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A Second Geo-Strategic Shoe (Other Than Ukraine) Is Dropping

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 28, 2023

Whilst it has become clear to increasing numbers of people in the West that something has gone terribly wrong with the élites’ Ukraine project, and that the exaggerated predictions and expectations of Russian forces being ‘knocked for six’ by an armoured ‘fist’ have proved spectacularly wrong, those same élites are going wrong again – on another strategically decisive issue: They again largely ignore ‘reality’ – for the sake of control of the ‘narrative’. In this case, the West prefers to sneer at the implications of the new accessions to BRICS (let alone the other 40 states ready to join): ‘Nothing to see there’.

The BRICS is just a jumble of states lacking any cohesion, or common thread, western MSM proclaims. It can never challenge the U.S. global power, nor the sheer financial weight of the dollar sphere. However, China’s Global Times explains in mild tones, a different backdrop:

“The reason why the BRICS mechanism has such great appeal … reflects a general disappointment of many developing countries with the global governance system dominated and interfered by the U.S. and the West. As China has repeatedly emphasized, the traditional global governing system has become dysfunctional, deficient and missing in action, and the international community urgently expects the BRICS mechanism to strengthen unity and cooperation”.

Others in the Global South say it more starkly: The BRICS mechanism is seen as a means to slough off the last vestiges of western colonialism and to acquire autonomy. Yes, of course, BRICS 11 initially will be more cacophony than smooth opera, but nonetheless, it represents a profound shift of global consciousness.

BRICS 11 establishes a pole of influence and global heft that has the potential to eclipse in scope that of the G7.

The ‘mess’ in Ukraine is commonly attributed to mere ‘miscalculation’ by the western élites: They did not expect Russian society to be so robust, nor so steadfast under pressure.

Yet this was no minor ‘slip up’ by the West, since the recognition of NATO’s doctrinal contradictions, its second-rate weaponry and its inability to think rigorously – beyond tomorrow’s sound-bite – has (inadvertently) shone the spotlight on the deeper dysfunction within the West – one that runs far deeper than just the situation around the Ukraine project. Many in the West see major institutions of society locked within suffocating orthodoxy; in an intense level of political and cultural polarisation; and with political reform effectively locked-down.

The proxy war on Russia nevertheless was launched through Ukraine, precisely to reaffirm western global vigour. It is doing the opposite.

The financial war (as opposed to the ground war in Ukraine) was the counter-play to generating regime change in Moscow: Financial war was intended to underline the futility of opposing the sheer ‘muscle’ that dollar hegemony – acting in concert – represented. It was the jealous hegemon demanding obeisance.

But this back-fired spectacularly. And this has directly contributed not just to the expansion of BRICS, but to the energy resources of the Middle East and the raw materials of Africa sliding out of western control. Rather than the western scatter-gun threats of sanctions and financial ostracisation creating fear and reaffirming obsequiousness, the threats contrarily, have mobilised anti-colonial sentiments across the globe; fed the understanding that the western financial construct amounted to tutelage, and that any acquisition of sovereignty required the act of de-dollarisation.

And here, again, egregious mistakes were committed: Errors of geo-strategic magnitude were embarked upon almost casually, and without due diligence.

The primordial mistake was that of Team Biden (and the EU) illegally seizing Russia’s overseas reserve assets; expelling Russia from the financial clearing system, SWIFT; and imposing a trade blockade so complete that (it was hoped in the White House) its effects would tear down President Putin. The rest of world understood – they easily could be next. They needed a sphere that was resistant to western financial predations.

Yet, the second strategic error by Biden (& Co.) magnified the error of their initial ‘unprecedented’ financial blitz. This blunder marked the ‘second shoe to drop’ in Biden’s de-fenestration of the American financial imperium: He treated Mohammad bin Salman (and the Saudis generally) with contemptuousness: ordering them to increase oil production (in order to bring down the price of gasoline before the mid-term Congressional elections), and disdainfully threatening the kingdom with “consequences”, were it to fail to comply.

Perhaps Biden, so consumed with his electoral prospects, did not think it through. Even now, it is not clear that the White House understands the consequences of it having treated MbS as some aberrant underling. There is an eleventh-hour attempt to dissuade Saudi from joining BRICS, but it is too late. It’s application to join has been approved and will take effect from 1 January 2024. The West misread the mood.

The shared ethos within Gulf states is one of self-assured, assertive leaders, who are no longer willing to accept binary ‘with us or against us’ U.S. demands.

For the avoidance of mis-understanding, Biden, through the combination of these two strategic mistakes, has launched the West’s financial hegemony onto a slipway leading to incremental unwinding of much of the $32 trillion of foreign investment in fiat dollars which has accumulated in the U.S. system over the last 52 years – with an implicit acceleration towards ‘own currency trading’ amongst the majority of non-western states.

Ultimately this likely will lead to a BRICS trade settlement medium – possibly anchored to gold. Were a trading currency to be anchored in some way to a gram of gold, that currency would, of course, acquire status as a store of value, based on that of the underlying commodity (in this case gold).

The point here is that when inflation was zero-bound, U.S. Treasury bonds were seen as a store of (enduring) value. However, wide de-dollarisation undermines the synthetic (i.e. the imposed) demand for dollars that owed entirely to the Bretton Woods and the Petro-dollar frameworks (that demanded that commodities be traded only in U.S. dollars) and to the implicit understanding that U.S. Treasuries offered a certain store of value.

But what did Team Biden do? They have driven Saudi Arabia – the lynchpin to the Petro-dollar, and one of the pillars (together with other Gulf States and China) underpinning the huge holdings of U.S. Treasury debt – into the arms of BRICS. Put simply, the BRICS 11 incorporates six out of nine of the top global energy producers, as well as the principal energy consumers. OPEC+, in effect, has been swallowed to make a self-enclosed, self-sufficient circle of trading in energy (and raw materials) that does not need to touch dollars. And over time, this will amount to a major monetary shock.

The ‘consequences’ threatened towards Saudi Arabia by the White House have been rendered inconsequential. Saudi and Iran can sell their oil to other BRICS consumers (in non-dollar currencies). Members no longer need to be so concerned at western threats – one of the key provisions of BRICS is the joint refusal of all members to permit or facilitate any ‘regime change’ manoeuvres against BRICS members.

To be clear, what this all means is further price inflation in the West, reflecting the falling purchasing power of fiat currencies as dollar-demand subsides. Inevitably, a weakening dollar will lead to higher interest rates in the U.S. This – simply – will be one major consequence of de-dollarisation. Higher interest rates will impose great stress on the U.S. and European banks.

The first BRICS 11 summit is set for October 2023 in Kazan. By ‘coincidence’, full membership of the new states will coincide with Russia taking the rotating annual presidency of the BRICS on 1 January 2024. Putin already has made clear his determination to move towards resolving the complexities of a separate BRICS currency – “one way or another”.

