-led coalition has been
carrying out each month this year, a number which includes strikes
conducted in Iraq – not just Syria.
Whilst the US has been bombing ISIS for over a year,
ISIS has only grown and gained more ground in Syria. A few months
ago ISIS took over the ancient city of Palmyra in
Syria, a UNESCO world heritage-listed site.
In spite of the fact
that the US government acknowledged ISIS
cannot be defeated without ground troops, they have refused to work
with the Syrian military, the only force on the ground commanded by
the only UN-recognized government in the country, and the only force
capable and willing to fight ISIS.
On the other hand
Russia is coordinating with the Syrian military on the ground,
assisting Syrian troops in gaining ground against terrorism.
The discrepancy shows a lack of honesty on the part of the US when
it comes to its real agenda in Syria vs its proclaimed goal of
fighting terrorism. The US is capable of more, the US military is
the most powerful and technologically advanced force in the world.
It is logical to conclude that they are willfully throwing the fight
against terrorism in Syria and the reasons for that should be
examined.
ISIS Serves US
Geopolitical Interests, Threatens Russia’s
It has become clear
that the US’s main objectives in Syria is not their expressed goal
of ‘fighting ISIS’, but regime change, isolating Russian influence,
the Balkanization and the creation of failed states. US presidential
candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself stated that
‘removing Assad is the top priority”.
The US sees the Syrian
state as one of the last spheres of Russian influence beyond the
borders of the former Soviet Union, and a threat to its Israeli ally
in the region. The presence of ISIS and other terrorists groups
serves these interests. The US has a history of using terrorism to
topple governments friendly to Russia. Al Qaeda itself was borne of
the US objective to topple the Soviet friendly government of
Afghanistan. The dismemberment of Russian-friendly Serbia and the
creation of Kosovo was done via the same means.
More recently ISIS was
a direct result of the US’s intervention in Iraq, and have only
arrived in Libya and Syria in the wake of overt US-backed regime
change efforts there. Although Libya and Iraq did not have relations
with Russia as strong as Syria’s, Russia was still their main
weapons supplier. It is therefore not surprising that since Russia
entered the war in Syria, Saudi clerics and the Muslim Brotherhood –
both US state assets – declared ‘jihad’ on Russia.
The former Defence
Intelligence Agency (DIA) Chief Michael Flynn said in
an interview that he believed the US had made a willful decision to
allow ISIS to grow in Syria. A 2012 declassified DIA report, wrote
if the US and its allies continued to destabilize Syria by arming
extremist insurgents “there is the
possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist
principality in eastern Syria… and this is exactly what the
supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the
Syrian regime.”
The CIA had trained
thousand of ‘rebels’, not to fight ISIS, but admittedly to fight the
Assad government and Syrian military – showing once again that the
real objective behind the US’ involvement is regime change. Media
across the West has even admited this, including the Washington
Post which would report:
…the CIA
has since 2013 trained some 10,000 rebels to fight Assad’s
forces. Those groups have made significant progress against
strongholds of the Alawites, Assad’s sect.
Russia Has
More to Gain by Truly Fighting Terrorism
On the other hand
Russia has clear geopolitical interests behind defending the
Syrian state against terrorism. Syria has been an ally of Russia
for decades, and it hosts Russia’s only Mediterranean naval
base. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov stated that
Russia is entering Syria to prevent ‘another Libyan scenario,’
or in other words – to prevent it from turning into a failed
state as the US had done to Libya.
Furthermore
Russian interests in fighting terrorism are tied directly to
Russia’s own national security. Russia has had problems in the
past with terrorism within their own borders and in particular,
Chechnya. Chechen fighters who have joined ISIS in Syria, have
now threatened to
take the fight to Moscow. Jabhat Al Nusra, Syria’s Al Qaeda
faction, have also called for
terror attacks in Russia. In an interview with 60 minutes,
Russia’s President Vladimir
Putin stated that it is better to fight terrorists in Syria
than wait until they return to Russia.
Terrorism poses far
greater risks to Russia’s national security than it does to the US.
Not only is their proximity closer, but terrorists in Russia have
the potential to cleave off part of the state and overrun entire
Russian towns. This is not the case for the US, whose only risk to
national security would be civilian deaths due to bombings, and that
is not necessarily something that the US government would find a
real ‘problem,’ and in fact, might even see as a possible
opportunity.
The US Seeks Only to
Contain ISIS
The US only wanst to
contain ISIS within Syria and Iraq’s borders indefinitely – not to
defeat them. This was admitted to by a member of the current US
government and party, Democratic Rep. Adam Smith to CNN who
stated:
…we need to find
partners that we can work with in Syria to help us contain ISIS. So
it is a difficult problem to figure out the best strategy. I agree,
they have safe haven there in parts of Syria and that will have to
be part of the strategy for containing ISIS.
Chairman of the U.S.
House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes told CBS news:
I think we are containing ISIS within the
borders of Iraq and Syria. Outside of that we’re not doing much.
US President Barack
Obama himself stated that
he would like to like to:
…continue to
shrink ISIL’s sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its financing,
its military capabilities to the point where it is a manageable
problem.
This suggests that
President Obama wants to maintain ISIS sphere power to a contained
manageable circle, like a diseases that is treated but never cured.
Obama perhaps got his policies on the advice of the Brooking
Institute think-tank, which stated:
Should we defeat ISIS? Rather than defeat,
containing their activities within failed or near-failing states
is the best option for the foreseeable future.
The US is Not
Actually Bombing ISIS
The US bombing of ISIS has been
mostly nominal, an exercise in perception management. Although the
US Defense Intelligence Agency makes regular claims to have bombed
specific targets, rarely is video evidence of the bombing strikes
published. On the other hand the Russian military regularly releases
video of most of the strikes on Russia
Today. It was also leaked that the US had forbade its fighter
jets from targeting a long list of ISIS
training camps, which turn out thousands of fighters a month.
