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Of Tim Black

Source: Comedonchisciotte
If there is anything that can be indicative of how superficial and provocative the airstrikes against Syria have been, this is the almost desperate refusal of the United States and its allies to take responsibility for the consequences, intentional or not, of attacks.
We were told it was a targeted mission, self-sufficient, and that its objectives have been completely met. Jim Mattis, the United States Secretary of Defense, he called the attacks “isolated” and nothing more than that. Even more revealing, Boris Johnson, UK Foreign Secretary, he said the attacks were limited to preventing the chemical weapons “taboo” from being undermined, stating that “the Syrian war will continue as before”.
In other words, it was an intervention in the Syrian conflict which, however, was not intended to have any effect on the conflict itself. That is, an attack on one of its parts - that of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - but without any consequences on the ongoing war. An intervention, in other words, more symbolic than strategic.
But then the point of the matter is precisely its symbolism. It was dealt with, as Brendan O'Neill explained to "Spiked online", of an act born of mere narcissism, in which the Syrian conflict served as a mirror, where Western leaders and cheerleaders could see, however fleetingly, an image of moral authority.
In a certain sense, President Trump was consistent not only in the narcissism that accompanied him throughout his life, but also in the presentation of this intervention, whose name he doesn't even dare to pronounce, as it has no apparent interest in long-term intervention in Syria. Suffice it to say that he conducted his electoral campaign expressly denouncing the involvement of the United States in many overseas adventures - and especially in the great Middle Eastern scam.
As worried as he seemed, in reality the only reason he had for involving the United States in the Syrian conflict was to defeat ISIS. A mission that Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House press secretary, he believed that “it was headed towards a rapid end, with ISIS almost completely destroyed”.
And so, while Trump basked happily in the warm glow of burning Syrian factories, at the same time remained adamant that U.S. forces (including i 2.000 soldiers) should soon be withdrawn from Syria. Something he had already said a few days before the attack and that Bob Corker, President of the "Committee on Foreign Relations" of the Senate, he would confirm later. “Trump is strongly committed to getting out of Syria as soon as possible..… I don't see anything that can make him change this decision”.
Nevertheless, this intervention which was not an intervention, this attack brought to prefigure a retreat, it is inconsistent yes but not accidentally. It's just the typical American approach (and Western) to the Middle East to be systematically inconsistent. It brings together the fear of involving the United States and its allies in “another Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya etc.”, with a desire to be seen as doing something. Part of this inconsistency is however due to the turnover of Administrations.
In the 2011, when the “Arab Spring” still seemed to herald a better and more democratic future for the Middle East, Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State, he saw an opportunity for some self-aggrandizing behavior and called for Assad's removal, stating that the United States no longer recognized him as Syria's legitimate leader. The United States consequently supported several rebel groups, under the aegis of the “Free Syrian Army”, with the aim of regime change.
After seven years and after several expensive attempts to find, finance and arm Assad's gravediggers; after Russia's military intervention (2015) in support of the Syrian President and regional stability, the American objective in Syria has completely changed. Now the United States just wants to eliminate ISIS, the Islamist group that Western intervention has significantly contributed to creating, either directly (through financing and support for anti-Assad Islamic groups) than indirectly (through the destruction of the Iraqi state).
But the underlying inconsistency goes far beyond the changing objectives that underpinned the seven-year intervention in Syria.. It's about America's destabilizing approach, and therefore of the West, to the Middle East as a whole.
Why, while Trump could tweet his determination to free the United States from another useless and interminable adventure, another him, together with John Bolton (National Security Advisor of the United States) e a Mike Pompeo (Secretary of State), he may want to confront what the three perceive as the regional power that supports the despot: Iran.
This is their animus, their axis of evil condensed into a single central point. They want to get out of the conflict in Syria, but at the same time they want to continue fighting Iran in that same country. That's why Trump's approach is so inconsistent. He wants his troops out of Syria, but he has to fight Iran in that same country.