August 29, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Neocons and Other Malignancies in the American Body Politic

They will never give up until we’re all dead

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • AUGUST 22, 2023

It is interesting to observe how, over the past twenty-five years, the United States has become not only a participant in wars in various places on the planet but has also evolved into being the prime initiator of most of the armed conflict. Going back to the Balkans in the nineteen-nineties and moving forward in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Somalia there is almost always an American leading role where there is bombing and killing. And where there is no actual war, there are threats and sanctions intended to make other nations come to heel, be they in Latin America like Venezuela, or Iran in the Middle East, or North Korea in Asia. And then there is the completely senseless act of turning major competitors like Russia and China, as we are now seeing, into enemies, with a proxy war raging in Ukraine, threats over Taiwan, and the world moving one step closer to a nuclear disaster.

It seems to me that the transition from an America bumbling its way into war and the current situation where wars are pursued as a matter of course coincides with a certain political development in the United States, which is the rise of neoconservatives as the foreign and national security policy makers in both major parties. This has developed together with the evolution of the view that the United States can do no wrong by definition, indeed, that it has a unique and God-given right to establish and police the globe through something that it invented, exploits and has dubbed the “rules based international order.”

Who would have thought that a bunch of Jewish student-activists, mostly leftists, originally conspiring in a corner of the cafeteria in the City College of New York would create a cult type following that now aspires to rule the world? The neocons became politically most active in the 1960s and eventually some of them attached themselves to the Republican Party under Ronald Reagan, declaring their evolution had come about because they were “liberals mugged by reality.” The neoconservative label was first used to describe their political philosophy in 1973. Since that time, they have diversified and succeeded in selling their view to a bipartisan audience that the US should embrace an aggressive interventionist foreign policy and must be the world hegemon. To be sure their desire for overwhelming military power has been strongly shaped by their tribal cohesion which has fed a compulsion to have Washington serve as the eternal protector of Israel, but the hegemonistic approach has inevitably led to expanding conflict all over the world and a willingness to challenge, confront and defeat other existing great powers. Hence the support for a needless and pointless war in Ukraine to “weaken Russia” and a growing conflict with China over Taiwan to do the same in Asia. To make sure that the Republicans do not waver on that mission, leading neocon Bill Kristol has recently raised $2 million to do some heavy lobbying to make sure that they stay on track to confront the Kremlin in Europe.

One of the leading neocon families is the Kagans, who have successfully penetrated and come to dominate the establishment foreign policy centers in both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Victoria Nuland nee Nudelman, the wife of Robert Kagan, is entrenched at the State Department where she is now the Deputy Secretary, the number two position. Up until recently, she was one of the top three officials at State, all of whom were and are Jewish Zionists. Indeed, under Joe Biden Zionist Jews dominate the national security structure, to include the top level of the State Department, the head of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the National Security Adviser, the Director of National Intelligence, the President’s Chief of Staff, and the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Nuland’s hawkish appeal is apparently bipartisan as she has served in senior positions under Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden. As adviser to Cheney, she was a leading advocate of war with Iraq, working with other Jewish neocons Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz at Defense and also Scooter Libby in the Vice President’s office. As there was no actual threat to the US from Saddam Hussein she and her colleagues invented one, the WMD that they sold to the media and to idiots like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Nuland is also considered to be close to Hillary Clinton and the recently deceased ghastly former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. All of her government assignments have included either invading or severely sanctioning some country considered by her and her colleagues to be unfriendly. She particularly hates the Russians and anyone who is hostile to Israel.

Apparently, Nuland’s record of being seriously wrong in the policies she promoted has only served to improve her resume in Washington’s hawkish foreign policy establishment and when Biden came into the presidency she found herself appointed to the number three position at the State Department as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Her return to power with the Democrats might also be due in part to the activism of her husband Robert, currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, who was one of the first neocons to get on the NeverTrump band wagon back in 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and spoke at a Washington fundraiser for her, complaining about the “isolationist” tendency in the Republican Party exemplified by Trump. Robert famously has never seen a war he disapproved of and, while urging Europe to do more defense spending, commented that “When it comes to use of military force “Americans are from Mars, and Europeans are from Venus.” Robert’s brother Frederick, a Senior Fellow at the neocon American Enterprise Institute, and Frederick’s wife Kimberly, who heads the bizarrely named Institute for the Study of War, are also regarded as neocon royalty.

Nuland is particularly well known for her being the driving force behind the regime change in Ukraine in 2014 that replaced the fairly-elected but friendly-to-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych with a selected candidate more accommodating to the US and Western Europe. Ukraine, the most corrupt country in Europe, has been unstable ever since and the current war, also initiated by interference from the US and UK, has brought about the deaths and wounding of an estimated half million Ukrainians and Russians.

Nuland was recently in Africa, stirring up developments in Niger, which has experienced a recent military coup that removed a president who was corrupt but also a friend of the US and France, both of which have troops stationed in the country. As I write this, a number of African nations (ECOWAS) friendly to US and French interests in the region are gathering together their own military force to reverse the coup, but there is little enthusiasm for the project. We will see how that turns out, but predictably Nuland is advertising a possible intervention as a “restoration of democracy.”

And there is more over the horizon with neocons like Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Nuland in charge of US foreign policy and supported by most of congress and a Jewish dominated media and entertainment industry. Joe Biden is too weak and too much under the thumb of the Israel Lobby to pursue any policies that would be beneficial to the American people in general, so the course will be set by the current crop of zealots, just as Donald Trump was guided by his Christian Zionist advisers.

If you want to understand just how what remains of our republic is in a bus being driven over the cliff by a group that has no regard for most of the citizens of the country that they reside in, one only has to read some of what passes for neocon analysis of what must be done to make America “safe.” Not surprisingly, it also involves Israel and a war on behalf of the Jewish state.

One astonishingly audacious article that appeared on August 13th in The Hill entitled “If Israel strikes Iran over its nuclear program, the US must have its back,” gives Israel the option of starting a war for any or no reason with the United States compelled to join in in support. It was written Michael Makovsky, a well-known Jewish neocon, and Chuck Wald. Makovsky is President and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) while Wald is a former general who also is affiliated with that group as a “distinguished fellow,” which means he is getting paid generously to serve as a mouthpiece providing credibility for the group. For those unfamiliar with The Hill, it is an inside the beltway defense contractor funded online magazine that pretends to be serious but which is actually an integral part of the status quo Zionist and war-on-demand network. That the Jewish Institute for National Security is “of America” is, of course, a characteristically clever euphemism.

The article begins with “The Biden administration should learn from its unpreparedness for the Russia-Ukraine war and begin to prepare for a major Israel-Iran conflict. The administration needs to set aside its differences with the Israeli government, overcome its aversion to conflict with Iran, and begin to work closely with Jerusalem to prepare for the growing likelihood that Israel will feel it has no choice but to initiate a military campaign against Iran’s nuclear program. In ‘No Daylight,’ a new report from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA)… retired senior military officers and national security experts explain that whatever differences the US might now have with Israel over Iran policy, our two countries’ interests will be aligned after an Israeli strike. Consequently, in preparing its response, the U.S. guiding principle should be ‘no daylight with Israel,’ to ensure Israeli military success, mitigate Iranian retaliation and limit the scope of the conflict — vital interests for both countries.”

