HAVE PLANS ALREADY BEEN DRAWN UP FOR US-LED MILITARY INTERVENTION IN SYRIA?
by Chris Marsden
The Pentagon has drawn up plans for military intervention in Syria.
A military strike would be coordinated with Turkey, the Gulf States and the NATO powers, according to reports that acknowledge such plans officially for the first time. The plan is described as an “internal review” by Pentagon Central Command, to allow President Barack Obama to maintain the pretense that the White House is still seeking a diplomatic solution.
This is considered vital, as military intervention would most likely be conducted through various Middle East proxies, which the US and NATO could then back with airpower. Turkey and the Arab League states, led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, do not want to be seen for what they are: stooges of the US. Deniability for them therefore requires the US to conceal the full extent of its involvement.
In the February 6 Financial Times, Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former director of policy planning for the US State Department, argued for “A little time… for continued diplomatic efforts aimed at shifting the allegiances of the Sunni merchant class in Damascus and Aleppo.”
As with the war against Libya last year, military intervention would again be justified citing the “responsibility to protect” civilians. But its real aim is regime change to install a Sunni government beholden to Washington, allied with the Gulf States, and hostile to Iran.
A State Department official told the UK’s Daily Telegraph that “the international community may be forced to ‘militarise’ the crisis in Syria” and that “the debate in Washington has shifted away from diplomacy.”
Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said, “We are, of course, looking at humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people, and we have for some time.”
The Telegraph noted, “Any plan to supply aid or set up a buffer zone would involve a military dimension to protect aid convoys or vulnerable civilians.”
Leading US political figures have also been calling publicly for the arming of the Free Syrian Army, an exclusively Sunni force stationed in Turkey and backed and funded by Ankara, Riyadh and Doha. They include Joe Lieberman, John McCain and Lindsey Graham.
The issue was discussed this week in Washington directly with the FSA, whose logistical coordinator, Sheikh Zuheir Abassi, took part in a video conference call Wednesday with a US national security think tank.
The US, France, Britain and Arab League are already operating outside the framework of the United Nations as a “Friends of Syria” coalition, in order to bypass the opposition of Russia and China to a Libya-style intervention.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are known to be arming the FSA and to have their own brigades and advisers on the ground, as they did in Libya.
According to the Israeli intelligence website Debka-File, both British and Qatari special operations units are already “operating with rebel forces under cover in the Syrian city of Homs just 162 kilometers from Damascus… Our sources report the two foreign contingents have set up four centers of operation—in the northern Homs district of Khaldiya, Bab Amro in the east, and Bab Derib and Rastan in the north. Each district is home to about a quarter of a million people.”
But the Gulf States do not have the firepower required to overthrow the Assad regime. For that Turkey is the key player. Debka-File notes in the report that the presence of the British and Qatari troops “was seized on by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan for the new plan he unveiled to parliament in Ankara Tuesday, Feb. 7. Treating the British-Qatari contingents as the first foreign foot wedged through the Syrian door, his plan hinges on consigning a new Turkish-Arab force to Homs through that door and under the protection of those contingents. Later, they would go to additional flashpoint cities.”
Turkey is publicly debating military intervention based on establishing “safe havens” and “humanitarian aid corridors,” with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visiting Washington this week after stating that Turkey’s doors are open to Syrian refugees.
Writing in the February 9 New Republic, Soner Cagaptay argues, “Washington’s reluctance to lead an operation may prove a blessing, leaving space for Turkey to take the reins… Turkey would support an air-based intervention to protect UN designated safe havens—as long as the mission is led by a ‘regional force,’ composed of both Turkish and Arab militaries. Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who are funding the opposition, should be happy to work with their new ally in Ankara to protect the safe havens; Washington and European powers could then remotely back the operation, facilitating its success.”
The aim of isolating Iran has become the stated aim of US and Israeli officials, backed by a media campaign prominently involving the liberal press, mixing anti-Iranian sentiment with humanitarian hyperbole professing concern with the fate of Syria’s people.
Efraim Halevy, a former Israeli national security adviser and director of the security service Mossad from 1998 to 2002, wrote in the February 7 New York Times describing Syria as “Iran’s Achilles’ Heel.”
