If reporting by renowned American journalist, Seymour Hersh, proves accurate, the declared American policy regarding the Syrian war is principally inconsistent with United States military behaviour on the ground. Writing in the London Review of Books, Hersch states that the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs-of-Staff have been working secretly with the Syrian military, providing the kind of intelligence that allows the government of Bashar Al Assad to fight Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) extremists.
According to Hersh’s investigation, Military to Military, the conduct of the Pentagon is not part of a double-pronged US policy on Syria, but is rather carried out in complete defiance of the declared position of President Barack Obama.
“The military’s resistance dates back to the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff (...) forecast that the fall of the [Al] Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria’s takeover by extremists, much as was then happening in Libya,” Hersh wrote.
Ironically, Libya was by then serving as a major depot of arms shipped by the CIA to deliver weapons to Al Assad’s rivals. According to the report, much of these weapons, ended up in the hands of Daesh and Jabhat Al Nusra.
In keeping with his previous reports, Hersh’s investigation was immediately dismissed by some as unfounded. However, as was the case with his reporting on ‘The Killing of Osama Bin Laden’ last May, much of these new allegations are likely to be validated over time.
The US approach to the war in Syria is a typical reaction of the Obama administration. On one hand, it is prudent enough not to get entangled in another costly conflict with unguaranteed outcomes. On the other hand, it lacks the courage to force a politically-negotiated solution that would spare Syria countless more lives. Either way, it is viewed as lacking in any moral conviction, as a world power, with the ability to assist in conflict-ridden zones.
In fact, Obama’s political agenda, underserving of the term ‘strategy’, has been predicated on fighting a Cold War in the Middle East. It labours to stifle the war efforts of its global and regional rivals, as well as support, at least publicly, anti-Al Assad forces using its network of regional allies.
Needless to say, such indecision has proved a major obstacle in Syria.
Obama’s double-edged ‘strategy’ has done more damage than a covert split between Obama and the Pentagon regarding their perception of Al Assad. It has also resurrected a political group, the neoconservatives, that has done the Middle East and the US much harm — first, by cheerleading the war on Iraq; and later, by concocting the very policies that resulted in the current bloody mess, which has extended to Syria.
Furthermore, while the neocons are still generally subdued and confined to their old and newly-launched think-tanks, their talking heads are back with more sinister plans than ever. In fact, it was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed between the P5+1 (the US, Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany) and Iran that revitalised the neocons, uniting them around a single cause.
According to investigative journalist Jim Lobe, even as Israel has largely limited its efforts to derail the agreement with Iran, which aimed at clinching a $50 billion (Dh183.9 billion) military aid package from the US, “hardline neocons ... have clearly not given up on their cherished goal of achieving regime change in Tehran”.
These efforts are largely mounted via the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), the rebranded name of the Project for the New American Century which is responsible for fashioning the political discourse that destroyed Iraq and destabilised the Middle East.
The neocons’ vision on Iraq was articulated in an article recently published in Foreign Affairs magazine. The rhetoric used by the article’s three neocon intellectuals is the same as that often utilized in the past, promising a grand, dark vision of dismantling nations, and rehashing solutions to massive problems, with little expertise on the subject, aside from ensuring Israeli interests.
“A regime as dangerous to US interests as Tehran requires a comprehensive strategy to counter it. That means exploiting all of Iran’s vulnerabilities: Increasing the costs of its foreign adventures, weakening its economy, and backing its domestic discontents. Pursuing that strategy will take time, but eventually, it will put the United States in a position to impose terms on Iran, including in the nuclear realm,” they wrote.
The authors, Eliot Cohen, Eric Edelman, and Ray Takeyh, have all served important roles within the former George W. Bush administration, alongside other neocon leaders such as Richard Perle. Edelman was a senior deputy national security adviser of US Vice-President Dick Cheney — a particularly belligerent character during the Iraq war.
But since the philosophy of neocons is predicated on grand visions, however destructive, it should come as no surprise that they are also promoting yet a new Middle East, which requires the dismantling of modern Iraq and Syria and the creation of a new country. That part of the ‘vision’ is left to John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations who has now been promoted as an apparent ‘scholar’ in the pro-Israel lobby group, the American Enterprise Institute.
The latest of such intellectual charges by Bolton was published in the New York Times on November 24. Under the title, ‘To defeat [Daesh], create a Sunni state’, he engaged in his typical brand of theorising, raging against “Obama’s ineffective efforts” to destroy Daesh and demanding instead a “clear view shared by Nato allies.” The impetus behind his logic is that once Daesh is destroyed, the region that the militant group designated as a ‘state’ should be turned into a Sunni state; which he termed a “Sunni-Stan”.
“As we did in Iraq with the 2006 ‘Anbar Awakening,’ the counterinsurgency operation that dislodged Al Qaida from its stronghold in that Iraqi province, we and our allies must empower viable Sunni leaders, including tribal authorities who prize their existing social structure,” he wrote.
Only an illogical person would fail to appreciate how the sectarian seed that the US has sowed in Iraq has resulted in the disfiguring of the Iraqi nation. This massive tampering with the social, cultural, religious and political fabric of society — by first dismantling all government institutions, empowering Shiites and oppressing Sunnis, turning the Sunnis against one another, and so forth — has paved the way for the unity between various Sunni groups, which has ultimately resulted in the formation of Daesh.
The dark vision propagated by the neocons, which are still largely confined to media platforms, could possibly find their way to the halls of power under a new administration. However, whatever path they select, the neocons should never be allowed access to the Middle East discourse, and their visions should remain confined to their ever-mushrooming think-tanks.
Dr Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include Searching Jenin, The Second Palestinian Intifada and his latest My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story. His website is: www.ramzybaroud.net.