That war with Iran is a “vital interest” for the United States is, of course, not really explained as the point is to let Israel to decide on the issue of war and peace for the United States. The article then trots out the old “credibility” argument, i.e. that if we don’t go to war no one will ever trust our security guarantees: “A US betrayal of its close Israeli ally, at a time of great peril for the Jewish state, would be ‘one of the greatest catastrophes ever,’ an Arab leader told us privately recently. Because Israel is widely perceived as a close American ally, the US stance as Israel risks thousands of casualties in defense of its very existence, will resound broadly. Strong American support will reassure allies from Warsaw to Abu Dhabi and Taipei; American equivocation will shred Washington’s credibility and embolden adversaries from Tehran to Moscow and Beijing.”

One would love to know who the anonymous Arab leader so concerned about Israel is and, of course, the Jewish state is not in fact an American ally apart from in the fertile imaginations of congressmen, the media and the White House. And Israel will, of course, need more weapons and money from the US taxpayer to include “expediting delivery to Israel of KC-46A tankers, precision-guided munitions, F-15 and F-35 aircraft, and air and missile defenses… Washington should accelerate building integrated regional air, missile and maritime defenses against persistent Iranian threats.” And America must be prepared to expand the war: “Privately, Iranian and Hezbollah leadership should be warned that heavy retaliation against Israel… will prompt severe Israeli and/or American responses that could threaten their very grasp on power. Upon commencement of an Israeli strike, the United States should promptly resupply Israel with Iron Dome interceptors, precision-guided munitions, ammunition and spare parts, and deploy Patriot air defenses to Israel…”

So the United States must be prepared to turn over its national security to Israel in exchange for what gain for Americans? In part it would apparently involve “finding a permanent solution to Iran’s illegal nuclear weapons program” which is based on a lie even if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been repeating for over 20 years that Iran is only six months away from a weapon. Both the CIA and Mossad have confirmed that Iran has no such program while Israel does have a secret illegal nuclear arsenal built using enriched uranium and nuclear triggers stolen from the US. The article concludes with another reference to the non-existing program, claiming “the most effective way to address Iran’s nuclear program already has been articulated by President Biden and communicated by America’s ambassador in Jerusalem: ‘Israel can and should do whatever they need to deal with it, and we’ve got their back.’”

Supporting Israeli war crimes is not the way to go. As Chris Hedges puts it correctly, there is no compelling American interest in damaging itself by supporting Israel blindly, quite the contrary: “The long nightmare of oppression of Palestinians is not a tangential issue. It is a black and white issue of a settler-colonial state imposing a military occupation, horrific violence and apartheid, backed by billions of US dollars, on the indigenous population of Palestine. It is the all powerful against the all powerless. Israel uses its modern weaponry against a captive population that has no army, no navy, no air force, no mechanized military units, no command and control and no heavy artillery, while pretending intermittent acts of wholesale slaughter are wars.”

And, of course, while Israel engages in slaughter and torture it always portrays itself as the victim only engaged in fighting against “terrorists.” I have a better idea for where we should go with all of this. President Joe Biden should be impeached for ignoring war powers legislation and indicating that he is willing to sacrifice US interests and kill American soldiers, few or plausibly none of whom will actually be Jewish since it is not an occupation that attracts them, to please and support a manifestly evil foreign government. And Donald Trump should also be punished for having done much the same type of pandering to a foreign country while in office. Meanwhile, haul Makovsky and Wald together with their buddies at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) down to the Justice Department and put them in jail for violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) in that they are willfully acting as agents of a foreign government and are operating corruptly to serve the interests of that government. The criminals at AIPAC are already using their associated PACs to oust targeted members of Congress up for re-election in 2024 who have in any way been critical of Israel or pro-Palestinian. And while you’re at it Mr. Attorney General Merrick Garland nee Garfinkel, please have Mr. Blinken and Ms. Nuland pop by for a chat just for starters and see how far you can make the laws apply to those in power. There is some confusion evident here as Israel is not part of the United States, no matter how politically dominant and wealthy its lobby might be. Time to put an end to this nonsense and call it out for what it is – it is treason.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

August 22, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 1 Comment

Russia hosts first-ever meeting of Iran, Saudi defense officials

The Cradle | August 17, 2023

Talal al-Otaibi, an aide to the Saudi defense minister, on 16 August, met with the Deputy Chief of Staff of Iran’s armed forces, Aziz Nasirzadeh, on the sidelines of the 11th Moscow Conference on International Security.

Coming a few months after the two nations normalized ties under a Chinese-brokered agreement, this marked the first-ever meeting between Iranian and Saudi officials.

According to the Saudi defense ministry, the officials reviewed bilateral relations in the defense and security fields and ways to improve them. Iranian state-run news outlet IRNA also reported that the officials agreed to exchange military attachés “as soon as possible.”

The historic meeting occurred one day before the Iranian Foreign Minister set off on an official trip to the Saudi capital Riyadh, where he is scheduled to meet his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan.

This is the first trip by Iran’s top diplomat to the kingdom since the signing of the détente in March. Iran’s new ambassador to Riyadh, Alireza Enayati, will also officially begin his mission during Amir-Abdollahian’s visit.

In June, an Iranian navy official revealed that the Islamic Republic, alongside Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Pakistan, and India, is looking to form a “naval alliance” to boost security in the northern Indian Ocean.

Two weeks after this announcement, Bin Farhan visited Tehran, where he met with Iranian officials and had this to say about the possible naval alliance, “I would like to refer to the importance of cooperation between the two countries on regional security, especially the security of maritime navigation … and the importance of cooperation among all regional countries to ensure that it is free of weapons of mass destruction.”

“Iran has never equated security with militarism but sees it as a broad concept including political, cultural, social, economic, and trade aspects,” Amir-Abdollahian said during the same news conference.

Despite the growing cooperation between Iran and Saudi Arabia, tensions have recently arisen over a disputed gas field in Gulf waters.

Furthermore, the kingdom is currently the target of a charm offensive from the US and Israel, who hope to see Saudi officials put pen to paper on a normalization agreement with Tel Aviv.

August 17, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

What Is Happening In Syria?

Washington’s interventionism and its disregard for its own highly promoted “rules based international order” is outrageous

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • AUGUST 15, 2023

Which are the governments generally regarded as “rogue” by an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations? If you answered either Russia or China you would be wrong, even though many countries have condemned Russia’s attack on Ukraine on grounds that no government has an intrinsic right to invade another unless there is an imminent serious threat that would excuse such an intervention. I would however expect that most readers of this review would have made the right choice, which is that the United States is probably number one based on its ability to destabilize whole regions with a military reach that spans the globe. And indeed, it is important to note that the Russian “special military operation” directed against Ukraine would not have happened at all if the Joe Biden Administration had simply indicated clearly and non-ambiguously to the Russian government that there was no intention of allowing Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance. Ironically, the White House knew very well that inviting Kiev to enter into the alliance was a legitimate red-line, existential issue for the Kremlin, but opted to push hard on the issue instead. Instead of opting for a negotiated peaceful settlement, Biden and his clown show foreign and national security policy team opted to kill possibly hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians to somehow “weaken” Russia, an intention that has borne no fruit even after more than a year and a half of fighting.