He writes, “Iran’s foothold in Syria enables the mullahs in Tehran to pursue their reckless and violent regional policies—and its presence there must be ended … Once this is achieved, the entire balance of forces in the region would undergo a sea change.”
The New York Times’ British counterpart, The Guardian, entrusts Simon Tisdall with the task of endorsing such anti-Iranian sentiment. He cites favourably Hillary Clinton’s ridiculing of Assad’s claims of foreign intervention in support of the opposition as being “Sadly… fully justified.” Rather, he insists, “The foreign power most actively involved inside Syria is not the US or Britain, France or Turkey. Neither is it Russia, Saudi Arabia nor its Gulf allies. It is Iran—and it is fighting fiercely to maintain the status quo.”
The appalling consequences of an American war against Syria would dwarf those of its Libyan adventure. Syria is only the ante-chamber of a campaign for regime change in Iran and its targeting poses ever more clearly conflict with Russia and possibly China.
Moscow last month sent three warships, including an aircraft carrier, to its only Mediterranean naval base, the Syrian port of Tartus. This followed its blocking of the US, France and UK-backed Arab-League resolution, meant to pave the way for intervention, with the dispatch of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Damascus for talks with Assad, Tuesday, in a further show of solidarity. Lavrov was accompanied by Mikhail Fradkov, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Office.
Of greater significance still were comments made the following day by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, linking efforts to overthrow Assad with a direct Western threat to the stability of Russia through its support for opposition protests there. “A cult of violence has been coming to the fore in international affairs in the past decade,” he said. “This cannot fail to cause concern… and we must not allow anything like this in our country.”
The plan is described as an “internal review” by Pentagon Central Command, because they make plans for all sorts of contingencies.
Moscow last month sent three warships, including an aircraft carrier, to its only Mediterranean naval base, the Syrian port of Tartus. Or to put it another way:
PLANS ALREADY BEING CARRIED OUT FOR RUSSIAN MILITARY INTERVENTION IN SYRIA
Further support for Bashar here:
http://www.asmaassad.com/
There’s a slightly disturbing “rather Washington than Moscow” tone to your comments here Skids, I thought you were SWP. Have you left and joined AWL?
Dont think the Russians will allow that after what happened through the UN regarding Libya. The no-fly zone that ended up being something completely different leading upto Gaddafi’s barbaric death. The Russians and Chinese protested all along that the UN had been used and lied to therefore losing any credibility or trust that it had. The Russians also said because of what happened regarding Libya dont expect any future support from them when it comes to the UN. This is why Russia vetoed the Syrian crisis. It is their protest because they do not trust Cameron, the French and many others and can see through the deceit and lies. Another example was the new defence secretary Hammond saying openly to the British Business community: Pack your suit cases and head for Libya because they (Libya) are open for business. Hammond said this before Gaddafi’s dead body even reached the morgue, how vile was that. It is no wonder the Russians dont trust us and the UN. I think that there is a real possibility of an all out war if military force is used against Syria and Cameron and all the other greedy liars only have themselves to blame for that. Yes I am sad and feel sorry for the people of Syria. It must be hell on earth for them and I hope that the suffering ends soon. If Governments deceive the UN leading to a loss of trust sadly this can be the outcome.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/09/china-syria-veto-un-resolution
China’s view.
A few days ago, this blog was taking its line on Syria from Xinhua, the propaganda arm of the Chinese regime.
Now it has turned to an American Trotskyist website instead. I’m not sure if that’s progress or more of the same.
The World Socialist Website is published by something calling itself the the International Committee of the Fourth International. Judging from other articles it has published, this branch of Trotskyism seems to support the Assad regime uncritically.
On the same page of the website we find an article entitled “France’s new anti-capitalist party echoes NATO propaganda against Syria”.
The “propaganda” turns out to be the fairly normal claim, backed by large amounts of evidence, that there is “ferocious repression of peaceful protests and the savage treatment of prisoners and towns in revolt”.
The American Trotskyists are most annoyed that the French party in question, the NPA (linked to a rival Trotskyist group, the dreaded Pabloites), thinks there’s a revolution going on in Syria and is all in favour of it.
