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Turkey’s Syrian Misadventure

By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | September 15, 2012

Ankara – Turkey’s intervention in Syria has been an act of unprecedented folly. Not since the republic was established in 1923 – not even when the military was in charge – has a Turkish government sought ‘regime change’ in another country.  In sponsoring armed groups seeking to destroy the Syrian government, the collective calling itself ‘The Friends of the Syrian People’ appears to be committing serious violations of international law. While the focus has to remain on the prime victims of their intervention, the Syrian people,  it is also the case that  more than a year later the policy has not worked for Turkey and is blowing up in the face of its architects, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

International Law

Article 2 (1) of the UN Charter (1945) states that the organization is based on the ‘sovereign equality of all its Members’. Article 2 (3) states that all members ‘shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered’. Article 2 (4) required all members to refrain in their international relations ‘from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations’. Article 2 (7) states that ‘nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisprudence of any state’. Chapter 7 of the charter grants the Security Council the right to take action but only in cases of a threat to peace, a breach of the peace or an act of aggression. ‘Peace’ here is clearly intended to mean international peace and not the disruption of domestic peace by domestic disorder.

In 1965 the sovereign rights of the state were further affirmed in General Assembly Resolution 2131 (XX), entitled Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty, passed on December 21 by a vote of 109-0.  Three of the core principles are adumbrated below:

1. No State has the right to intervene directly or indirectly for any reason whatever in the internal and external affairs of any State. Consequently armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements are condemned.

2. No State may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights or to secure from its advantages of any kind. Also no State shall organize, assist, foment, finance, incite or tolerate subversive, terrorist or armed activities directed towards the violent overthrow of the regime of another State or interfere in civil strife in another State.

The fact that powerful states bully the weak and frequently violate their sovereign rights is no excuse for Turkey to do the same. The question of whether the Justice and Development Party government is violating Turkey’s own laws is another issue, already raised in the Turkish media and by opposition politicians.

Disarray

None of this would matter so much if Turkey’s policy had worked out. Bashar would have gone in a few months and the Turkish Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister would be hailed for their foresight and courage but now it is they who are on the hot plate. Bashar is still in power and the army – the foot soldiers mostly Sunni Muslims – has not broken up on sectarian lines. The armed protégés of the outside governments are steadily being contained and driven out of the towns and the cities they have infiltrated. Fighting continues but external support for the armed groups seems to be waning. The US was already losing its appetite for direct intervention under the aegis of NATO and in the wake of the murder of the US ambassador to Tripoli by the very people whom the US used as auxiliaries to destroy the Libyan Jamahiriya and its founder,    it can be ruled out altogether and not only because of fear of the Russian and Chinese reaction.  Finally the US is taking a clear look at the people likely to inherit in Syria if Assad goes and it does not like what it sees.

The recent statement of a ‘rebel commander’ in Aleppo that 70 per cent of the population remains loyal to the government probably means that 90 to 95 per cent support the government and not just in Aleppo, where local Christians have been forming armed groups to defend themselves. It is only another strand of western involvement in Syria that politicians who wear their Christianity on their sleeve in Washington and London have completely ignored the evidence of the killing and intimidation of Syrian Christians. Only the Vatican has spoken out.   Only recently have the sponsors of the armed  groups – with the notable exceptions of Saudi Arabia and Qatar –  begun  looking askance at the savagery of the  crimes they are committing,  including the  massacre of civilians and soldiers, rape, kidnapping and the murder of anyone identified as a ‘regime loyalist’,  including  police, postal workers, university professors and journalists. In Aleppo they stood their captives against a wall and riddled them with machine gun fire. Later they ‘executed’ 20 bound and gagged Syrian soldiers. In Al Bab – near Aleppo – they murdered postal workers before pitching their bodies from the roof of their building on to the steps below. In Homs the FSA’s Faruq Brigade maintained a special squad whose job it was to cut the throats of the group’s captives. Others have their heads cut off. All of this is justified by the crimes committed or alleged to have been committed by the ‘regime’. Any lines of demarcation between these groups have all but disappeared. There is tacit cooperation between all of them. There is no reason why  any sane Syrian would want these people in their midst,  especially as many are not  even their countrymen but salafis/jihadis/takfiris – Pakistanis, Iraqis, Turks, Saudis, Chechens and Libyans – paid by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Their role in the armed opposition has become increasingly dominant.

US Target

Syria has been in the gun sights of the US administration for decades. The country’s modern history bulges with attempts to disable it through assassination, attempts to overthrow the government, armed attack and occupation and most recently sanctions: no wonder Syria has become a byword for the mukharabat state. In the past two decades the calibration of the anti-Syrian policy has been in the hands of the neoconservatives. The Middle East was their prime target and Israel their prime beneficiary. The national security strategy announced by the George W. Bush administration was effectively a neoconservative writ for attacking other states if and when the US wanted, with Muslim countries top of the list. The rule book – beginning with the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia – was tossed out the window. After the invasion of Afghanistan the governments of seven states were set up for destruction:  Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Iran, not necessarily in that order.  Out of the ruins a new Middle East was to be born.

The strategy has  been extended to include a wide range of activities befitting a ‘hyper’ state powerful enough to operate outside the law, including ‘extra judicial’ executions and drone attacks that have killed countless numbers of civilians as well as a handful of Islamic militants in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen. Osama bin Laden could have been arrested and put on trial but was shot dead in front of his wives and children. This was not an ‘extra judicial’ execution because there is no such thing. For an execution to be legal it must have been preceded by prosecution, trial and conviction but now prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner have all been rolled into one. Osama might have been responsible for murders but he also was murdered. The use of ‘extra judicial’ execution is no more than media apologetics for crime.