So yes, by the world’s reckoning the United States of American is both “exceptional” and “number one,” which a series of White House inhabitants have aspired to, though perhaps not in the same way as buffoons like Senators Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz refer to it. Most non-Americans see the US as the greatest threat to world peace. And then there is America’s “closest ally and best friend in the whole world” Israel in second place, a government which commits crimes against humanity and even war crimes on a nearly daily basis with absolute impunity as it is protected and defended by the very same United States, where the Jewish state runs the foremost and most powerful foreign policy lobby. It is a lobby that has inserted itself in all levels of government and which has corrupted huge majorities of politicians and both major political parties while also controlling the “message” on the Middle East promoted by the media.

Even as I write this, 41 Democratic Party politicians are spending their recess on a Lobby sponsored trip to Israel. Their leaders include the inimitable traitor 80 year old Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who is on his twenty-third trip to the country that he loves and admires beyond all others, and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Jeffries is on his second trip to Israel this year. He should be ashamed but, of course, isn’t. It is the largest-ever delegation of Democratic lawmakers on a tour of Israel, sponsored in this case by the American Israel Education Foundation, an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Not to be outdone House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is leading 31 Republican Congressmen on the same mission though the groups will not mingle and the speaker will be careful to render his own obeisance separately to the Israeli leadership.

The Democrats and Republicans, will as always be unable to enunciate any good reasons for American bondage to Israel beyond bromides like “Israel has a right to defend itself,” which will be repeated over and over before the Solons head back to Washington to send billions more of US taxpayer dollars to the Jewish state. While in Israel they will be fed a special diet of “all Arabs are terrorists” and good old Steny will be nodding his head in time with the song. That is before he and his colleagues engage in crawling on their bellies before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a sign of their total submission to his will.

If one is seeking a single example of the failure of the United States and its ally Israel to abide by the clearly mythical “rules based international order” one might well examine what is going on in Syria, where both the US and the Jewish state have been punishing the country through lethal sanctions and direct military intervention for many years with no sign that the interaction will be ending any time soon. The activity is rarely reported in the US and European media, which somehow has decided that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is some kind of tyrant who deserves whatever he gets, even if it is dished out by “apartheid” Israel and the clueless US, which has been illegally militarily occupying roughly one third of Syria since 2015, including the areas that have producing oil facilities and good agricultural land, both of which are being exploited or stolen. Israel meanwhile has annexed the Syrian Golan Heights, which it occupied in 1967. Donald Trump gave his blessing to the illegal annexation and also gave his consent to whatever the Jewish state decides to do both with the Syrians and the Palestinians while also conniving at the nearly daily air attacks carried out by Israel against targets in both Palestine-Gaza and Syria, killing scores of local soldiers and civilians.

The US military occupation has been supplemented by an increasingly harsh series of sanctions that have effectively cut off food, medicines and other basic commodities to the Syrian people while also denying access to international banking services. Russia, which is assisting Syria at the invitation of the country’s government, has made up for some of the shortages but there is considerable suffering among the ordinary people, not the country’s leaders. The claim by Washington is that Syria has to be protected from its own “totalitarian” government and the US is there to fight terrorists, most particularly ISIS. Ironically perhaps, but Tel Aviv and Washington actually support some of the groups that many would consider to be themselves terrorists, including providing direct US aid to al-Qaeda clone Hayat Tahrir al Sham and Israeli support for ISIS to include treating wounded terrorists in Israel’s hospitals. The US air base at Al-Tanf, near the border with Iraq and Jordan, has, in fact, become a support hub for terrorist groups opposing the al-Assad government.

Sanctions on energy imports were temporarily lifted by the US and EU after the disastrous earthquakes the shook the region in February, but in June, US lawmakers introduced the Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act of 2023 which would use secondary sanctions to penalize those countries that might be tempted to help restore services to the areas of Syria affected by both war and the impact of the quakes. Israel reportedly has exploited the opportunity provided by the natural disaster to increase its air attacks on Syrian infrastructure.

Indeed, recent history tells us that both Israel and the United States are particularly fond of occupying someone else’s land and are capable of coming up with excuses for doing so at the drop of a hat. The reasons generally sound like saying “Hey! We are the good guys who support democracy!” Repeat as necessary until the audience either goes to sleep or wanders off. The western media reporting on what is taking place in Syria can be regarded as being in the “wanders off” category.

I certainly am not the only one who has noted that the United States tends to do everything ass-backwards in its conduct of foreign policy since the time of the Clintons. That has certainly been the case in dealing with nations like Syria and Russia, where ambassadors Robert Ford and Michael McFaul were openly hostile to the respective local governments and openly sought to empower declared opponents of the countries’ leaders. Syria presumably was demonized to please Israel, beginning with the seeking to destabilize Syria through the passage of the Syria Accountability Act in 2003, even though Damascus posed no threat whatsoever to American interests. The current sanctions come at a time when Syria is continuing to struggle to rebuild after a still active twelve year civil war that destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure. US sanctions are making more difficult ongoing reconstruction efforts and are de facto largely punishing the Syrian people, with only minor impact on its government.

And sanctioning to punish Syria is bipartisan, perhaps reflecting a desire to satisfy Israeli demands. Donald Trump, who ran for president pledging to end America’s pointless wars overseas, on June 17th 2020 nevertheless initiated new sanctions against Syria and its government. US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft informed the Security Council that the Trump Administration would implement the measures to “prevent the Assad regime from securing a military victory. Our aim is to deprive the Assad regime of the revenue and the support it has used to commit the large-scale atrocities and human rights violations that prevent a political resolution and severely diminish the prospects for peace.”

Subsequently, the most recent block of sanctions was imposed through the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, signed by President Trump in December 2020 after he was due to leave office, with the objective of stopping “bad actors who continue to aid and finance the Assad regime’s atrocities against the Syrian people while simply enriching themselves.” At that time, the existing US sanctions on Syria had already frozen all government assets and had also targeted companies and even individuals. The new sanctions gave the White House and Treasury the power to apply so-called “secondary sanctions” to freeze the assets of any entity or even individual, regardless of nationality, for doing any business in Syria. The threat of secondary sanctions have in fact had a major negative impact on Damascus’s remaining trading partners, to include Lebanon and Iran. Russia might also be impacted as it is involved in Syrian reconstruction.

