Finding a way out of the war against Syria

The White House is unable to extricate itself from the war in Syria. President Trump is hindered both by the self-proclaimed « stable state » (according to the anonymous op ed in the New York Times), which continues to pursue the Rumsfeld-Cebrowski strategy, and by the reactivated ambitions of his Israëli, French, British and Turkish allies. The logic of these interests could displace the war instead of resolving it.

Although the White House and Russia have agreed to end the proxy war fought by jihadists in Syria, peace is a long time coming. Why?

Why is there a war against Syria?

Contrary to the idea carefully sown by seven years of propaganda, the war against Syria is not a « revolution which went wrong ». It was decided by the Pentagon in September 2001, then prepared for many years, admittedly with a few difficulties.

A war in preparation for a decade


The preparation of the war is explained in depth in Thierry Meyssan’s latest book. It is already available in French, Spanish, Russian and Turkish. It will be published in September in English, Arab and Italian.

A reminder of the main stages of the planning of the war:

In September 2001, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld adopted the strategy of Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, which specified that the state structures of half of the world had to be destroyed. For those states whose economy is globalised, the United States would control the access to the natural resources of those regions not connected to the global economy. The Pentagon commenced its work by « remodelling » the « Greater Middle East » [1].

On 12 December 2003, George Bush Jr. signed the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. From that moment on, the President of the United States enjoyed the right to go to war with Syria without having to ask Congress for approval [2].

The Lebanese civil war (1978-90) ended with the Taif Agreement. At the request of the Arab League, and with the approbation of the UN Security Council, the Syrian Arab Army came to the assistance of the Lebanese army in disarming the militias, then, acting as a Peace Force, stabilised the country. Thereafter, Israël accused Syria of having occupied Lebanon, which makes no sense at all. [3]

In 2004, during the summit of the Arab League in Tunis, President Ben Ali attempted to push through a motion authorising the League to legitimise the use of force against member states who refused to respect the League’s brand new Human Rights Charter.

In 2005, the CIA organised the Cedar revolution in Lebanon. By assassinating Sunni leader Rafic Hariri and blaming the Christian President of Lebanon and the Alaouite President of Syria, they hoped to trigger a Sunni uprising against the Syrian Peace Forces. With the Marines ready to disembark in Beïrut, Syria withdrew on its own initiative, and the tension was dissipated [4].

In 2006, Dick Cheney tasked his daughter Liz with creating the « Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group ». They organised the Israeli attack against Hezbollah, thinking that they would be unable to resist for long. US Marines were then intended to disembark in Beïrut and continue their march of « liberation » on Damascus. However, the operation failed, and after 33 days of combat, Israël had to retreat [5].

In 2008, Washington once again tried to create conflict with Lebanon as its flash point. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora decided to cut the internal communications of the Resistance and to interrupt air transport with Teheran. Within a few hours, Hezbollah had inverted the Western military system and replaced all of its infrastructures.

In 2010, Washington adopted the strategy of « leading from behind ». The Obama administration handed the attacks on Libya and Syria to France and the United Kingdom respectively (Lancaster House agreements).

In 2011, beginning of military operations in Syria.

It is therefore absurd to speak of the war against Syria as a spontaneous event sui generis [6].

Indirect war

The original feature of the war against Syria is that although it was declared by states (the « Friends of Syria »), it was in reality fought almost exclusively by non-state armies, the jihadists.

During the seven years of this war, more than 250,000 combatants arrived from overseas to fight against the Syrian Arab Republic. They were without doubt little more than cannon fodder, and insufficiently trained, but during the first four years of the conflict, these soldiers were better armed than the Syrian Arab Army. The most important arms traffic in History was organised in order to keep the jihadists supplied with war materials [7].

The Western powers had not used mercenaries on this scale since the European Renaissance [8].

It is therefore absurd to speak of a « revolution that went wrong ».

A war supervised by allies who have their own objectives

By asking Israël to attack Lebanon on their behalf, then by handing over the wars on Libya and Syria to France and the United Kingdom, and finally by using the NATO installations in Turkey, the Pentagon allowed its plan to be confounded by its allies.