Heads of state are no more exempted from the law of the gun than anyone else but there was a time when they were removed covertly. Now it is done right out in the open. The Reagan administration’s failed attempt to murder Muammar al Qadhafi in the 1980s was finally followed by success last year. The oracular statement of Hillary Clinton in Tripoli a few days before his murder that ‘we’ are looking forward to the Libyan leader’s capture or killing was thus fulfilled. It will be remembered that she celebrated the occasion with a joke. The assassination of the US ambassador to Libya was a different matter altogether:  she said it left her heartbroken – a technical impossibility, some would say, reminiscent of the old jazz line – ‘something beats in his chest/but it’s just a pump at best’. Certainly she has never been known to utter a word of regret, remorse or apology for the women and children who have been killed by US drone attacks in various countries. Her heart seems quite intact as far as they are concerned.

Clinton’s purpose-driven morality blows around like a weathervane in a high wind but she is no more than the symptom of an ugly moment in history which has produced Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition and torture, the massacre of civilians on the ground and from the air in Baghdad, the urinating on the bodies of their victims by US soldiers in Afghanistan, and even the trophy mutilation of their bodies. One cannot be separated from the other. Reinforcing the systemic place of these crimes, very rarely has anyone even been rapped on the wrist for them.

Overshadowing them all, of course,  is the genocidal assault on Iraq, beginning in 1991, and continuing through more than a decade of sanctions and the second war of 2003, but not even for these most terrible crimes has anyone who committed them or was ultimately responsible for them been punished. Clinton and Obama arrived late but added Libya to the pile of corpses and in any case have adhered to the policies set by their neoconservative predecessors.

In this new overtly lawless world, Bashar al Assad is a prime target for assassination. Very possibly he was expected to be at the meeting targeted for bombing by the so-called Free Syrian Army in Damascus a few weeks ago. Usually governments feel obliged to abhor terrorism, especially when directed against the members of other governments, but this time the spokesman for the US State Department more or less said that the victims – the Defence Minister and two other senior figures in Assad’s inner circle – had it coming. Responsibility for this attack was claimed by Riad al Assad, the commander of the FSA who remarked: ‘God willing this will be the end of the regime. Hopefully Bashar will be next’. Mr Assad lives in southeastern Turkey under the protection of the Turkish state. The question is rhetorical but still has to be asked: has Turkey really reached the stage where its government gives sanctuary to a man who openly admits to organizing terrorist outrages in the capital city of another country and is looking forward to the murder of its head of state? The FSA leader’s fervent hope was later echoed in the assertion by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius’ remark that Bashar does not deserve to be on this earth. In the world we used to have this would have been called incitement to murder.

Prolonging Violence

Under the UN Charter it is incumbent on all members to seek the peaceful resolution of conflicts that threaten international order.  In Syria the US government and its allies have done the reverse. Through their intervention they have created a situation that threatens international order. In pursuit of their own agenda they have supported armed groups, imposed sanctions and agitated against the Syrian government through the UN Security Council and the Arab League.

Far from trying to bring the violence to an end they have prolonged it in the hope that it will eventually bring down the government in Damascus. They have blocked every attempt at a settlement that does not involve the precondition of ‘regime change’. Kofi Annan’s ceasefire could not work because the ‘friends’ were not prepared to compel the armed groups to lay down their arms at the same time as the Syrian army did. Having learned its lesson in Homs, where the tanks were pulled off the streets, only for the ‘rebels’ to take advantage of their withdrawal to reclaim lost positions, the Syrian government is not going to play this game again.

Further back, Saudi Arabia and Qatar torpedoed the Arab League monitors’ mission the moment it became clear it would come up with findings not to their liking. Its report was suppressed as was, more recently, the report resulting from the on-the-ground inquiry into the Houla massacre by the UN Supervisory Mission in Syria (UNSMS). It reached the UN Secretary-General’s office but not the Security Council and the mission’s mandate was terminated soon afterwards.  The mission’s commander, Lieut-General Robert Mood, spoke at a press conference of conflicting evidence and it has to be assumed this was the reason for the report being buried. No solution has been allowed by the US that includes the participation of Iran. China and Russia have their own motives for supporting the government in Damascus but their position of opposition to outside intervention and support for negotiations without preconditions at least stands on firm moral and legal grounds. The main Syrian domestic opposition groups have now put forward an initiative for a negotiated settlement starting with the army and all armed factions laying down their weapons simultaneously. Having so far blocked every attempt at a settlement that does not meet their terms, will the ‘Friends of the Syrian People’ allow it to work?

Zero Problems?

In the campaign against Syria – or the Syrian ‘regime’ as the ‘friends’ would insist – Turkey’s role has been central.  Until the beginning of last year the Turkish government had pursued policies of ‘soft power’ and ‘zero problems’ around all of Turkey’s borders. It now suits supporters of the government’s position to argue that the ‘zero problems’ policy had failed, when all the evidence suggests that it had been a resounding success. Outstanding issues were resolved, new trade agreements signed and borders opened up. Relations with the two countries with which Turkey has had the most difficult relationship – Syria and Iran – had never been better. The ‘zero problems’ policy will stand as Foreign Minister Davutoglu’s greatest achievement:  its destruction will stand as his greatest failure.