The United States and Israel clearly hope that punitive sanctions will eventually force the starving Syrian people to rise up against the government, as some sought to do during the so-called Arab Spring in 2011. That means that a sanctions routine, much favored by both the Trump and Biden Administrations, never succeeds in compelling rogue governments to behave better because the way it works it is always really about regime change no matter how it is packaged. In the case of Syria, and contrary to the claims made by Ambassador Craft at the United Nations, the Bashar al-Assad government has already won the war in spite of US and Turkish intervention on behalf of the largely terrorist group supported insurgency. And the evidence for Syria’s having carried out “large scale atrocities and human rights violations” has mostly been manufactured by enemies of the government, to include the Hollywood and Washington think tank favorite, the White Helmets, a terrorist front group funded at least in part by western intelligence agencies, which was featured in a self-generated documentary that won a Hollywood Motion Pictures Academy Award in 2017. The film was effusively praised by the usual celebrity brain-deads including Hillary Clinton and George Clooney. It is indeed overall a very impressive piece of propaganda. The National Holocaust Museum even gave the coveted 2019 Elie Wiesel Award to the group. The White Helmets are still active in Syria in areas that are still held by the so-called rebels and they featured in a film clip just last week. They are still being funded by western governments and Israel to destabilize the government of Bashar al-Assad.

One might well ask what the US objective in continuing to promote the carnage and suffering in a Syria that poses no threat to Americans or to any vital security interests. It is similar to a question that might well be raised regarding Ukraine, which is confronting an unneeded escalation of 3,000 US military reservists to reinforce the 20,000 American soldiers that have arrived in theater since February 2022. And then there is Iran, which responded to its oil tankers being hijacked in international waters under the unilaterally imposed authority granted by US sanctions. Iran has sought to respond in kind and now the US will dispatch Marines to the Persian Gulf to ride shotgun on foreign tankers and other commercial vessels traversing the Straits of Hormuz. If Iranian vessels come too close, they will shoot to kill. It is another escalation that is asking for trouble. Why can’t the United States leave the rest of the world alone? That is perhaps the fundamental question for our times.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

August 15, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Pakistan Risks Losing Much More Than Affordable Gas If It Abandons Its Iranian Pipeline Plans

Another Consequence Of The Post-Modern Coup

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | AUGUST 12, 2023

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported early last week that Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik told the National Assembly that their country plans to suspend its obligation to purchase Iranian gas due to fear of US sanctions and that international arbitration will likely determine the penalty that they’ll pay. After the news broke, he then tried explaining away this scandal by insisting that his side is actively exploring “creative solutions” to avoid scrapping this decade-old pipeline, but the damage was already done.

No serious observer thought that Pakistan had the political will to defy the US on this issue after the post-modern coup that took place in April 2022. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan (IK) was ousted via superficially “democratic” means that were supported by the US as punishment for his multipolar policies. In particular, top regional diplomat Donald Lu expressed concern to the former Pakistani Ambassador the month prior about his country’s economic ties with Russia.

The First Post-Coup Attack Against Pakistan’s Energy Security

This was confirmed by the cable that the Ambassador sent to Islamabad after their meeting, which was just leaked last week by The Intercept and analyzed here. Its relevance to the lede is that this document removes any doubt that the US is opposed to Pakistan obtaining energy security. Lu was reported by the Ambassador to have complained about the former premier’s trip to Moscow precisely because it “was for bilateral economic reasons” driven by IK’s desire to clinch a major energy deal with President Putin.

Seeing as how Pakistan’s pursuit of energy security via the aforementioned major deal with Russia that IK wanted to clinch in Moscow was one of the reasons why the US prioritized the post-modern coup against him, it therefore follows that it wouldn’t support Pakistan pursuing the same via Iran either. While it’s true that Pakistan recently imported Russian oil for the first time, this was with US approval out of desperation to see whether its proxy’s collapsing economy could be saved through these means.

Rethinking The Reasons Behind The Regime’s Import Of Russian Oil

There are several reasons, however, why it’s unlikely that IK’s envisaged energy deal will come to pass. First, Pakistan requires US approval to continue buying Russian resources, which can’t be taken for granted. Second, reliable Pakistani media recently reported about technical obstacles to these plans. Third, the latest release of IMF funds might have come with the unofficial condition of buying oil from elsewhere. And fourth, the initial purchase could have been political to deflect from IK’s accusations.

To elaborate, his replacements ran with the narrative shortly after receiving their first-ever import of Russian oil to claim that it allegedly puts to rest any speculation about them coming to power with US support as part of the latter’s plot to sabotage relations with Moscow. Their subsequent delay in setting up a “Special Purpose Vehicle” for taking their plans to the next level reinforces suspicion that this purchase was largely for domestic political purposes, ergo another reason why the US approved it.

Rethinking The Reasons Behind Pakistan’s Pipeline Deal With Iran

Political motivations could also have been at play when Pakistan agreed to build a gas pipeline with Iran in 2013, which came amidst deteriorating ties with the US brought about by the Abbottabad raid in 2012 and NATO’s cross-border attack from Afghanistan the year prior in 2011. In this case, the purpose would have been to signal its displeasure with the US in the hopes of prompting it to initiate a meaningful rapprochement, not advancing a partisan agenda at home like its import of Russian oil did.

Nevertheless, the point is that the recent problems in finalizing an oil deal with Russia are eye-opening enough to inspire a rethinking of Pakistan’s calculations in agreeing to its gas pipeline deal with Iran a decade ago now that the latter is also on the rocks. The failure of either plan, let alone both, will harm the country’s energy security by depriving it of the opportunity to reliably receive low-cost oil and gas respectively.

Qatar’s Place In The US’ Post-Coup Strategy Towards Pakistan

Comparatively more expensive resources from the Gulf would then be the only realistic solution for meeting Pakistan’s needs, which seems to be exactly the outcome that the US wants since it prefers for Pakistan to receive them from those countries than from Russia and Iran. The best-case scenario from the US’ perspective is for Pakistan to become dependent on Qatari LNG since Washington nowadays regards Doha as more geostrategically reliable in the New Cold War than Saudi Arabia or the UAE.

Towards A US-Led Qatari-Pakistani-Ukrainian Quadrilateral

Despite their sharp differences during the Trump Administration, they’ve since patched up their problems so well under the Biden one that the US Ambassador to Qatar bragged earlier in the month that “Our diplomatic ties are stronger than they have ever been.” This followed the Qatari Prime Minister’s visit to Kiev in late July that came shortly after the Ukrainian Foreign Minister’s first-ever one to Islamabad just a week before, where he was suspected to have clinched another secret arms deal.

India’s Economic Times then reported last week that “Pakistan seeks Gulf state help for shipping weapons to Ukraine”. Although no country was named, the abovementioned sequence of events strongly suggests the formation of a US-led quadrilateral involving Qatar, Pakistan, and Ukraine, the first two of whom are already close energy partners. Bearing all this in mind, there’s reason to believe that Qatar might be the unnamed Gulf state in that Indian media report.