Just as in all wars, the leading country has to promise its obedient allies that they will be awarded a return on their investment. However, with the entry of Russia into the war, Western victory became impossible. Every one of the United States allies turned progressively back towards its own strategy in the region. With time, the war objectives of the allies gained the upper hand over those of the United States, who refused to invest as much as they should have done, militarily speaking.

Israël

Pursuing the colonial ideology of some of its founding fathers, Israël implemented a policy of division intended to split its larger neighbours into a collection of small countries which were to be ethnically or religiously homogeneous. It therefore supported – in vain – the division of Lebanon into two states, one Muslim and one Christian, or again the creation of a Kurdistan in Iraq, then later in Syria. We do not have the Israëli strategic documents, but retrospectively, the line followed by Tel-Aviv corresponds to the « Yinon plan » of 1982 [9] or that of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies of 1996 [10].

The Israëli strategy stayed within the limits of the « remodelling of the Greater Middle East » designed by Rumsfeld and Cebrowski. However, it did not have anything like the same objective – the Pentagon wanted to control the access to the region’s riches by the developed countries, while Israël wanted to ensure that none of its neighbours could become strong enough to challenge it.

The United Kingdom and France

The United Kingdom and France fell back on their colonial policy, as it was defined at the moment of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the division of the Middle East (the Sykes-Picot agreements).

The British used a replay of the « Great Arab Revolt of 1915 » that Lawrence of Arabia had set up against the Ottomans. At that time, they had promised freedom to all Arabs if they would throw off the shackles of the Ottoman Empire and place the Wahhabites in power, This time they promised freedom if they would overthrow all their national governments and replace them with the Muslim Brotherhood. But neither in 1915, when the British Empire replaced the Ottoman Empire, nor in 2011, did the Arabs find their liberty. That was the « Arab Spring » plan of 2011 [11].

The French were seeking to re-establish the mandate on Syria which had been handed to them by the League of Nations. This was explained by Picot’s great-nephew (as in the Sykes-Picot agreements), ex- President Giscard d’Estaing [12]. And that is what President Hollande demanded during his visit to the United Nations, in September 2015. Just as in 1921, when France stood for the ethnic separation of the Kurds from the Arabs, it therefore defended the creation of a Kurdistan, not on its historic territory in Turkey, but anywhere, so long as it was on Arab land in Syria.

Turkey

As for Turkey, it dreamed of realising the promise of its founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the « National Pact » (Misak-ı Millî) [13], adopted by the Ottoman Parliament on 12 February 1920. Its intention was to annex Northern Syria, including Aleppo, and also to eliminate the Christians, including the Catholics in Maaloula and the Armenians in Kessab.

Turkey entered into conflict with the other allies – with the Israëlis because they sought to annex Northern Syria rather than making it autonomous – with the British because they wanted to re-establish the Ottoman Caliphate – and with the French because they sought to create an independent Kurdistan in Syria. Above all, it entered into conflict with the United States themselves because they made no secret of wanting to destroy Syria after having dismantled it [14].

How to escape from this war?

After seven years of combat, the Syrian state is still standing. The Syrian Arab Republic and its allies, Russia, Iran and the Hezbollah, are victorious. The foreign armies (the jihadists) have suffered a crushing defeat, but not their commanders – the United States, Israël, the United Kingdom, France and Turkey.

Not only has the war re-awoken the ambitions of the beginning of the 20th century, but none of the protagonists who have not paid for their defeat in blood are ready to abandon the fight.

It may seem stupid to want to start over with a war which has already been lost by the jihadists. The presence of the Russian army makes impossible any direct confrontation. Far from being eliminated, the Syrian population is now battle-hardened, ready to suffer even more hardship, and is much better armed than before. Above all, it has given the situation some serious thought, and is less manipulable than it was in 2011. However, just as before, Western political rhetoric has once again taken up its refrain « Bachar must go ».

Logically, therefore, the conflict will have to start again on another battle-field. While in the past, Admiral Cebrowski had planned to take the next stage of the war to Central Asia and the South-East, his successors will first have to finish the job in the Greater Middle East. They are currently studying the possibility of relighting the fire in Iraq, as we see with the spectacular about-face of the Rohani administration and the riots in Bassorah.

Thierry Meyssan