And in doing so, Obviously, he and his latest group of advisors will happily face the larger specter looming behind his ally (l’Iraq). The specter that continues to haunt the disoriented imagination of the Western political class: Russia.
Therefore, the United States will not withdraw from Syria. They will never let the conflict unfold according to its harsh but immanent political and military logic, that is, everything “proceeds as before”, as Boris Johnson argued. A situation that could actually lead to a solution like the one wanted by the Syrians.
On the contrary, Trump is supporting (and working) with its regional allies to continue intervening in Syria, not in the interests of the Syrians, but in the context of the conflict with Iran - which took advantage of the collapse of the Syrian state to put down "deep roots" in that country and which has militias comprising tens of thousands of fighters.
This is the much bigger story behind the United States' ally (Israel), to its intense battle against Iranian forces in Syria, to the shooting down of the Iranian drone in February and the response of the Syrian anti-aircraft batteries that shot down an Israeli F-16.
This month, for example and as reported by the Wall Street Journal, Israel launched airstrikes against an air defense system brought to Syria from Iran, with “tacit support” from the Trump Administration.
And it is not only with Israel that the United States is working in the conflict with Iran. Together with Great Britain, the other key ally of the United States is Saudi Arabia, a kingdom that Trump and his family have comforted and defended, to whom he granted weapons and military support even as he deposed a duly elected Lebanese leader and continued to kill thousands of civilians in Yemen, treating the Gulf states as if they were subordinate countries – as Qatar discovered last year when Saudi Arabia cut its contacts with the outside world.
Ma, instead of calming regional tensions, Trump's United States seems intent on intensifying them, to launch their regional delegates into the fight against Iran, with the Sauds in the foreground. As, at the beginning of April, the White House announced that Trump had contacted Saudi King Salman, to “discuss joint efforts to ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS and counter Iranian efforts to exploit the Syrian conflict to pursue its destabilizing regional ambitions”. Apparently, the clash of a destabilizing fire against another destabilizing fire.
And while the US bombed sites in Syria were still smoking and Trump was still talking about getting “our boys” out of Syria, Bolton and Pompeo were simultaneously attempting to build a coalition of military forces, led by Saudi Arabia, replacing “our boys” in Syria, thus giving continuity to Western intervention, ma in Arabic form.
But how is it possible to regulate regional animosities by playing on interests in conflict with each other, while bringing much needed stability, not to mention peace, in Syria? Pushing other regional powers to escalate a conflict in which they are already involved, sometimes in opposition to each other, the United States and its Western allies are stirring an already boiling pot. They are mixing additional militias and additional armies (by proxy) with Russia, Turkey and Iran's vast array of powerful military assets, Hezbollah ad Hamas.
E, just to increase tensions, Trump seems firmly determined to abandon the nuclear deal with Iran, a goal he has spoken about and has been working on since he became President. And all this because? Why is Team Trump so keen on confronting rather than negotiating with an Iran that was becoming increasingly soft?
Why, once again, all this serves to paint yet another Western leader with moral authority, to provide a particularly narcissistic President with the image of the strong leader who faces the bad guy of the moment, exactly where his weak predecessor could only bow and negotiate.
It also gives that part of the American foreign policy establishment an enemy to fight, moreover supported by the opponent of his Cold War dreams.
And so we continue with the interventions, interference and destabilization. Not in a militarily direct way (although, as we have seen this month, this also happened), but in the form of a policy implemented by proxy, or by supporting and arming regional forces, while threatening Iran with new post-nuclear sanctions.
As for the talk about protecting the Syrian population from Assad's chemical excesses, The United States and its allies are treating Syria as if it were little more than collateral damage in a conflict that could engulf the entire region.. ISIS may already be in retreat, but peace and stability still seem very far away, as always.
Source: http://www.spiked-online.com/
Link: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/timsyria/21321#.Wt9ldsiFPIU
Selected and translated for www.comedonchiscioitte.org by FRANCO