But “the most prominent movement against Assad” isn’t “revolutionary” at all, snaps the World Socialist Website, but is “the work of armed groups supported by imperialism”.
Now what was it that Stalinists in the 1930s used to say about Trotskyists? Ah yes – they were “counter-revolutionary groups supported by imperialism/fascism”.
Of course, in theory the American Trotskyists would like to see Assad fall – but only if he is pushed by the Syrian proletariat. Since the Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army aren’t obviously proletarian in nature, they must be imperialist stooges.
Meanwhile the savage bombardment of Homs continues, and neither the World Socialist Website, nor most contributors to Socialist Unity have any words of solidarity for its victims.
#3 Hi Karl, I think what you ask is worth answering:
There’s a slightly disturbing “rather Washington than Moscow” tone to your comments here Skids
Slight sigh. Here’s what I wrote less than a week ago:
So, to be clear, no I don’t call for western ntervention. I think an appropriate slogan might be “Down With Assad, No to Intervention”, though at the moment I’d to to bend the stick towards the former (which,sigh, does not mean in the space of twelve words I’m suddenly in favour of Western intervention).
I haven’t changed my mind in the course of a week. So I’m still not for any US intervention, but to put a contingency plan, which someone in the Pentagon is undoubtedly preparing for all sorts of countries just in case the President should ask what his options are as the centerpiece of an argument that US bombing raids are imminent is ludicrous. If I were a supporter of the current Syrian government I would be embarrassed that someone were putting this forward seriously (actually of course remaining supporters of Assad are fairly unembarrassable).
Also I tend to think that there isn’t so much point to make comments about how wonderfully a political argument is put, it’s of more utility to say where an argument fails, whether you back the conclusions or not(though there are naturally reasons for preferring it when you disagree with the conclusions). The T-72s bombarding Homs come from Russia. That’s actual foreign intervention, not the phantasm that the US coming in currently is (the rest of the post gives more “evidence” that either doesn’t point towards intervention or is suspect at best, but I didn’t have the inclination to plough through a takedown of it line-by-line). No wonder ‘Today is the friday of “Russia is killing our children” ‘ according to the Syrian Uprising Information Centre. That is perhaps what socialists should be posting articles about, not a series of attempts to shift the blame for what’s going on in Syria to a Western bogeyman.
Hukkalaka Meshabob is informative on how the ultra-sectarian politics of the Socialist Equality Party hasn’t prevented their website being a major source of information.
I thought you were SWP.
I was once, I still agree with them on many things, I haven’t been a member for a long while.
Have you left and joined AWL?
Not until they pry the last of my braincells from my cold dead mind.
Most reports indicate the US will not attack Syria int he way this post claims.
The World Socialist Web Site is run by veterans of the long struggle against Paboloite liqudiationism and were stalwarts of Gerry Healy until he too succumbed to revisionism.
The quality of their analysis can be judged by their recent attacks on the French NPA, and claims that the NPA backed imperialism, the French Socialist Party and capitalism.
http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/france-orthodox-trotskyists-denounce-left-wing-instruments-of-imperialist-reaction-from-communists-to-npa/
@6 A few days ago, this blog was taking its line on Syria from Xinhua, the propaganda arm of the Chinese regime. Now it has turned to an American Trotskyist website instead. I’m not sure if that’s progress or more of the same.
I think that articles are posted if they have something worthwhile to say regardless of their source on the Left. If Xinhua or Trotskyite websites have something interesting to state then they are put up for discussion and education.
As for your “taking its line” comment, I don’t even know what that means. Most of the regulars on here (those who aren’t slaves to some party line) seem to judge situations objectively based upon anti-Imperialist and progressive principles and factoring in the lessons from history.
Right, it’s all about Assad’s fascist massacring peaceful protestors? Sounds like the MSM propaganda line, close as matters. You’re telling us that there haven’t all along been armed insurgents attacking the Syrian army and police, and also attacking real demonstrators (yes, there are some) to blame the Assad regime? Insurgents receiving arms from Turkey and Saudi, i.e. the USA?
Even the Arab League’s fact-finding mission (the suppressed but leaked one, remember?) had to admit that we are being given a completely false story about what’s going on in Syria.