Libya marked the beginning of Turkey’s policy turnaround. Erdogan initially responded by saying that military intervention anywhere in the Middle East would be a disaster but with a western triumph inevitable Turkey climbed on board. The spectacle thus arose of a government selling itself on its Muslim credentials coming in behind yet another western attack on yet another Muslim country. With Libya finished – another functional state turned into a dysfunctional state – the western-gulf state alliance then turned its attention to Syria. Erdogan and Davutoglu abruptly dropped their attempts to persuade Bashar al Assad to accept their advice (apparently to negotiate with the Muslim Brotherhood and even to bring it into government) and turned on him. The ‘brother’ of a few months before was now the worst man in the world.

The crisis broke when the two men were already fashioning an enlarged regional and global role for Turkey drawing strength from the connections of the Ottoman past and building on Erdogan’s popular standing across the Arab world following his blistering criticism of Israel. In what critics described as ‘neo Ottomanism’, the two men saw Turkey as a regional leader, role model and servant, as Davutoglu put it a few months ago. A new Middle East was being formed and they positioned themselves on the crest of the wave of reform, albeit in a very selective way because they had little or nothing to say about the need for change in the Gulf states.

Out of Touch

Had Erdogan and Davutoglu been properly advised, had they been more alert, more tuned in to the realities of the Middle East, they would have known that Bashar would not soon be gone.    They would have known that he is popular with many Syrians and is seen by them as the best hope for reform. They would have known that confrontation with Syria would undermine relations with Iraq and Iran, as well as putting Turkey at odds with Russia and China. They would have known that these two powers would never allow a repeat of Libya and they might have guessed that the Kurds would take the opportunity of turmoil in Syria to strengthen their own position. They presumed to speak for the Syrian people when not even now is there any evidence that the ‘Syrian people’ in the mass support whom they support. The clearest evidence of what they want remains the referendum of February, when more than half the people on the electoral roll voted to remove the Baath party as the central pillar of society and state and bring in a multiparty system. Of course the changes did not go far enough:  after half a century of authoritarian rule, the mukhabarat state was never going to be transformed overnight but what was on offer was certainly better than the mayhem sweeping across Syria with the encouragement of governments that have  done nothing but harm to Arab interests over  the last two centuries.

Cost of Conflict

The costs of Turkey’s confrontation with Syria have been great. An effective regional policy has been wrecked in favor of policy incoherence. The Kurds have taken advantage of the turmoil, with the PKK escalating its attacks and the Syrian Kurds tightening their grip on the region just south of the border, raising alarm in Ankara at the possibility of a Syrian Kurdish enclave being added to the nucleus of a future ‘Greater Kurdistan’. Bashar is being blamed when it is clear that the Syrian army is stretched to the limit and no longer capable of policing the border as before.

The Iraqi Kurds have been sucked into the vortex of this conflict, with Massoud Barzani convening a meeting of the Syrian Kurds – including a faction closely linked to the PKK – and advising them to settle their differences in the common interest and take what they can. Because of the close political and trade links established with the northern Iraqi Kurdish governorate – at the expense of relations with the actual government of the country – Erdogan was infuriated at Barzani’s endorsement of actions seen as inimical to Turkey’s security interests. Rubbing salt into Iraq’s wounded pride, Davutoglu chose the middle of this crisis to visit the contested city of  Kirkuk.

In the southeast sanctions have killed off the cross-border trade with Syria that was the livelihood of merchants and traders in Hatay and Gaziantep provinces. The population of Hatay is more than 50 per cent Alevi and still connected to Alawis across the border by family ties. The Turkish Alevis are strongly opposed to their government’s policies and do not want the ‘refugees’ (formally the ‘guests’ of the Turkish government), the bearded jihadis or the agents of foreign governments in their midst. They see Bashar as the head of a secular regime which is the best guarantor of minority rights and they regard the prospect of a Muslim Brotherhood-type government of the kind apparently favored by Erdogan with absolute anathema. Their reaction to the situation has not been helped by Erdogan’s intermittent political point scoring at Alawi expense. The focus on Hatay revives the question of how the province came to be a Turkish possession in the first place: breaking the terms of its mandate over Syria, the French government handed the region to Turkey in 1938 as a placatory measure before the onset of the Second World War. As for the Turkish people in the mass, the most recent poll indicates that the majority do not support military intervention in Syria. Whether they are aware of how deeply their country already is involved is another matter.

Tens of thousands of Syrians are now pouring out of their country to seek refuge in Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. They are another consequence of the decision to prolong the fighting in Syria rather than help end it. Here it should be remembered that Syria took in half a million Palestinian refugees in 1948 and more than a million Iraqis after the US-led invasion of 2003 created the greatest refugee tragedy in the Middle East since 1948. Now it is Iraq that is taking in Syrian refugees. Refugees of a different category in Syria include the families of the 100,000 Syrians who were driven off the Golan Heights by Israeli forces in 1967.

Although everyone in the collective calling itself ‘The Friends of the Syrian People’ is playing their part, the role of Saudi Arabia and Qatar  – the paymasters –  is especially pernicious because it is based on a sectarian reordering of the Middle East, with Shi’ism dammed  behind a wall of Sunni  governments. Saudi Arabia is one of the most reactionary states in the world, not just the Middle East. Qatar is a liberal version of Saudi Arabia but still has no political parties, no parliament, no unions and a system of indentured foreign labor that has been likened to slavery and even bears the same name as that given to the columns of slaves trudging across Africa in the 19th century (the kafil, the name of the wooden collar yoking the slaves together.)

