US Hawks
Advance a War Agenda in Syria
The U.S. government, having illegally sent American
troops into Syria, is now threatening to attack the
Syrian military if it endangers those troops, an
Orwellian twist that marks a dangerous escalation,
explains Daniel Lazare.
By Daniel Lazare
August 22,
2013 "Information
Clearing House"
- War, like politics, is filled with
surprises. While the focus in Syria has been on a
U.S.-backed rebel offensive in Aleppo that has
succeeded in turning tables on Bashar al-Assad’s
government, a new and unexpected flashpoint has
developed 200-plus miles to the east where U.S. jets
are engaged in a dangerous showdown with Syrian
warplanes near the city of Hasakah.
The trouble
began on Wednesday when,
according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights, Kurdish forces advanced on the
pro-government National Defense Forces that controls
portions of the city. When the NDF responded with
arrests, the fighting took off.
This is not
the first time that Kurdish and government forces
have clashed in Hasakah, which is divided among
Kurds, Arabs, Aramaic-speaking Assyrians, and a
small number of Armenians. But what makes the latest
confrontation so serious is that the U.S. quickly
upped ante by scrambling two F-22 fighters to
intercept a pair of Syrian Su-24s bombing Kurdish
positions.
NBC News
reported that the jets came within a mile
of one another on Thursday and were in visual
contact before the Syrian aircraft left the
scene. U.S. jets chased away two more Su-24s the
next day as well.
Noting that
the Kurdish units are part of a U.S.-backed
coalition known as the Syrian Democratic Forces
and that U.S. Special Operations forces were in the
area at the time, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis, a
Navy captain, said that the U.S. was resolved to
protect the safety of both.
“We view
instances that place coalition personnel at risk
with the utmost seriousness” he
declared, “and we do have the inherent
right of self-defense when U.S. forces are at risk.”
“As we’ve
said in the past,” he added, “the Syrian regime
would be well-advised not to interfere with
coalition forces or our partners.”
Such
statements are little less than Orwellian since the
United States has essentially invaded Syria by
inserting military forces without Syrian government
permission in violation of international law. What
Davis was saying, therefore, is that the U.S. will
prevent Syria from protecting its own forces on its
own soil, which was rather like the Wehrmacht
condemning Poland for daring to defend its own
territory in September 1939.
A
Pro-War Establishment
The upshot
is the latest example of how Washington’s vast
pro-war foreign-policy establishment continues to
get its way despite President Barack Obama’s efforts
to limit military involvement in the Middle
East. Establishment of a no-fly zone in northern
Syria has long been a neocon priority. Indeed,
Hillary Clinton, a
neocon favorite at this point,
reiterated
her call for a no-fly zone as recently as
April during a televised debate with Bernie Sanders.
Obama has
opposed a no-fly zone because it would draw the U.S.
into a direct conflict with the Assad government and
likely its Russian and Iranian backers as well. But
now with the U.S. promising to continue patrolling
the skies over Hasakah, he finds himself backing
into a no-fly zone regardless.
The
confrontation begs the question of who is really
calling the shots with regard to Syria, the
President or well-placed hawks whose specialty is
maneuvering the White House into doing their
bidding.
It also
raises the question of the role of the Clinton
presidential campaign. The White House is obviously
coordinating closely with Clinton’s campaign
headquarters, and with prospects of a landslide
victory that will give Democrats control of both
houses of Congress plus the presidency, the stakes
couldn’t be higher. But since a quick and easy
victory over Assad and his Russian and Iranian
allies would vindicate the neocon position, the
issue is whether pro-Hillary forces are pulling
strings to make events in Syria go her way as well.
This is not
conspiracy mongering but simply the way policy in
Washington is made. Hawks and doves are
constantly jockeying for advantage with Obama
standing haplessly in the middle. Moreover, the
hawks seem to be winning since U.S. foreign policy
has turned distinctly more robust since the
Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in
late July.
Around the
time that retired four-star Marine General John
Allen was warning America’s enemies, “You will fear
us,” and Gold Star parent Khizr Khan was telling
Trump to go home and read the Constitution, Obama
gave Ashton Carter, his interventionist Secretary of
Defense
the go-ahead to bomb ISIS positions in Libya.
On July 31
– three days after Clinton gave her acceptance
speech – Syrian rebels led by Al Nusra, the local Al
Qaeda affiliate, launched its powerful offensive in
Aleppo.