Accelerating The Erosion Of Pakistani Sovereignty

Oman cultivated a reputation for neutrality over the decades, which Saudi Arabia and the UAE are now emulating towards the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine through their refusal to arm Kiev or sanction Russia. Bahrain and Kuwait, meanwhile, have always been comparatively smaller players in international affairs. By contrast, Qatar is known for the leading role that it played in the “Arab Spring”, and its attendant reputation for boldness and rapprochement with the US cast suspicion on it in this context.

All of this pertains to the lede since Pakistan would be forced to become more dependent on Qatari LNG if it officially scraps the gas pipeline deal with Iran, thus leading to higher financial costs and less sovereignty in the long run. The first consequence stands on its own but also segues into the second since it could lead to Pakistan needing endless IMF bailouts with all that entails for its sovereignty, not to mention the very high likelihood that Doha will exploit its energy role over Islamabad to other ends.

Concluding Thoughts

To wrap it all up, the post-modern coup that the US supported against IK in April 2022 was intended to deal a deathblow to Pakistan’s sovereignty, and it arguably succeeded. That country’s energy security will now no longer be ensured by diversifying its portfolio with low-cost Russian and Iranian oil and gas imports respectively. This will force it to pay higher costs from other suppliers, which will keep it in a perpetual cycle of financial dependence on the IMF with all the associated political strings.

Moreover, considering the trend of many countries replacing oil with gas, Pakistan’s capitulation to US sanctions pressure and resultant decision to pull out of its pipeline deal with Iran will make its energy security much more dependent on its already close Qatari industry partner. The emerging triangle between those two and the US could therefore lead to Pakistan entering into dual-vassalhood status vis-a-vis its “senior” partners, which would make it very difficult to ever regain its lost sovereignty.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

US Stirs Up Waters of Persian Gulf, Escalates Tensions With Iran

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 08.08.2023

The US could put armed troops on commercial ships sailing through the Strait of Hormuz. The move could upset the region’s security and create unnecessary risks for the US, DC scholars warn.

The US is beefing up its presence in the Middle East, despite earlier claims that it would scale down its involvement in the region.

According to the US press, thousands of US Marines and sailors have been brought to the Persian Gulf by the USS Bataan and the USS Carter Hall. The buildup has been ongoing for several months. In March, A-10 Thunderbolt II warplanes arrived at the Al Dhafra Air Base. US F-16 and F-35 fighter jets have also been dispatched to the region as well as the USS Thomas Hudner destroyer. In May, the US, British, and French navies conducted patrols in the Strait of Hormuz, which links the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea and open ocean.

On August 4, unnamed US officials told the press that the Pentagon was considering putting armed personnel on commercial ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.

Why are the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf again in the focus of the US military? Washington is pointing the finger at the “resurgent” Iran, claiming that the measures are necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from “seizing and harassing” civilian vessels. For its part, Iran resolutely denies employing such a practice.

In early July, the Pentagon said that US forces had prevented an attempted seizure by the Iranian Navy of two commercial oil tankers, the Marshall Islands-flagged TRF Moss and Richmond Voyager, following through the Strait of Hormuz. Allegedly, Iranian forces opened fire at the Richmond Voyager, but had to change course after the US Navy sent the USS McFaul destroyer and MQ-9 combat drone to the scene, as per the Pentagon’s story.

However, the Iranian Foreign Ministry dismissed the US’ reports about the Iranian Navy attempting to seize any oil tankers off the Omani shore.

The Strait of Hormuz plays a crucial role for global trade. According to some estimates, roughly 88% of all oil going from the Persian Gulf passes through the strait. Tankers carry around 17 million barrels of oil daily through the strait. In other words, it’s up to 30% of the world’s total consumption of the commodity.

The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a DC-based US think tank, voices skepticism over Washington’s plans to ensure the Strait of Hormuz’s security. According to DC scholars, it’s the US who aggravated tensions in the region in the first place. With different US policies, this situation could have been avoided, the think tank argues.

“Iran has not intercepted shipping because Iranians have some genetic malice that compels them to do such things,” the report read. “As with many other Iranian policies and actions, this practice is reactive. It was the United States, not Iran, that began the latest round of going after another nation’s tankers and seizing its oil. The US actions reflect a unilateral US policy of trying to prevent Iranian oil exports.”

Given that the US policy of seizing foreign oil vessels is not grounded in international law, it’s hardly surprising that Tehran qualified such actions as “piracy,” the report said, citing the seizure of a tanker full of Iranian oil in April by the US. This crude was then brought to Houston.

The US strategy of increasing its presence in the Gulf “perpetuates US vulnerabilities,” argued the think tank. First, thousands of US Marines and sailors could become a target of hostile fire, just like their counterparts in Iraq and Syria. Second, it may draw the US into new armed conflicts. Third, it could stir up regional rivalries.

The decision to put the US military on commercial ships may lead to a direct confrontation between the US and Iran, warned the report. If a clash occurs involving the commercial vessel of a third party, guarded by US troops, that could mean a broader international scandal.

Besides the situation described in the think tank’s report, the US may face humiliation akin to a January 12, 2016 incident, when two United States Navy riverine command boats were seized by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy.

What’s worse, the US initiative comes at a time when major regional players have taken a course on the de-escalation of tensions. The think tank referred to the fact that Iran and Saudi Arabia have recently started to mend fences with China’s assistance. Relations between Iran and other Middle East powers, such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman, have also been either warming or expanding further, per the report.

Under these circumstances, the US looks like a bull in a china shop, unlike Beijing, which has already received praise for its peace initiatives and positive influence on the situation in the region.

August 8, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

Iran responds to US military moves with more firepower

RT | August 6, 2023

Iran has beefed up the weaponry of its naval forces, arming them with such tools as additional drones and precision missiles with ranges up to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), amid rising tensions with the US over shipping traffic through the world oil market’s most crucial bottleneck.

The Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy officially took possession of the new gear at a ceremony on Saturday, state-run media outlets reported. The systems include reconnaissance and combat drones, as well as electronic warfare equipment, truck-mounted missile launchers, and hundreds of cruise and ballistic missiles.

The announcement came after reports earlier this week that US military officials had drawn up unprecedented plans to place armed troops on commercial trips in the Strait of Hormuz. Just last month, the Pentagon announced deployments of additional fighter jets and naval assets to the Persian Gulf region in response to “alarming events,” such as Iranian seizures of commercial vessels.

Brigadier General Abolfazi Shekarchi, a spokesman for the Iranian military, denounced Washington’s proposed deployment of troops on private ships. “What do the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean have to do with America?” he told Iran’s Tasnim news agency. “What is your business here?”

About 20% of the world’s oil supplies, or one-third of all seaborne crude shipments, go through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage that connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Tehran typically accuses the operators of detained ships of shipping violations, such as oil smuggling. Some of the vessels have only been released after other countries free detained Iranian tankers.

The new missiles give the IRGC Navy better accuracy and longer range than it previously had available, commander Alireza Tangsiri said. “The cruise missiles can attack several targets simultaneously, and the commands can be altered after takeoff,” he added.