The unprecedented domestic success of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party government has now been followed by unprecedented folly in foreign affairs. It needs to get out of this mess without delay, a conclusion that has undoubtedly already been reached within the party. Turkey needs to get back to where it was and begin the process of repairing the damage done to relations with near neighbors, beginning with Iraq and Iran because it will be a long time before relations with Syria can be returned to an even keel. The whole Syrian venture will have to be wound down. The SNC will have to be abandoned (but it has been a waste of time and money from the beginning anyway) and the commander of the FSA asked to seek lodgings elsewhere. Whatever the support being given to the armed men it will have to be dried up.  This is going to create further complications but they will have to be faced. There will be loss of face but that is a problem for the individual politicians and advisers concerned: the interests of the country are the central issue and in any case, loss of face does not even begin to compare with the loss of more lives that will be the only result of persevering with a policy that has failed.

– Jeremy Salt is an associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.

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September 15, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cyprus displeased at reports that British bases provide help to Syrian rebels

Xinhua – August 23, 2012

NICOSIA – Cyprus said on Thursday it had asked Britain to give an official explanation for a Sunday Times report alleging that the British Sovereign Bases in Cyprus provide intelligence to Syrian rebels which helped them deal effective strikes against the Syrian army.

Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Markoulli told the state radio that she had instructed the Cypriot High Commissioner (Ambassador) in London to make a demarche to the British Foreign Ministry asking for official information on the report.

“It is a very serious issue if the Bases are being used for purposes other than those explicitly set out in the Treaty of Establishment,” Markouli said.

She said she expected a British reply by the end of the day.

Markoulli added that the 1960 Treaty of Establishment under which Cyprus was granted independence states that two bases retained by Britain can only be used for defensive purposes.

British paper the Sunday Times claimed on Sunday that British agents operating in the British bases were collecting intelligence on Syrian army movements which is then channeled through Turkey to forces fighting the the Syrian army.

A spokesman for the British High Commission in Cyprus on Monday refused to confirm or deny the report, citing the official government position not to comment on intelligence or operational matters.

August 23, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Conference: Setting the Stage for Dialogue in Syria

By Elie Chalhoub | Al Akhbar | August 9, 2012

A “Consultative Meeting on Syria” in Tehran aims to promote a Syrian political solution and establish a counterweight to the self-styled “Friends of Syria.”

Iran’s position on Syria is unchanged: the crisis can only have a Syrian solution, based on dialogue between the warring parties. It aims to persuade as many countries as possible to support that option, and establish an alternative to the coalition of states complicit in the bloodletting in Syria.

Iran is looking ahead to the aftermath of what it expects to be the Syrian regime’s “victory” in Aleppo. Once that is achieved, Tehran believes, the powers backing the rival sides in Syria will have no alternative but to negotiate.

Turkey’s position is crucial in this regard, as it would clearly have a major impact if it opted to intervene directly in the battle for Aleppo. This in turn explains the sudden and sharp deterioration in relations between Ankara and Tehran, with the latter threatening to freeze trade with the former.

The Iranians have been preparing for today’s “Consultative Meeting on Syria,” hosted by the Foreign Ministry, for around two weeks, according to Iranian sources. Their contacts focused on states that are “not directly complicit” in the Syrian crisis, in addition to Turkey, which was also invited.

The sources said outgoing UN/Arab League envoy Kofi Annan was invited too, in the hope that he could be persuaded not to abandon his mission, but decided, apparently under pressure from various parties, not to attend.

On the eve of the conference, 20 countries were due to send delegates to the gathering, including Russia, China, Turkey, Pakistan and India, and seven Arab states (Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, Kuwait, the UAE, and Oman). Eight countries were to be represented by their foreign ministers, the others at a less senior level.

Lebanon decided not to take part in line with its policy of non-involvement in Syrian affairs. Iraq was to send high-level delegates other than Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who “represents the American face of the Iraqi regime,” according to the sources. But Iraqi diplomatic efforts led to an agreement that would have Zebari attend along with the minister of national security. The sources added that many of the countries invited had – like Annan, who initially agreed to attend – come under heavy pressure to stay away, or at least to lower the level of their representation.

The Iranian sources said the principal objective of the conference is to “bring the Syrian opposition and regime together around the negotiating table, with the aim of arriving at a Syrian solution to the crisis in Syria.”

They said Iran had obtained undertakings from “a fair number” of Syrian opposition groups to support such talks, as well as the endorsement of President Bashar al-Assad, who conferred in Damascus earlier this week with the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, Saeed Jalili.

“We want this conference to be a counter to the Enemies of Syria (Friends of Syria) group, which has been promoting militarization, violence and sectarianism,” they said. “The hope is to persuade the maximum number of states to encourage and take part in an intra-Syrian solution.”

The thinking in Tehran is that the Syrian regime is bound to prevail in the battle of Aleppo, and that “after that, the time will come for negotiations between the forces that wanted to destroy the Syrian state and bring down the regime, and the states that want to make a political solution succeed and find a Syrian way out of the crisis.” Thursday’s conference is part of a process of “preparing the ground for such negotiations.” […]

It is significant that close US allies and supporters of the Syrian rebels – Turkey, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE and Tunisia – were to attend the Tehran conference. “That is the strongest evidence of the opposition front cracking, and of its willingness to enter into a dialogue once the dust has settled on the Battle of Aleppo,” they said. However, it seems that diplomatic pressure succeeded in the end in keeping Kuwait and UAE from participating. … Full article

August 9, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Orwellian Ramifications Begin to Unfold in Syria

By Ismail Salami | Dissident Voice | August 9th, 2012

There is a horrible speculation that the insurgents in Syria may have seized hold of chemical weapons.

Apart from the catastrophically unthinkable havoc the rebels can wreak in Syria and in the region with the WMDs, the rhetorical question which remains is how these weapons of mass destruction have fallen into the hands of the insurgents who are chiefly composed of Wahhabi al-Qaeda mercenaries of different nationalities including Afghans, Iraqis, Turkish, Yemenis, Jordanians, Pakistanis, and Saudis.

