US Obama Pushes Turkey for an Attack on Syria

-DR. ABDUL RUFF

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For four months now, anti-government protests in Syria, as an offshoot of similar mischief engineered by CIA in Tunisia and Egypt ostensibly for “democracy” but in reality only to destabilize the region, have appeared to gain momentum week by week but as the holy month of Ramadan starts, the expectation is that protests will grow.

The Syrian government has repeatedly accused foreign-backed extremists of armed criminal gangs of stirring up trouble. Syria has no defense against Western systems and, like Libya, does not pursue legitimate nuclear program to keep the enemy at a distance. Protests were held across Syria, including Aleppo and Idlib, near the Turkish border, and the capital, Damascus.

In a way to restore normalcy, Syrian armed forces appear to have withdrawn last week from the city of Hama, which has emerged as a center of opposition to Assad’s rule. The Syrian authorities have responded to widespread anti-government protests with overwhelming military force. Operations by security forces also intensified.

The unrest in Syria seems to have created flutter and serious concerns in neighboring Turkey making all efforts to avert any such "uprisings" there to upset the Turkish bourgeoisie’s regional ambitions and its deep concerns about the possibility that protests and violence could spread from Syria to Turkey itself.

Unlike Turkey, Syria is not a member of NATO and is opposed by the NATO. The Turkish elite fears that protest in Syria could destabilize the entire region. The two countries share a border that passes through the majority-Kurdish areas of northeast Syria and southeast Turkey. Ankara has waged a decades-long war against Kurdish nationalists there, resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians. It fears that a civil war in Syria could destabilize ethnic-Kurdish regions of Turkey.

Turkey has already increased its military presence along the 900-mile border with Syria. Ankara said it has been “trying to convince our Western allies to give some more time for Assad to implement reforms… But if a regime is not listening to the advice of its friend and neighbor and continues opening fire on its own people, that regime can no longer be Turkey’s friend. 

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the possibility of military intervention in Syria during a phone call with fascist US President Barack Obama. Recently, Turkey’s foreign minister reportedly presented a letter from Turkish President Abdullah Gul to President Bashar Assad of Syria as an “ultimatum.” In the letter, Gul is believed to have warned his Syrian counterpart that Turkey would consider participating in an international intervention force. The message is the USA and European imperialist powers, and their NATO ally, Turkey, are preparing for possible military action against Syria. As a prelude to open conflict, the Turkish government has also warned that it would freeze all investments in Syria, believed to be worth some $260 million.

Using the tensions on Turkey-Syria boarders and with a view to getting maximum benefits from the Mideast region, the US and European powers are preparing for an intervention in Syria and they want Turkey to be on their side. NATO terror forces could destroy much of Syria’s air defenses within 48 hours, before starting an “open-ended bombardment of Syrian tanks and ground troops. The joint notorious NATO forces are looking to fashion a regime—with or without Assad—to serve their predatory economic and strategic interests.

USA issued a usual statement meant to threaten those nations that condemn US unilateralism and do not support NATO fascism and US advancement of illegal interests that the Syrian president had suffered a “loss of legitimacy,” and that Washington was seeking to gain the support of other countries in condemning the Assad regime. Washington and Israel also vehemently oppose Syria’s ties to Iran and Hezbollah. Though the US and its main Persian Gulf ally, Saudi Arabia, have courted Assad in recent years, the removal of Assad and his replacement with a more pliant tool of US imperialism would fit with Washington’s goal of isolating and ultimately overthrowing the government in Tehran.

In February, the US-backed Iraqi regime violently suppressed protests inspired by the working class uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Military intervention in Syria also carries the threat of renewed conflict in Iraq. Syria shares a long border with US-occupied Iraq, including Iraq’s autonomous majority-Kurdish region. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees live in Syria, often in squalid conditions, having escaped the devastation of the US invasion and occupation of their country.

Even as Turkey issues ultimatum to Syria, Iran has requested Turkey not to attack Syria or permit its territory to be used for an international military incursion. A Turkish invasion of Syria would also raise the specter of a far broader regional war, notably involving Iran. Though trade between Turkey and Iran has increased in recent years, the two countries remain regional rivals. Iran’s longstanding relations with Assad and its backing of the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement in Lebanon are seen by the Turkish elite as a threat to their interests in the region.

An Observation

Destabilization of sovereign states through "regime change" is closely coordinated with US military planning. An extended Middle East Central Asian war has been on the Pentagon's drawing board since the mid-1990s. As part of this extended war scenario, the US-NATO alliance plans to wage a military campaign against Syria under a UN sponsored "humanitarian mandate". 

The road to Tehran goes through Damascus. A US-NATO sponsored war on Iran would involve, as a first step, a destabilization campaign ("regime change") including covert intelligence operations in support of rebel forces directed against the Syrian government.  

The July 2006 bombing of Lebanon by the Zionist regime backed by USA-UK terror twins, was part of a carefully planned "military road map". Israel's July 2006 war on Lebanon also sought to establish Israeli control over the North Eastern Mediterranean coastline including offshore oil and gas reserves in Lebanese and Palestinian territorial waters. The extension of "The July War" on Lebanon into Syria had been contemplated by US and Israeli military planners. It was abandoned upon the defeat of Israeli ground forces by Hizbollah. 

The entire Mideast region is too volatile and fragile. Any NATO/Turkey attack would antagonize Russia, which maintains close economic and strategic ties to Syria, while straining the resources of NATO members already fighting against Libya. The western terrocracies do not want to offer extra bargain chips to Moscow.  The Western powers could not rely on a local proxy force in Syria to fight on their behalf, as NATO has done with the Transitional National Council in eastern Libya.

There are at present four distinct war theaters: Afghanistan-Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine and Libya. A war on Syria would lead to military escalation. An attack on Syria would lead to the integration of these separate war theaters, eventually leading towards a broader Middle East-Central Asian war, engulfing an entire region from North Africa and the Mediterranean to Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

An invasion of Syria could further destabilize Iraq, sending masses of refugees back across the border, and aggravating tensions between the Kurdish regime in northern Iraq and the Shiite Arab-dominated central government in Baghdad. So far, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki has refused to condemn Assad’s actions and has urged Syrian protesters not to “sabotage” the state. Moreover, Maliki, a Shiite, has developed close links with the Iranian government and the Assad regime, both of which have provided him with political support.

Russia says sanctions against the government of Bashar Al- Assad are not a panacea and will not promote stability in Syria. Any possible UN Security Council decisions on Syria would lead to a repetition of the Libyan scenario complicating an already fragile Mideast terrorized jointly by NATO- and Israel. .

War preparations to attack Syria and Iran have been in "an advanced state of readiness" for several years. The global dictator US-CIA categorizes Syria along with Iran as a "rogue state" and escalation is an integral part of the military agenda. A war on Syria is viewed by the Pentagon as part of the broader war directed against Iran. There is a clear-cut military roadmap characterized by a sequence of US-NATO war theaters. This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic oil reserves and pipeline routes. It is supported by the Anglo-American oil giants. 

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