Whether or
not Washington OK’d the offensive – citing reports
of massive arms shipments to the rebels, the
well-informed Moon of Alabama website
argues persuasively that it did – there
is no doubt that it encouraged and helped coordinate
a powerful propaganda campaign that has followed in
its wake.
Omran
Daqneesh, the dazed and dirt-encrusted five-year-old
boy who has become “a symbol of Aleppo’s suffering,”
according to The New York Times, is one
example of how the campaign has borne fruit. Lina
Sergie Attar’s powerful Aug. 13 Times
opinion piece, “Watching My Beloved Aleppo Rip
Itself Apart,” was another, while the rabidly
anti-Assad Guardian has hardly let a day go
by without running a heart-rending tale about this
or that horror that Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir
Putin have visited on Syria’s civilian
population. (Examples
here,
here, and
here.)
U.S. Media on the Bandwagon
Context,
balance, and plain accuracy have fallen by the
wayside as various media outlets hop on the pro-war
bandwagon. Why, for example, focus on one the fate
of one child in rebel-held eastern Aleppo when the
UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the
mainstream media’s favor go-to source for Syrian
casualty figures,
reports that virtually the same number of
civilians have died from random rebel shelling of
government-held western Aleppo as from Syrian or
Russian aerial bombardment in the east, i.e. 163
versus 162?
While
trumpeting the fate of Omran Daqneesh, who was
shaken but apparently not seriously hurt, why has The
New York Times failed to report the plight of
12-year-old Abdullah Issa, whose
throat was slit last month by members of
a U.S.-backed rebel force known as Harakat Nour
al-Din al-Zinki because he had allegedly fought on
the government side?
“We are
even worse than ISIS,” the fighters
bragged before finishing the boy off. Yet
even though the entire gruesome image was caught on
video, the “paper of record” has refused to report a
single word.
The same
goes for Lina Sergie Attar’s stirring Times
op-ed. Although it invokes the infamous 2013 Queiq
River massacre to describe the suffering that Assad
has heaped upon the people of Aleppo, it fails to
mention that the slaughter was
most likely the work of Al Nusra. Why
spoil a good story with the facts?
Much the
same can be said for Hasakah where The Wall
Street Journal
blandly reported that “Syrian government
bombers had been striking Kurdish positions near the
city of Hasakah, where the U.S. has been backing
Kurdish forces in the fight against Islamic State,”
also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh.
Since the
U.S. is battling the Islamic State, the quintessence
of evil, its role must be above reproach while the
Syrian government is plainly up to no good.
Nonetheless, the questions continue to multiply. If
U.S. military personnel are helping the Kurds battle
ISIS, why are the Kurds fighting with pro-government
forces instead? Since the Syrian Observatory says
they started the fight, did the Americans do
anything to restrain them or call them off? Or did
they encourage them to attack in order to provoke a
wider conflict? What, moreover, happens if the U.S.
ends up downing a Syrian plane? Clinton will cheer.
But what happens if Russia decides to join in the
fray?
Making Clinton Happy
A happy
romp in the skies over Hasakah would serve the
Clinton campaign well. It would show that toughness
pays, as Clinton has repeatedly argued. But the
trouble with war is that it is rarely goes according
to plan.
Indeed, the
Syrian conflict grows more complicated by the
day. Syria and Russia are battling ISIS, Al Nusra,
and other Islamist groups while the U.S. is battling
ISIS as well while indirectly aiding Al Nusra by
channeling arms to allied Islamist groups with which
it shares weaponry and coordinates battlefield
tactics. The U.S. has so far steered clear of
conflict with Assad, although Hasakah may signal a
change of heart.
Turkey’s
megalomaniacal President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
meanwhile, opposes ISIS but supports Al Nusra
outright – “it should not be considered as a
terrorist organization” since it opposes Islamic
State, he
declared in a recent interview – but
reserves his real enmity for the America’s Kurdish
allies.
The Kurdish
People’s Protection Units (YPG) are battling Assad
in Hasakah but at the same time fighting
alongside Assad’s forces against
U.S.-backed rebels in Aleppo. China has declared its
support for Assad and has even sent military
advisers to help his regime in its fight with the
rebels, thereby introducing yet another explosive
element into the mix.
This is
more intervention than one small country can handle,
and tripwires are therefore multiplying. Obama’s
aggressive actions in Hasakah may help Clinton
against Trump but they could all too easily blow up
in the administration’s face. War, indeed, packs
just as many surprises as politics.
Daniel Lazare is the author of several books
including The Frozen
Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing
Democracy (Harcourt
Brace). |