Award winning
journalist Robert Fisk told the Australian program Lateline that
the US could have bombed a convoy of ISIS militants who were taking
over Palmyra, but instead allowed them to take over a Syrian
military post as well as the ancient City which they have now begun
to destroy. When the US has dropped bombs on ISIS run territory they
have used the opportunity to primarily destroy Syria’s oil
infrastructure. Likewise the US has largely avoided bombing ISIS
and Al Qaeda targets in the Syrian district of North Hama in an
attempt to prevent Syrian troops from gaining ground.Russia is now striking these
targets long the benefactors of US-granted impunity.
The US Has
‘Forgotten’ its War with al Qaeda, Now Protects It
Perhaps the most
ironic development of Russia’s involvement in Syria’s fight against
terror, is the anger expressed by the US government and its media at
Russia’s bombing of Al Qaeda (Jabhat Al Nusra) targets.
Former US National
Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, the man largely
responsible for the creation of Al Qaeda, expressed his
frustration with the fact that Russia was targeting Al Qaeda as
well as ISIS through his twitter account.
Pro-NATO media has all but forgotten its war with Al Qaeda, and
avoids any mention of its existence preferring to concentrate on
ISIS instead. They have especially tried to avoid bringing to
light the fact that Russia is bombing Al Qaeda in Syria where
the US has largely avoided doing so including Homs, Hama, Idlib,
and around Aleppo.
In the same CNN article which
accuses Russia of not targeting ISIS but rather‘Syrian rebels”,
two maps displayed from the Institute for the Study of War shows
a very telling story. The first shows the areas in which Jabhat
al Nusra controls or jointly controls with its allies – the so
called moderate rebels receiving US-backing – but on a map
showing locations of Russian strikes, Jabhat al Nusra territory
can scarcely be seen, obstructed by highly concentrated Russian
strikes – in other words – it is finally being wiped out of
these areas.
The US
is Continuing to Fund and Arm Terrorists
The map
further illustrates how US-backed ‘moderate rebels’ working
alongside Al Qaeda has become such common knowledge. In the
past, commanders of rebel groups labeled ‘moderate’ by the
US government have fought alongside ISIS, and reiterated
their support of ISIS in satellite news interviews.
Recently “moderate
rebels” from the so-called “Free Syrian Army” Division 16 joined
Al Nusra in their attacks against the Kurdish city of Sheikh
Maqsud in Aleppo.
Pro-NATO media has even been reduced to calling the rebels ‘relatively
moderate’. Relative to Al Qaeda and ISIS?
In any case,
‘moderate’ has always been a relative term, unlike the word
secular which is the US run media dares not use to describe the
US backed insurgency. Last week the US abandoned a
Pentagon program to train rebels to fight ISIS, after all but
five defected to
Al Qaeda taking their weapons and training with them. Past
attempts by the US to arm ‘vetted rebels’ has resulted in TOW
anti-tank missiles ending up in the hands of Al Qaeda. But
instead of admitting to the fact that ‘moderate rebels’ do not
exist and ceasing the illegal armament of extremist insurgents,
the US government has instead chosen to openly back “established
rebel groups” who have close ties to Al Qaeda. The US is now
sending yet another shipment of
TOW missiles to these extremist groups through its ally Saudi
Arabia.
Al Qaeda is not
the only terrorist group the US has been accused of arming. This
month, footage filmed
by the Iraqi military of an oil refinery that had been captured
by ISIS, shows US supply crates full of food and weapons having
been delivered to Islamic State militants by parachute.
In 2014, footage of
another US supply drop to ISIS in Kobane Syria also emerged
online. Only a few days ago the US airdropped 50
tons of ammunition into Hasake region of Syria, where there
has been a lot of ISIS activity. Most of the weaponry used by
ISIS is US made.
In January this year, an Iraqi MP Majid al-Ghraoui publically
accused the US of supplying ISIS with weapons through airdrops.
Iraq
Trusts Russia More Than the US in a Real Fight Against
Terrorism
The Iraqi
government has become increasingly suspicious of the US’
lack of real commitment in fighting ISIS. On the other hand,
Russian strikes have thus far been so effective against ISIS
that the Iraqi government has asked Russia
to take on a bigger role against ISIS than the US.
Russia has in
turn signaled that
it may start bombing ISIS in Iraq as well as Syria, with the
permission of the Iraqi government. Unlike the US, Russia has
not broken international law and has sought permission to enter
Iraq and Syria from each respective state’s legitimate
government.
With
these actions Russia has called the US’ bluff on fighting ISIS,
and is effectively forcing the US to do a better job of
convincing the Iraqi government that it is truly fighting ISIS.
If Russia does enter Iraqi airspace, it will more easily cross
into Syrian airspace to provide supplies to the Syrian
government, since the US has bullied many countries in the
region to close their airspace to Russian aircraft. Furthermore,
if Iraq asks Russia to enter, it is a scenario that would
reverse any of the influence the US had gained in Iraq
throughout its lengthy occupation of the country since 2003.
The US has been
backed into a corner, and in doing so, has exposed itself and
its allies as the source of terrorism, not champions truly
fighting it. Terrorism has always been a means by which the US
has sought to deconstruct Russian spheres of influences.
Ironically over the last decade it has also simultaneously
perpetuated the myth that it is actually fighting a war against
terror. However as its allied states grow increasingly tired of
this game, how long can the US continue to juggle this
duplicity, before the entire deck of cards crumbles?
Maram Susli also
known as “Syrian
Girl,” is an activist-journalist and social commentator
covering Syria and the wider topic of geopolitics. especially
for the online magazine“New
Eastern Outlook”.