The situation in Syria is assuming Orwellian ramifications and the possibility to clearly understand or dissect the situation in the country is not an easy task.

In addition to the active role the Saudi-backed Wahhabis, CIA and some western intelligence organizations are playing in Syria, there is one entity, namely Israel which is stealthily espying every single development in Syria.

For the first time, an Israeli spy official clearly stated that Israel supports regime change in Syria and that it really demands an end to the government of President Bashar Assad.

“I hope it will happen, even though I don’t know when or how,” Intelligence Agencies Minister Dan Meridor said on Tuesday.

The top spy chief implicated why Assad should go and how it would damage the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“I am not going to try to calculate when Assad’s end will come, but when it happens, Iran’s biggest ally will be gone.”

Taking it for granted that Assad is doomed to go, he said, “I hope the new Syria will understand that joining Iran is a mistake that brings isolation from the Western world.”

Such a feeble perception of the Syrian situation is indicative of one who is either too optimistic or one who is well aware of what is going on behind the scene and that which is not visible to the ordinary people with no intelligence savvy.

Furthermore, Dan Meridor does not seem to understand that the situation in Israel is spiraling out of control with people protesting against social injustice almost on a daily basis. Since last month, four Israelis have set themselves ablaze from an extremity of despair.

On August 5, John McCain and Lindsey O. Graham, both Republicans, who represent Arizona and South Carolina in the Senate, respectively and Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent, who represents Connecticut in the Senate advised the US government to directly and openly provide assistance, including weapons, intelligence and training, to the insurgents in Syria as they claim President’s Assad’s ‘brutality’ is no longer to be tolerated.

“It is not too late for the United States to shift course. First, we can and should directly and openly provide robust assistance to the armed opposition, including weapons, intelligence and training. Whatever the risks of our doing so, they are far outweighed by the risks of continuing to sit on our hands, hoping for the best.”

Another part of this sabotage axis against Syria is Turkey which plays a very treacherous role in snowballing the Syrian crisis. Turkey has supplied the rebels with dozens of man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS).

According to NBC, the missile supplies might have been provided by Turkey, Saudi Kingdom and Qatar monarchy, the three countries which have made strenuous and costly efforts to overthrow the government of Bashar Assad.

In a press conference at the United Nations in New York City, a Syrian UN representative announced that Turkey shipped US-made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to rebels via Turkey, saying that Turkey was pleased with Kofi Annan’s resignation because Ankara and Washington were initially opposed to his six point peace plan.

In fact, Turkey should be grateful to Syria what it has done for it in the past. It is acknowledged by many pundits that it was Bashar’s father Hafiz Assad who made peace between Turkey and the Kurds living on both sides of the country, thereby vaccinating Turkey for years against any attacks on the part of the Kurds.

The antagonistic policies of Turkey have left President Bashar Assad with no choice but to grant autonomy to the Kurds in Syria who can foment dilemma for the Ankara government and get Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan into hot water.

The ongoing Kurdish insurgency has reportedly claimed the lives of at least 48,000 over the past two decades.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is sharply aware of what a deep impact this decision can exercise on the security of Turkey.

He claimed the two groups had built a “structure in northern Syria” that for Turkey means “a structure of terror.”

Turkey is making a tactical mistake by supporting terrorism in Syria and supplying them with weapons, military training and human resources. Turkey will certainly fall into the pitfall it has dug for Syria and the insecurity it envisages for Syria will ultimately recoil against the government itself.

As for Washington and NATO, they are making a selfsame mistake.

The two are fondling terrorism and extremism by throwing support behind the insurgents in Syria. They know that a popular uprising in the true sense of the word is not clearly discernible in Syria and that what has been taking place in Syria is a string of militancy and terrorist operations funded by the Saudis and the Qataris and some western countries who are waiting to reap the benefits of their atrocities in case Bashar Assad’s government collapses. Such a day, if it comes, will open a new chapter of horror in the Middle East with no end in sight.

The unfurling reality is that the hostile states and powers antagonizing Bashar Assad are gradually getting caught up in the labyrinthine Orwellian pitfall of their own folly and that they are consciously or unconsciously working in the best interests of the Zionist regime.

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August 9, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

The Sectarian Agenda And The Sectarian Rats Let Loose

By Daniel Mabsout  | Deliberation | August 6th, 2012

kenkeefe

The campaign against Ken O’Keefe is not directed at his own person, as the abduction of the Aloha Palestine mission was not directed against him. What the Palestinians and other Arabs failed to understand is that this campaign that involved Palestinians as well was in the first place directed against Palestine and Palestinians and was not an internal dispute or a quarrel between peace activists over some project or mission. It is important to find out who benefits from this whole action and who are the people behind it and what are their affiliations since the people who abducted the mission are the same people who launched the anti O’Keefe campaign.

Could real activism attempt at a peace mission? For sure not; what attempted at the mission is a certain policy and agenda and a certain conduct dictated by that policy and agenda. the people who attacked the mission and then launched their miserable campaign were implementing an agenda that is a sectarian agenda by which they aimed at monopolizing the peace movement for Gaza and handing it over to people who will operate via Turkey for Turkey to reap politically on the ground the fruits of such peaceful and supportive endeavor. It is secular Turkey now claiming to represent the Sunni sect that was to take the Gaza peace movement in charge, any personal initiative not operating through Turkey became therefore threatened and exposed. All this is but a NATO/ Turkish / Israeli agenda that wants to infiltrate the Palestinian movement in all its aspects in order to lead the Palestinian struggle away from the Hizbullah/ Iran arena where Israel has been shamefully defeated. That is how the Turkish/ Israeli/ Palestinian/ sectarian rats were let loose to dismantle the Aloha mission the same way the Libyan fanatic thugs were let loose by NATO and Israel to dismantle the Libyan regime.