It seems no matter how many times they pull out these horror stories to demonise the next target, there’ll be a hosted of useful idiot pseudo-leftists screaming ” stop them microwaving the babies [wait for that one]!”, or at best, like Richard Saymore (always more) recently, ” Neither Assad nor Washington” LOL
Yes, he really DID say that! The Cliffites perfect formula: neither this nor that, neither communism nor capitalism, neither backwards nor forwards, neither wrong nor right.
@ skidmarx. The USA, according to you, is “undoubtedly preparing” contingency plans [ie, for military attack] “for all sorts of countries”, not only Syria.
And that is supposed to help reassure us that the West is merely a ‘bogeyman’?
A more useful discussion might be whether this article is credible or not, rather than where it’s sourced from.
(btw. Chris Marsden is in the British Socialist Equality Party, not the US version)
The “World at One” today was openly discussing the options for intervention with a Turkish official.
In many ways, they were simply elaborating on the themes expressed in the article.
One possibility being floated was a Kosovo-style operation to create a “safe-haven” for “civilians” in Northern Syria.
Another was to provide weaponry for the “Free Syrian Army”.
You don’t have to be a military genius to see where this is going.
Where there is a country which has a governnment Imperialism wishes to overthrow:-
1- It utilises demonstrations to encourage an armed uprising by a shadowy dissident group
2- A nearby state in a military alliance with imperialism sponsors its operations.
3- Officers are bribed to defect, it is allowed to train and cross back and forth across the border with impunity.
4- When it attacks government buildings and the regular army, it is inevitably met by armed force.
5- This is described as an attack on a whole city and/or its civilian population. (Compare and contrast to the Bogside, Falouja etc)
6- It becomes a cause celebre for outside military intervention.
7- Massive air-power is used to to destroy the military capacity and government infrastructure of the target country.
8- A vaccuum is created, allowing an uprising that previously lacked sufficient popular support to be propelled into power.
9- It is hailed by the Western powers as the legitimate government and given some funding.
10- Elections aren’t held until the existing state apparatus has been dismantled, along with any remaining state enterprises and subsidies.
The News Line: Editorial (extract)
“This deepening crisis has even penetrated the thick skulls of the Stalinist bureaucracy who had considered themselves until lately to be partners of NATO.
A section of the ruling Stalinist bureaucracy in Russia is becoming increasingly aware that military intervention in Syria is a threat to the independence of Russia and China.
Should Syria and Iran fall under the domination of the US, Russia would be completely locked out of the region, and China would have its oil supplies cut.
With US and Nato missiles positioned against its western borders in the states that made up part of the USSR, and with the danger of being effectively driven out of the Mediterranean region, sections of the bureaucracy and Russian military are becoming aware that far from being an ally, they are seen as being the main meal to be devoured.
This realisation was reflected in a speech by Russian deputy prime minister Dimitriy Rogozin this week in which he stated: ‘We must build a compact, strong, fearsome army and strategic forces armed to the teeth which will be the guarantor of our security.’”
http://www.wrp.org.uk/news/7259
#10 Right, it’s all about Assad’s fascist massacring peaceful protestors?
I don’t know that I’d call them fascists.
You’re telling us that there haven’t all along been armed insurgents attacking the Syrian army and police,
These “insurgents” are mostly army defectors tired of being told to shoot at civilians. There weren’t many when the protests started, but they’ve grown with the repression. As Abraham Lincoln said:
“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.”
and also attacking real demonstrators
Liar.
(yes, there are some)
That’s good of you.
Insurgents receiving arms from Turkey and Saudi, i.e. the USA?
I’m sure they have far from noble motives in providing them, as the Germans did when providing Lenin with a sealed train to return to revolutionary Russia.
Even the Arab League’s fact-finding mission (the suppressed but leaked one, remember?) had to admit
Admit, as if a delegation headed by a former head of Sudan’s military intelligence would be expected to side with the revolutionaries. Here’s one excerpt from the report:
“On being assigned to their zones and starting work, the observers witnessed acts of violence
perpetrated by Government forces and an exchange of gunfire with armed elements in Homs and Hama. As a
result of the Mission’s insistence on a complete end to violence and the withdrawal of Army vehicles and
equipment, this problem has receded. The most recent reports of the Mission point to a considerable calming of
the situation and restraint on the part of those forces.”