US-Iran tensions have risen since Washington pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. Efforts to revive the agreement, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), have failed, despite the change in US leadership when Joe Biden succeeded Donald Trump as president in January 2021.

August 5, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

US forced Saudi Arabia, UAE to freeze investments in Syria

The Cradle | August 2, 2023

All promises of humanitarian aid and investment in Syria by Gulf countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been frozen as a result of US warnings and threats, Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported on 2 August.

“All the Emirati and Saudi promises to help Syria and activate investment in it on several levels remained words on tongues and ink on paper, and none of them were translated into reality,” Arab diplomatic sources told Al-Akhbar. 

According to the sources, the UAE “underestimated the ability of US sanctions to prevent” these investments and aid transfers from materializing. 

“It became clear that US sanctions and warnings … by the Americans to Emirati and Saudi officials … have already managed to thwart any new investment attempts in Syria … There are Emirati investment projects that already exist in Syria, but work in them has been frozen, under the pretext of the unstable security conditions,” the newspaper cites the sources as saying. 

Following the 6 February earthquake that devastated Turkiye and Syria, an Arab embrace of Damascus was initiated – with a number of Arab states, including most notably Saudi Arabia, restoring diplomatic ties with the government of Bashar al-Assad.

While this initially carried the hope of facilitating a swift end to the Syrian crisis and a reconstruction of the country, US sanctions and political pressure campaigns against normalizing with Assad have stalled such hopes. 

US lawmakers have even introduced legislation aimed at targeting countries that normalize ties with the Syrian government. 

On 31 July, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad accused western leaders of threatening to sanction Arab states to stop the normalization of ties with Syria. However, he added that “our Arab brothers will not submit to western blackmail,” stressing that there are talks with Arab nations “far from US influence.”

As some Arab states remain adamant about opposing Syria, such as Qatar, others, including Iraq, have continued to push for its full reintegration into the regional fold. 

Despite US attempts to drive a wedge between Baghdad and Damascus, as Al-Akhbar describes, the two states have continued close cooperation in several fields. 

As part of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s recent visit to Syria and meeting with Assad, many things were discussed, including increased energy cooperation to combat severe shortages caused by US occupation. 

While the US is systematically obstructing the Arab rapprochement with Damascus, its occupation forces in the country are reportedly preparing for new military action – coinciding with preparations being made by Iran-backed resistance groups. 

According to Al-Akhbar, the US is attempting to strengthen its Kurdish proxy, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – as well as other factions and extremist armed groups who are being trained inside the US base in Syria’s southeastern Al-Tanf region. 

“The declared goal [is] occupying the city of Al-Bukamal to cut off the road between Damascus and Baghdad,” the report reads, thereby obstructing access “to the Iranian depth.” 

However, this US “move will be an opportunity for the … the axis to pounce on the American forces in the Syrian desert and expel them from this sensitive area.”

The newspaper adds that there are “military preparations” – most likely jointly coordinated by Syria, Iran, and Russia – in the Badia desert region and in Suwayda, “can be considered preparation for a ground attack on the US Al-Tanf base, perhaps preceded by an attack with drones and ballistic missiles.” 

As the threat of such an attack looms over the US occupation, Washington has been significantly reinforcing its occupation in Syria recently. 

An anonymous US military official recently said that there is a jointly coordinated Russian-Iranian campaign being waged with the aim of pressuring Washington’s troops to withdraw from Syria. 

August 2, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Wildfires in Syria used as a weapon of war

By Steven Sahiounie | Mideast Discourse | July 30, 2023

Wildfires broke out on July 25 in Latakia province in northwest Syria and are still burning amid new fires being started. The fires spread quickly by a sudden unusual wind which whipped up. The whole country, and the adjacent Mediterranean region, is in a heat-wave which sets the stage for such a devastating fire burning crops, forests and homes. However, this was not a chance wildfire, but was an act of terrorism.

General Jalal Dawoud, Head of the Fire Department in Latakia, says the fire was man-made. This was determined because the origin of the fire was not in one place, but was started in scattered areas all at the same time in daylight hours.

After the security forces began their investigation, it was found that the fires were started by drones originating from Idlib, under the occupation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly Jibhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria.

Turkey is illegally occupying Idlib as they protect the terrorists under the command of Mohammed Jolani, formerly allied with Abu Baker Al Baghdadi, the head of ISIS who was killed in Idlib by President Trump.

The terrorists have been attacking the fire fighters and vehicles. Bassem Bakar, a water tanker driver, was killed when the terrorists targeted his vehicle near Deir Hanna and Rabiah. Two other men with him were injured.

Turkey is well known for the manufacture of drones, and has been selling drones to Ukraine recently.

On July 25, a fire department vehicle drove over a previously planted mine on Zgharo Mountain, near the town of Maskita, but without injuries. This area was occupied by the terrorists now in Idlib during the 2015 period before they were driven east to Idlib.

The Mayor of Latakia, Amer Hallal, said fire depratments from many areas came to fight the fires, and a Russian water tanker airplane came to battle the fires. Civilians were evacuated from homes and farms and taken to a safe area where they were given humanitarian aid.

The fire raged in Rabiah which sits on a road that connects directly to Idlib. Other areas burning are Ghamam, Sarsekiah, Ein Zarkha, Deir Hanna, Jib Alahmar, Sed Bradoon, and Jebal al Zahra.

A young soldier who volunteered to fight the fires, Mounif Sebry Hassoun, died while fighting the fire due to suffocation in Meshkita. He is from village of Wadi Khelah, in the suburb of Jeblah

The Syrian government, Syrian Red Crescent are coordinating efforts to put out the fires and assisting the humanitarian needs of the affected civilians. Local restaurants have been donating meals to the fire fighters. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the Syrian Red Crescent are putting out fires in Rabiah, which is the front line against the terrorists in Idlib.

The foreign policy of the US and EU have kept the status quo in Idlib. 3 million civilians there are kept as human shields by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Turkey prevents the SAA and the Russian military from freeing the civilians kept as hostages to an international game of chess played by America.

International aid organizations, such as the UN, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children and others deliver all the humanitarian aid to the civilians, while Jolani and his terrorists receive all the aid and distribute it to their cronies first, and sell whatever they horde in a huge shopping mall Jolani and partners built.

Idlib is an agricultural province with farmers and terrorists selling olives and olive oil to Turkish businesses.

The US, EU and UN are enablers of Jolani and the terrorists under his command. Recently, Jolani hung people in Idlib that he perceived were enemies. He and his men oppress women by not allowing social programs directed at women’s issues. The terrorists rule under Islamic Law and in the case of a rape, a woman must present the court with three men who are witnesses to the rape in order to get a conviction. In this situation, rapes go unreported as there is no chance for justice.

Drones can be used for humanitarian purposes, for example: delivering medicines to a remote village. However, drones can also deliver a deadly payload in a war, or attack, and now in Syria they are being used to start wildfires in the heat of summer amid dry winds which spread the deadly fires.