It might be surprising to say that brother O’Keefe was victim of an anti Iranian campaign but that is the real label under which falls the whole situation in our area, starting from the Iranian nuclear issue, passing by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, not forgetting of course the Arab springs and, finally, the attack on Syria ; the abduction of the mission and the hatred campaign targeting brother Ken fall under the same label.

The sectarian agenda is a Turkish/Israeli agenda that has added many Palestinians to it to give it a Palestinian color and flavor and make it look true and genuine, but it is definitely an anti Palestinian agenda the same way the abduction of the mission is an anti Palestinian act. Unfortunately HAMAS was not able or not willing to hold back the sectarian rats who pirated the mission.

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August 6, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Insurgents Execute Pro-Assad Captives in Syria

Al-Manar | August 1, 2012

New graphic footage has emerged showing armed men killing their captives in the northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo simply for supporting President Bashar al-Assad.armed groups

The two-minute video, posted on YouTube and reported by the AFP, shows armed men killing elder members of the Syrian al-Berri tribe.

Amnesty International has already warned about reports of “summary executions” in Aleppo, calling them serious violations of international law.

This comes as the Syrian government earlier said that the armed rebel groups backed and funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are committing “horrific crimes” against civilians in the capital, Damascus, and the city of Aleppo.

In two letters addressed to the head of the UN Security Council and the UN secretary general, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said the insurgents backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are using civilians in Aleppo as human shields, and killing anyone who does not support their crimes.

The Syrian government says foreign-sponsored ‘outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists’ are behind the unrest.

August 1, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey’s Hatay Province, Mossad, CIA spy hub: Turkish MP

Press TV – July 31, 2012

A member of Turkey’s parliament says the country’s Hatay Province on the border with Syria has become a hub for swarms of CIA and Mossad spies infiltrating into Syria freely.

The legislator of the Republican People’s Party, Refik Er-Yilmaz, said that thousands of CIA and Mossad agents are currently in the province and are moving freely in the area, Turkish media reported.

He noted that local people in the province are getting agitated over the presence of the strangers.

Turkish police remain mute spectators as the spies carry various types of identification, Er-Yimaz went on to say.

He also accused the authorities of allowing American and Israeli troopers on Turkish soil without any approval from the parliament.

Er-Yilmaz’s comments came after the deputy of the Republican People’s Party, Osman Faruk Logoglu, on Monday blamed Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party for fomenting the unrest in Syria.

Logoglu criticized the Turkish government for aggravating the situation by sending military forces and vehicles towards the Syrian border.

The former Turkish ambassador to the United States also criticized Turkey’s foreign policy towards its neighbor, saying it has been irrational and unsuccessful.

Syria has been the scene of unrest since March 2011. The violence has claimed the lives of many people, including large numbers of security forces.

Damascus blames “outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups” for the unrest, asserting that it is being orchestrated from abroad.

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July 31, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey could strike PKK terrorists in Syria: Premier Erdogan

Press TV – July 26, 2012

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warns that Ankara could strike the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorists inside Syria.

“In the north, it (the Syrian government) has allotted five provinces to the Kurds, to the terrorist organization,” Erdogan told the Turkish television on Wednesday.

He also stated that the strike is “not even a matter of discussion, it is a given,” in response to a question whether Ankara would strike fleeing rebels after an attack on Turkish soil.

“That is the objective. That is what must be done.”

Erdogan made the remarks on the same day when a security meeting of senior Turkish officials, chaired by the prime minister, was held in Ankara.

“The activities of the separatist terrorist organization (PKK) in our country and in neighboring countries have been discussed,” read a statement issued after the meeting, which was held following reports that the Democratic Union of Kurdistan (PYD), the PKK’s offshoot in Syria, had taken over three villages in the north of the country.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Chief of General Staff General Necdet Ozel, Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay and several other high-ranking officials also attended the meeting on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Turkish military said on Wednesday that its forces killed at least 15 PKK members in a clash near the border with Iraq.

Also on Wednesday, a Turkish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Ankara would close Turkey’s border crossings with Syria until further notice.

The PKK launched an armed campaign against Turkey in 1984 in a quest to gain independence for Kurds living in the southeast of the country.

July 26, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Straight Talking: The Syrian Cauldron

By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | July 3, 2012

Ankara – Tension between Turkey and Syria along their border is edging closer to flashpoint. Last week a Turkish air force jet was shot down after violating Syrian air space. The Syrian government said the plane was hit while inside Syrian air space. Turkey says it had already left Syrian air space and was hit in international air space.

What the plane was doing inside Syrian air space is another matter. Turkey’s President, Abdullah Gul, said it had ‘strayed’ off course. Other accounts suggest that it was there to ‘light up’ Syria’s radar system or test its missile defences. Turkey immediately sent troops and armor to the border and invoked Article 4 of the NATO Charter, calling for consultation with its partners in the alliance. They immediately endorsed the Turkish version. Hillary Clinton called the shooting down of the plane ‘brazen’ while William Hague thought it was ‘outrageous’, words, one cannot help noting, that they have never used to describe the missile attacks by their armed forces that have killed civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. Another ‘incident’ might lead to Turkey invoking Article 5, the common defence article of the NATO Charter, which regards an attack on one member as an attack on all. War between Syria and Turkey would then become war between Syria and all NATO members, leading in turn to confrontation between the NATO/Gulf state bloc on one hand and Russia, China, Iran and their allies on the other.