Not exactly the way things have proceeded, is it?
pseudo-leftists screaming ” stop them microwaving the babies [wait for that one]!
Because imperialists made stuff up about Kuwait, anyone who recognises what a villain Assad is must be the same?
The Cliffites perfect formula: neither this nor that, neither communism nor capitalism, neither backwards nor forwards, neither wrong nor right.
I’d go for both, the first,the second and the second again. But that won’t you shoving words in people’s mouths, will it?
Noah – It’s worth remembering that the threat is there. But to claim the enemy is in your own camp at a time when the significant forces in Syria are the Syrian government and the Syrian people is to insult Syrians, and drive them into the arms of the Western imperialists, and you would want to be an agent of that, would you?
@Priankoff – you’re putting the case more reasonably, but it presupposes that events in Syria fit the template. I’d dispute that this was some small movement that’s been hi-jacked by nefarious forces.
And when you say ” This is described as an attack on a whole city and/or its civilian population. (Compare and contrast to the Bogside, Falouja etc)”, I don’t understand if you mean to suggest that those attacks were real while those on Homs and elsewhere is faked, because the comparisons would seem to be stronger than the contrats.
And when you say:
“Elections aren’t held until the existing state apparatus has been dismantled, along with any remaining state enterprises and subsidies.” I think this is part of an old argument that a state in which much production isn’t mediated through individual capitalists but through the state as the owner of capital somehow belongs to the workers, and I disagree.
My problem with Priankoff’s approach is that he hints without stating openly that demonstraters are being orchestrated by foreign intelligence services. People are being murdered in large numbers at the moment on the basis of arguments of this type. Does Priankoff know this to be true? Does he think its probably true? Is it the sort of thing one might surmise? If he doesn’t know he shouldn’t say it. End of.
Oh and given the worry about indecisive state caps: Can I just say, as I said of Qaddafi, that I hope that Assad has a hard and bitter death, and I hope it is soon. Just to avoid ambiguity. Not least because he prefers civil war and imperialist intervention to giving up his power and his wealth.
That wasn’t exactly his attitude when the Confederate States seceded,
nor did Lincoln accept that the main imperialist power of the day, Britain, would be allowed to aid the CSA – he threatened war against canada in retaliation.
#17
Don’t worry JohnG, we have got the measure of you now.
Despite an aberation when the SWP actually called it right over the war between georgia and Russua, you have been AWL-lite ever since.
@19the SWP actually called it right over the war between georgia and Russua
This fair and balanced article on the subject was written by Lindsay German at the time. Wonder what happened to her?
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=15753
#17
Had to look twice to make sure it was you making that comment, johng, and not a member of Likud. Very disappointing.
But I thought Likud wanted Assad to stay in power to retain the status quo???
#22
Since when?
Perhaps you’re getting confused with Mubarak.
One of the arguments on the ‘Western’ (extreme) Left is that if Assad stays in power, it allows the Israeli right-wing to not seriously engage with Assad and keep Israel on a war footing with Lebanon and Hamas & Hezbollah – both actively supported by Syria – Hamas of course have had their political HQ in Damascus for a long time now.
The paradox of course is that I’ve heard the same argument to kick out Assad and not engage with Syria while the country is in turmoil.
johng#16 “My problem with Priankoff’s approach is that he hints without stating openly that demonstraters are being orchestrated by foreign intelligence services. People are being murdered in large numbers at the moment on the basis of arguments of this type. Does Priankoff know this to be true? Does he think its probably true? Is it the sort of thing one might surmise? If he doesn’t know he shouldn’t say it. End of.”
It wasn’t my argument that the “demonstraters are being orchestrated by foreign intelligence services.”
At #12, I suggested a template for intervention, whereby “imperialism…utilises demonstrations to encourage an *armed uprising by a shadowy dissident group*”
This is not saying that there is no justification for demonstrations.
It’s a suggestion that the FSA, could be manipulated by outside forces.