The world responded to the massive 7.8 earthquake on February 6 in Syria and Turkey. Humanitarian aid poured in from Arab countries mainly, with the US boycotting all aid to Syria, with the sole exception of Idlib and the occupying terrorists there.

The earthquake aid has long ago stopped, and although many friends of Syria have asked the US and EU to lift the sanctions which prevent all rebuilding and recovery in Syria from years of war and the earthquake, still there has been no move to lift any sanctions.

Recently, a list of the world’s poorest nations was unveiled with Syria tying for the worse place along with Yemen and Afghanistan. 12 years of armed conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic, the 7.8 earthquake of the century, and now wildfires being delivered by terrorists supported by the US and NATO.

Jolani and his US supported terrorists have no red lines they cannot cross. They are heartless criminals holding the northwest of Syria in fear of their next move.

July 31, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | 3 Comments

UAE, Bahrain sour on Israeli normalization

The Cradle | July 31, 2023

Two of the signatories of the Abraham Accords – the UAE and Bahrain – have “soured” on the 2020 normalization agreement, according to sources in the know who spoke with US outlet Bloomberg.

“The [UAE] has expressed frustration in high-level contacts with Israel about the outcome of the 2020 Abraham Accords,” Bloomberg reported on 30 July. Bahrain has also “outlined its disappointment” with Tel Aviv, mainly out of concerns about Israel’s ongoing human rights violations against Palestinians and their unchecked expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank.

According to the report, the tense situation is “likely to complicate” Washington’s efforts to see Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords, which also include Morocco and Sudan.

In the months after the Gulf kingdom inked a historic rapprochement deal with Iran under the auspices of China, the White House has deployed a charm offensive to convince Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) to normalize ties with Israel before the 2024 US elections.

Publicly, Saudi Arabia maintains Israel must first implement the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative to establish a Palestinian state before a normalization deal can be signed. Privately, however, Riyadh is demanding that the US sweeten the deal by providing firm defense guarantees, access to cutting-edge weaponry, and assistance in developing a nuclear energy program, including domestic uranium enrichment.

While the White House remains hesitant to accept these demands, US President Joe Biden told a gathering of donors to his 2024 re-election campaign last week, “There’s a rapprochement maybe underway.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed this claim on Sunday when announcing the construction of a $27 billion rail expansion connecting Israel’s outlying areas to metropolitan Tel Aviv.

“In the future, we will be able to transport cargoes of goods by train from Eilat to our ports in the Mediterranean Sea, and we will also be able to connect Israel by train to Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula. We are working on that too,” Netanyahu said.

Earlier this month, Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Washington was promoting a plan to build a railway connection from the Gulf to Israel and Europe.

July 31, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

More F-35s arrive in West Asia in latest anti-Iran deployment

The Cradle | July 27, 2023

A squadron of US F-35 fighter jets have arrived in the region, Washington’s air force announced on 26 July, coming as part of increased efforts to “beef up deterrence against Iran,” US media outlet Fox News wrote on 26 July.

“The Iranian navy did make attempts to seize commercial tankers lawfully transiting international waters. The U.S. Navy responded immediately and prevented those seizures,” US Fifth Fleet spokesman Tim Hawkins said.

Washington repeatedly accuses Iran of attempting to ‘hijack’ foreign vessels. However, Tehran maintains that it pursues foreign tankers who are either involved in fuel smuggling, or who have violated international regulations by colliding with Iranian vessels and fleeing – as has happened on a number of occasions.

The F-35s were deployed to the US CENTCOM ‘Area of Responsibility’ and serve as an augmentation to those already patrolling the Strait of Hormuz.

According to the military, they aim to provide cover for ships in the region in order to prevent Iranian seizures. They also aim to “deliver ‘increased capacity’ to the region and ‘allow the U.S. to fly in contested airspace across the theater if required,’” an air force press release cited by Fox News reads.

The F-35 jets will also “be available to help in Syria,” Fox News said. US troops currently occupy Syria, controlling its oilfields in coordination with proxy militias, while claiming to be carrying out anti-ISIS operations.

“This deployment demonstrates the U.S.’s commitment to ensure peace and security in the region, through maritime support and support to the coalition’s enduring mission to defeat ISIS in Syria,” the US air force said.

This latest jet deployment comes as Washington has been cementing its military presence across West Asia, seemingly in preparation for a confrontation with Iran. This has seen the US recently deploy a nuclear submarine and a navy destroyer to the Persian Gulf.

In Syria specifically, Washington and Moscow have recently gotten closer to coming to blows.

On 26 July, a US MQ-9 Reaper surveillance and attack drone locked its weapons on two Russian warplanes, reportedly forcing the jets to drop flares that “damaged” the drone’s wings.

This marked the second incident in three days where Russian jets dropped flares on a US drone attempting to lock weapons on them.

According to an anonymous US military official cited in a report earlier this month, Russian and Iranian forces in Syria have been coordinating with the specific aim of forcing Washington’s troops to eventually withdraw from the country.

As a result, Washington has been continuously reinforcing its military bases in Syria, and is reportedly planning to deploy an additional 2,500 troops to the country.

July 27, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Putin suggests alternative route to deliver goods to Africa

RT | July 27, 2023

The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) could provide Russian goods with a shorter route to Africa than the Suez Canal, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

Addressing a plenary session of the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, Putin explained that Moscow is “actively engaged in reorienting transport and cargo flows towards the states of the Global South, including, of course, Africa.”

The INSTC, touted as an alternative to the Suez Canal, is a planned 7,200km multi-mode transit system that will connect ship, rail, and road routes for moving cargo between Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, India, and Central Asia.

“The International North-South Transport Corridor that we are developing is aimed at providing Russian goods with access to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, from where they will be able to reach the African continent via the shortest sea route. Naturally, this corridor can also be used in the opposite direction – to supply African goods to the Russian market,” Putin stated.

Russia is seeking to ensure interconnectivity within the route and launch regular freight shipping lines, according to Putin. The volume of goods shipped via the INSTC is expected to almost triple over the next seven years, and the Russian leader suggested establishing a logistics hub for the corridor on the African coast.

“The opening of a Russian transport and logistics center in one of the ports on the African coast would be a good thing, a good start to this joint work. We consider it important to ensure wider coverage of the African continent with direct flights [and] participation in the development of the African railroad network – these are the key tasks that we propose to our African friends to work together on,” Putin said.

Russia has repeatedly said that the INSTC could become a substitute for the Suez Canal, the 193km waterway in Egypt that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. The popular route between Europe and Asia sees about 12% of global trade pass through it each day.

The construction of the INSTC began in the early 2000s, but developing it further has taken on a new impetus in light of Western sanctions, which have forced Russia to shift its trade flows from Europe to Asia and the Middle East.

The total cargo flow along the INSTC was 14.5 million tons in 2022, and the projection for this year is 17.6 million tons, according to Russia’s Transport Ministry. By 2030, the volume is expected to reach 41 million tons.

July 27, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

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