There is nothing accidental or unwilled about what is happening in Syria. The government in Damascus has been deliberately locked into a cycle of violence fed from the outside by the self-styled ‘Friends of Syria’. Both sides are implicated in the killing of civilians yet the mainstream media has created a narrative in which virtually all the killing is the work of the army or the ‘regime loyalists’ known as the shabiha.

‘Activists’ routinely blame every murder, bombing and act of sabotage on the government even when the victims have been Baath loyalists (as was the professor murdered by armed men in her home on the outskirts of Homs in late June, along with her three children and parents). The suffering of families whose menfolk have been killed after taking up arms against the government is reported in the media but not the suffering of families who have lost members to the armed groups. The jury remains out on the Hula massacre. While the UN Human Rights Council says in its latest report that ‘many’ of the killings ‘may’ have been the work of regime loyalists, other evidence points to the massacre having been the handiwork of jihadis, reportedly including the Faruq Brigade of the so-called Free Syrian Army. As the Human Rights Council admits that it has no conclusive evidence as to who was behind this massacre it might have been more responsible for it say nothing unless and until it did have such evidence.

This unbalanced narrative feeds into the war strategies being framed by the ‘Friends of Syria’. These ‘friends’ insist that the armed campaign they are sponsoring is directed against the government and not the people. What ‘the people’ – by any measure the majority of Syrians – want is hard to gauge amidst such chaos but evidence suggests they see these ‘friends’ as their enemies. The referendum in February and the elections in May were hardly perfect but remain the clearest indications yet of general support amongst Syrians for a political solution to the crisis gripping their country. Outside the enclaves dominated by the armed groups, the people are strongly opposed to these groups and their external backers, knowing that but for the obstruction of Russia and China, NATO warplanes would have been bombing their country long ago.

Outside governments have fastened on Syria’s problems with the tenacity of leeches. The ‘Arab spring’ created the opportunity to reshape the Middle East at its political and geographical centre and they have seized it. Although paying lip service to Kofi Annan’s ceasefire plan they are prolonging the violence in the hope that the army will eventually disintegrate and the government implode. While the destruction of the government in Damascus is an end in itself, Syria must also be seen as a way station on the road to Iran.

If the Baath government can be brought down, the strategic alliance between Iran, Syria and Hizbullah will collapse at the centre. Even if the government is not dislodged, Syria will be in such chaos that it would be unable respond if Iran is attacked. Hizbullah would be similarly immobilized. Israel would be able to attack without having to worry about a second front opening up across its northern armistice lines. President Putin’s assurance while on an apparently unscheduled visit to Israel that Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon may have been a last ditch attempt to ward off an attack on Iran. Perhaps Russian intelligence has found out that a decision has finally been taken and the date and time set.

Turkey’s initial response to the ‘Arab spring’ was sluggish. The Tunisian president was gone before the government had time to react. It waited almost until the end before calling on Mubarak to step down. Prime Minister Erdogan spoke strongly against military intervention anywhere in the region before coming in behind the armed attack on Libya. On Syria he and his Foreign Minister claimed to have given President Bashar al Assad good advice which he refused to take before deciding that he had to go. In late summer they threw their government weight behind the establishment both of the ‘Syrian National Council’ (SNC) and the ‘Free Syrian Army’ (FSA), giving the first a home in Istanbul and the second sanctuary in southeastern Turkey. For the first time in Turkey’s republican history a government had committed itself to ‘regime change’ in a neighboring country; for the first time a government had sponsored an armed group operating across its border to kill the citizens of a neighboring country. Even now the moral and legal implications of this policy have scarcely been touched upon in the Turkish media.

For a country which has a long history of other governments meddling in its affairs the Turkish position is almost surreal. This is not just because of the parallel between the PKK and the FSA, both crossing the borders of neighboring countries to kill the citizens of their own country; both claiming to be fighting in the name of human rights and freedom; and both regarded as terrorist organizations by the governments of the countries in which they are operating. The history of external meddling and support for rebels by outside governments goes deep into the history of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, from the support for the Greek rebels in the 1820s, to support for the Bulgarian rebels in the 1870s and Macedonian and Armenian rebels in the 1890s. Intervention in the name of civilization was replaced in the 20th century by intervention in the name of democracy and freedom and now we have intervention in the name of humanitarian concern – a continuing theme through these two centuries – and the ‘responsibility to protect’. In a paradoxical play on history, Turkey is now intervening in Syria as the imperial powers once intervened in the Ottoman Empire and as they are still intervening in the affairs of other countries.

Other agendas are easy to see. Saudi Arabia wanted the US to attack Iran during the George W. Bush presidency and ‘cut the head off the snake’. Its interests are partly ideological, directed against Shiism in general as well as Iran in particular, while also arising from the traditional Saudi fear of its large northern neighbor. The US put the Syrian government on its list of states that support terrorism in 1979 and since the introduction of SALSA (Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Act of 2003) has gradually tightened economic sanctions in an effort to bring the government to its knees. For Israel Syria has always been the visceral Arab enemy and of course, what Israel wants, any US administration will do its best to deliver. Turmoil in the Arab world suits Israel down to the ground, literally. It is tightening its hold on all the territories occupied in 1967 all the time without the world paying any attention because of the drama of the ‘Arab spring’. Not that the world has ever paid much attention but for the moment Israel is having a dream run.