It’s certainly true that it’s commanded by defecting Syrian army officers operating from Turkey – a member state of NATO.
The reports about Qatari and British special forces working with the FSA come from Debka-file, the Israeli intelligence site.
Interviews FSA combatants have given to Reuters make clear that their strategy is to create a “Benghazi” and get help in defending it from the “international community”.
It’s also the case that Newt Gingrich has called for arms to be supplied to the FSA.
johng and those who argue like him have a selective filter which ignores evidence like this.
They seem to believe that the FSA are somehow principled socialist revolutionaries, whose attempts to procure Western support are analagous to Lenin’s diplomatic relations with Germany.
This is utter science fiction.
There’s no evidence that the ideology of the FSA is anything more than Sunni Islam.
They have launched an insurrection prior to the creation of a political mass movement, which creates a pretext for outside intervention.
The West now wants to bring them under the umbrella of the Syrian National Congress, a bourgeois democratic oppostion that’s consists of people who’ve been living in Western capitals for years.
If johng can explain how such a coalition will topple Assad from the left he should say it.
If not, he’s just acting as a left-apologist for such machinations.
Skids, I’m relieved that you haven’t joined AWL, but deeply concerned at the apparent drift towards the AWL’s pro-imperialism.
Your attempt to “reassure” over US military “contingency planning” actually makes me feel even more worried.
As is your attempt to argue that longstanding arms supply contracts mean that, as far as you’re concerned, Russia has already intervened in militarily in this particular situation.
It’s not a huge step from that position to one of, if not explicitly supporting, then having a nuetral view on potential direct NATO intervention.
JohnG, your wish for the Syrian leader to die a “hard and bitter” death is frankly quite pathetic.
Socialists should not wish a “hard and bitter death” to anyone.
Do you wish a “hard and bitter death” to the ruler of every nation? Or just to the rulers of nations under threat from NATO.
Have you, for example, wished a “hard and bitter death” to the President of the US? To the President of France? Or to Her Majesty the Queen?
No of course you haven’t, because such threats could actually be taken seriously couldn’t they?
You are a moron JohG.
Priankoff – They seem to believe that the FSA are somehow principled socialist revolutionaries
Don’t be silly. How could anyone think that a large fully conscious movement could arise after decades of repression and the ambivalence or outright co-operation of the Communist Parties towards the regime. Socialist don’t (or shouldn’t) take their attitude to movements on the basis of their leaders’ ideas, but whether they fight oppression or support it (‘objectively’ or otherwise). Of course with the low level of class consciousness many will look to any powerful force for support. The comparison with Lenin accepting passage to a revolution is a lot more apposite than those to socialists’ positions on the First World War, as if all that is happening in Syria is an imperial intervention.
Karl – your attempt to argue that longstanding arms supply contracts mean that…Russia has already intervened in militarily in this particular situation.
Well,duh! If Britain had supplied the weaponry, would you argue that it couldn’t be used for internal repression?
As to your question to johng, I quite liked the Class War stickers on The Great Royal Debate. I guess that makes me a moron too. Wouldn’t be the [damn, what's the number before "second"?] time.
Skids, what you’re doing here is essentially making NATO’s argument under an apparently “left” smokescreen.
That’s not the SWP’s tradition, that’s AWL.
Longstanding arms supply contracts are not the same as direct military intervention in a specific situation and your equating of the two can only help those who want direct NATO intervention.
What NATO wants to do, emboldened by its conquest of Libya, is to do likewise in Syria.
And instead of indulging in at best infantile posturing and at worst unconciously aiding NATO, the UK left should be building the strongest and broadest unity around the straightforward position: “UK keep out of Syria.”
Read today’s Wall St Journal if you want to see what the thinking of the ruling class really is.
The Turkish and US governments are cooking up a “humanitarian” intervention, based on giving “aid to civilians”. It’s acknowledged, however, that this will require a “security force”.
It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to see where it’s all leading.
If this is allowed to happen, it will mean that Syrians won’t be able to determine their future government.
It will be decided for them by politicians in Ankara and Washington.
“Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who will meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington Monday, said Ankara wants to begin supplying aid to the tens of thousands of Syrian civilians seeking to survive President Bashar al-Assad’s military offensive on the cities of Homs and Hama.