The one agenda that is difficult to determine is Turkey’s. It has the approval of its partners inside NATO and the collective known as the ‘Friends of Syria’ but this has come at a heavy price. Cross-border trade in the southeast has all but collapsed. Relations with Iran, Iraq and Russia have been undermined. Perceptions of government sympathy for a Muslim Brotherhood-type government in Syria have aroused the suspicions of Turkish Alevis, especially in the border province of Hatay, where the population is about 50 per cent Alevi. The region was severed from Syria by the French in 1938 and handed to Turkey. Both Alevis and Christians still have family ties across the border and both see the Assad government as an effective guarantor of minority rights. They certainly do not share their own government’s perspective.

What is being played out is one of the greatest power games since the end of the First World War. Behind the cover of the ‘Arab spring’ the obstacles to renewed western domination of the region are being removed one by one. The destabilization of Syria is bringing the region close to a war with potentially catastrophic global repercussions but the rewards are so great that the western coalition cannot help itself from pressing against all red lines. Turkey’s involvement is central to western strategic planning and if war does come either through accident or design Turkey will be right on the front line. A recent poll carried out by the Centre for Economic and Foreign Policy Research shows strong opposition to any deeper involvement in the Syrian crisis. The majority of those polled (56 per cent) do not support military intervention in Syria and only a small number (less than eight per cent) support the arming of the Syrian opposition. The question here is whether the Turkish people realize how deeply their government is already involved. The ruling party dominates parliament but Syria might yet prove to be its Achilles heel.

– Jeremy Salt is an associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.

July 4, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Turks oppose Syria intervention: poll

Al Akhbar – June 24, 2012

The majority of Turks believe President Recep Tayyip Erdogan should adopt a more neutral approach to the crisis in Syria, a new poll has found.

The opinion poll, which was conducted before the downing of a Turkish plane by Syrian forces on Friday, found that more than two-thirds of Turks opposed any intervention by Turkey in Syria.

The Ankara Social Research Center poll also revealed that a majority believed Ankara should not take sides in the conflict.

Relations between former allies Turkey and Syria have deteriorated rapidly in the past year, with southern Turkey being used as a base for the armed opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

(Al-Akhbar, Turkish Weekly)

June 24, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Saudi regime to pay salaries of armed rebels in Syria: Report

Press TV – June 23, 2012

The Saudi regime will pay the salaries of members of the terrorist Free Syrian Army amid ongoing attacks carried out by armed groups inside Syria, a report says.

According to a June 22 report published by the UK newspaper Guardian, Saudi authorities will pay the armed rebels to encourage “mass defections from the military and… pressure” the Damascus government.

The plan has been discussed between officials from Riyadh and Washington, as well as representatives from a number of other Arab states.

US Senator Joe Lieberman also brought up the issue of the salaries during talks with Saudi officials in a recent trip to the kingdom.

According to Lieberman’s spokesperson, the US senator “called for the US to provide robust and comprehensive support” to the armed rebels.

Lieberman “specifically called for the US to work with… partners to provide” the rebels with “weapons, training, tactical intelligence, secure communications and other forms of support.”

Meanwhile, armed groups continue conducting attacks in Syria. The official Syrian news agency, SANA, said terrorists killed 25 civilians in the northern province of Aleppo on June 22.

The Guardian also stated that Turkey has allowed the “establishment of a 22-member command center in Istanbul which is coordinating supply lines” for the rebels inside Syria.

The report was published a day after the New York Times quoted some US and Arab intelligence officials as saying that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar pay for the transport of weaponry for the armed gangs in Syria.

On February 24, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said during a meeting of the so-called “Friends of Syria” group in Tunisia that supplying weapons to Syrian rebels is “an excellent idea.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on March 4 that the “international community’s message might be conveyed to the Syrian administration via certain methods including the arming of the (so-called) Syrian National Council (SNC).”

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree on Saturday, forming a new government under Prime Minister Riad Farid Hijab, the former agriculture minister who was appointed the Syrian premier on June 6.

The move was part of the reforms promised by the Syrian president.

Assad said on June 3 that the country is “facing a war from abroad,” adding that attempts are being made to “weaken Syria, [and] breach its sovereignty.”

“Standing up against the conspiracy is not easy, but we will overcome the obstacles,” he stated.

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June 23, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Iran’s electricity exports to four neighboring countries up by 40%’

Press TV – May 26, 2012

An Iranian Energy Ministry official says Iran’s electricity exports to four neighboring countries have increased by 40 percent since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 20, 2012).

Abdolhamid Farzam, the Energy Ministry official in charge of foreign exchanges, said Sunday that Iran’s power exports to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Turkey have seen a major boost in the past two months.

The official stated that new power transfer lines and installations have become operational for exporting electricity to Iraq, raising Iran’s electricity exports to its western neighbor to 1,200 megawatts (MW).

Farzam added that electricity exports to Pakistan have been more than doubled in the same period, saying Iran’s capacity to export electricity to Pakistan has increased from 30 MW in winter to 70 MW right now.

He said Iran is exporting an average of 30 MW of electricity to Afghanistan, while power exports to Turkey have increased from 110 MW to more than 170 MW.

The official stated that Iran will increase its power export capacity to Turkey to 500 MW in the next few days.

On May 10, Iran’s Energy Ministry published a report saying that the country’s electricity exports to its neighboring countries have increased by more than 38 percent since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year compared to the previous year.

The report added that Iran has exported a total of 1,347 gigawatts per hour (GW/h) of electricity to the neighboring countries during the aforementioned period, up by 38.57 percent compared to the previous Iranian calendar year (ended March 19, 2012).

Iran, which seeks to become a major regional exporter of electricity, has attracted more than USD 1.1 billion in investment to build three new power plants.

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May 26, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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