Mr. Davutoglu said Turkey is also seeking to accelerate aid to Syrian refugees who have fled into his country and to Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq to avoid the violence.
“There should be some ways for the accessibility of food and medicine to these people,” Mr. Davutoglu said in Washington on Friday. “It is time for humanitarian access to these cities [inside Syria]. It is a must.”
Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Davutoglu are seeking to establish a “Friends of Syria” contact group to channel aid to Syria and support the democratic opposition.
Pressure on Capitol Hill intensified for humanitarian intervention on Friday. Sens. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) introduced a bipartisan resolution urging the administration to help the Syrian opposition and help facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid. The senators called for the departure of Mr. Assad.
Mr. Davutoglu and senior U.S. officials said they are weighing the risks posed by any outside humanitarian intervention into Syria.
American and Turkish officials said they hoped that the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent would be allowed access by Damascus to enter areas affected by the violence.
But they acknowledged that Mr. Assad could deny such cooperation and that protecting Syrian citizens might prove impossible without an outside security force. Mr. Davutoglu stressed that he wasn’t calling for military intervention, but he wouldn’t rule out the potential need for North Atlantic Treaty Organization involvement if the humanitarian situation deteriorates further.”
FEBRUARY 11, 2012
“Pressure Mounts in Washington to Launch Aid Effort”
by Jay Solomon (extract)
http://online.wsj.com
Given the political affiliation of the honchos on here, the appellation “tankie” seems more than ever appropriate.
Karl – what you’re doing here is essentially making NATO’s argument under an apparently “left” smokescreen.
I disagree.
That’s not the SWP’s tradition, that’s AWL.
If the first is untrue, then the conclusion doesn’t follow.
Longstanding arms supply contracts are not the same as direct military intervention in a specific situation
So Russian tanks are fine, as long as they’re manned by Syrians and were delivered while Assad’s torture machine was keeping the opposition off the streets?
What NATO wants to do, emboldened by its conquest of Libya, is to do likewise in Syria.
I think this misreads what happened in Libya, it wasn’t a carbon copy of Iraq. I’m more concerned with what the Syrians want right now than with what NATO might like to do.
And instead of indulging in at best infantile posturing and at worst unconciously aiding NATO, the UK left should be building the strongest and broadest unity around the straightforward position: “UK keep out of Syria.”
Forcing Syrians into the arms of NATO as it becomes that the grown-up left doesn’t care if they are crushed.
Priankoff – You want it both ways. This is supposed to be the ruling class saying what they actually want to do, but it is also the case that when they say “humanitarian intervention” they mean Libya-style bombing.
I also remember Davutoglu being touted last year by those more interested in nation than class as representing a fundamental break with pro-US policy in Ankara. Alphonse Karr was right, as Hunter S.Thompson used to say.
skidmarx #14: “But to claim the enemy is in your own camp at a time when the significant forces in Syria are the Syrian government and the Syrian people is to insult Syrians, and drive them into the arms of the Western imperialists…”
Er, I would put it rather that, on most issues & quite normally, the enemy IS ‘our own camp’, that camp being imperialism.
As for ‘the significant forces in Syria are the Syrian government and the Syrian people’, what utter simplistic and ignorant hogwash. The Syrian people are not one homogenous group, and very many of them, quite likely the majority, prefer the current government to the opposition (who are themselves divided, etc).
Also you have to take account of the role of the Saudi and Qatari royals, who influence events by means of their ownership of the most popular media channels, and by channeling funds & weapons to the opposition.
After what happened- and what is still happening- in Libya, it is breathtaking that you imagine that your arguments can be taken seriously.
Skids, so just to clarify, you’re opposed to the position: “UK keep out of Syria” is that correct?
And your reason for opposing this position is because you fear this could “force Syrians into the arms of NATO”.
And you claim this line of thinking is in line with the SWP tradition?
But the SWP took a straightforward: “UK keep out of —–” position with regard to both the Afghanistan and Iraq interventions.
How on earth can you claim that opposing those invasions but not opposing an invasion of Syria is not a fundamental change of line on your part?
Of course it’s a change.
So why the change?
Was the SWP wrong to oppose the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan?
If so, why were they wrong?
If you think the situations are different, then how so?
Was either Saddam Hussein or the Taliban more progressive than Assad’s?
Has NATO become a more progressive organisation since 2003?
Of course not.
The AWL, however, supported the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
The only part of this that has changed is your break with the SWP tradition and your embrace of the AWL’s outlook and method.
johng #17: “Can I just say, as I said of Qaddafi, that I hope that Assad has a hard and bitter death”
The context is that not only Gaddafi was effectively tortured to death, but very many others (suspected activists for the previous government, or merely black migrant workers) are being tortured now in Libya by the regime that NATO installed in power- to the extent that MSF has withdrawn its co-operation, as its staff were being called on to revive victims in order that the torture can be re-started.
What an utterly disgusting and anti-humanistic comment by johng. Particularly as it is aimed at Third World leaders, it would not be out of place on some ultra-right US website.
Karl – you’re opposed to the position: “UK keep out of Syria” is that correct?
No,I’m not (which might render the rest of your comment irrelevant, but hey, I’ll look at it anyway). I think it is incomplete, and if not combined with support for Syrian revolutionaries, leaves anyone who supports change in Syria thinking the Left in this country is more concerned with it own purity than Syrian lives (I might note at this point that it seems almost inevitable that in every issue of war and revolution the accusations of bad faith and “what your position leads to…” go back and forth reflexively among the left, if it is inevitable that some will always see the hidden hand of imperialism behind any opposition movement in states that have real or rhetorical opposition to imperialism, then there is nothing that can be done to overcome that and the most peaceful outcome here would be to agree to disagree).
So scanning down:
How on earth can you claim that opposing those invasions but not opposing an invasion of Syria is not a fundamental change of line on your part?
I did, I do, so no change there.
The only part of this that has changed is your break with the SWP tradition and your embrace of the AWL’s outlook and method.
No. And I think I should be insulted by this repeated assertion against the facts.
Noah – The Syrian people are not one homogenous group, and very many of them, quite likely the majority, prefer the current government
The only evidence to support this is one internet poll in which 55 Syrians supported the government. Or said they did in circumstances where I imagine a secret police force known for its torture is likely monitoring the internet. A former advisor to the Greek government was claiming today that austerity is supported by an overwhelming majority of Greeks because most of them are not out on the streets. I tend to treat that with the same suspicion as those who dismiss the pictures from Idlib, where thousands pour out on to the streets when there is a hint of freedom.
the opposition (who are themselves divided,
As Nadim Shehadi wrote in October:
etc
and what (the fuck)?
Also you have to take account of the role of the Saudi and Qatari royals
Yes, you have to do that too when the Palestinian reconciliation talks are held under the aegis of the Emir of Qatar. Because they are obviously movements with independent popular roots, it’s a good thing to criticise them for the concessions they make to such patrons (I still have a tape of a meeting, I think by Alex Callinicos, where Tony Cliff weighed in to lay into George Habash for meeting with King Hussein, the butcher of black September), but those concessions don’t render their struggle invalid, and so with Syria. Yes on class, they aren’t homogenous, there seems to be a low level of class consciousness by Egyptian standards which complicates the tasks of socialists, but you seem to be claiming that there can’t be a class struggle against an “anti-imperialist” like Assad.
it is breathtaking that you imagine that your arguments can be taken seriously.
It’s tempting to offer a “right back at you”. But as I said in my reply to Karl, I don’t wish to raise the temperature on this, there comes a point where discussion is pointless if there is no agreement on any of the underlying facts of what’s going on. I wish you well in your struggles against our common enemies.
skidmarx: “The only evidence to support this [that the Syrian people is not one homogenous group] is one internet poll…”
Er, no. There have been massive pro-government demonstrations(& recently massive a pro-Russian demonstration), despite the overwhelming international campaign against the Syrian government led by the richest and most influential powers, globally & regionally.
But by the way, where do you get this crass ‘the people vs the government’ analysis? And to what other countries- apart from those targeted by the West for ‘regime change’- would you apply such a ridiculous formula?
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