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Nasrallah Accuses US Of "Daesh Conspiracy" As Feared 'Tehran-To-Beirut Land Bridge' Is Established
23
November, 2017
Washington's
past decade of Syria policy has been driven by fears of the so-called
"Shia crescent" or Iranian land bridge which would
conceivably connect Tehran with the Mediterranean in a continuous
arch of influence. With events rapidly unfolding in Iraq and Syria,
foremost among them the defeat of ISIS and the connection of Syrian
and Iraqi national forces at the shared border, that
land bridge has now been established for the first time in recent
history.
Plans
to undermine the Syrian government were manifest as early as the
mid-2000's, when Damascus was put on notice by the US that "you
are next" after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Indeed,
this was so well-known and openly talked about in diplomatic circles
that CNN's
Christian Amanpour directly informed Assad on camera that he
was being targeted for regime change in a 2005 interview. She
told him, "Mr. President, you know the rhetoric of regime change
is headed towards you, from the United States. They are actively
looking for a new Syrian leader. They are granting visas and visit to
Syrian opposition politicians. They're talking about isolating you,
diplomatically, then perhaps a coup d'etat or your regime crumbling."
The
geopolitics driving the current Middle East war were framed and set
in motion under the Bush administration, as Seymour Hersh reported in
2007:
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
But
now as 2017 comes to a close, the Syria-Hezbollah-Iran alliance
appears victorious, and it's the House of Saud and US-backed alliance
that is fragmented and in shambles. And consistent with what Hersh
predicted all the way back in 2007, the US has for years supported a
jihadist corridor in Syria in order to "isolate
the Syrian regime,
which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq
and Iran)."
This
week Hezbollah's Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has once
again accused the United States and its allies in Syria of aiding
ISIS. In televised
remarks on Monday related
to the recent fight for Albu Kamal, Nasrallah said, “The
US helped Daesh as much as it could in Albu Kamal short of directly
engaging forces that fought to liberate the town from Daesh.” He
further accused the US of giving air cover to ISIS terrorists in
Syria's east, as well as facilitating their escape from advancing
Syrian army forces.
But
what is the truth behind what Nasrallah calls "the
Daesh conspiracy"? The
current geopolitics of the Syrian battlefield, and US
policy and interests east of the Euphrates,
in reality gives the US military every incentive to pressure the
Syrian Army while at the same time allowing a Daesh escape - as
even a
recent bombshell BBC investigation confirmed.
But to understand the intricacies of how US policy and strategy is
playing out, it is important to chart the significance of the
establishment of the historic "Iranian land bridge" which
occurred this month.
Below
is a dispatch authored
and submitted by Elijah Magnier,
Middle East based chief international war correspondent for Al Rai
Media, who is currently on the ground in the region and has
interviewed multiple officials involved in the conflict.
A US buffer zone in northeastern Syria and a land-bridge from Tehran to Beirut. Map source: Stratfor
Following
the victory of the Syrian army and its allies over the “Islamic
State” group in the town of Albu Kamal in
the northeast of the country, the
road has been opened for the first time since the declaration of the
Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 between Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus
and Beirut and
become safe and non-hostile to the four capitals and their rulers.
The
United States tried to block the road between Tehran and Beirut at
the level of Albu Kamal by forcing the Kurdish forces into a frantic
race, but
Washington failed to achieve its goals.
The
Syrian Army along with allied forces (the Lebanese Hezbollah, the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Iraqi Harakat
al-Nujaba’) liberated
the city,
opening the border with Iraq at al-Qa’im crossing. ISIS militants
fled to the Iraqi al-Anbar desert and east of the Euphrates River
where US and Kurdish forces are operating.
The
United States established a new rule of engagement in the east of the
Euphrates, informing the Russian forces that it will not accept any
ground forces (the Syrian army and its allies) east of the Euphrates
River and that it will bomb any target approaching the east of the
river even
if the objective of the ground forces is to pursue ISIS.
Thus,
the US is establishing a
new undeclared no-fly-zone without bothering to deny that this can
serve ISIS forces east of the Euphrates and offer the terrorists a
kind of protection. Moreover,
the US-led international coalition air bombing against ISIS has
reduced noticeably.
#Nasrallah: How ironic it is that at the very moment #Hezbollahand the Iranians were participating in the expulsion of ISIS from#Albukamal in #Syria, the Arab Foreign ministers declared Hezbollah as a terrorist organization & #Iran as a sponsor of terrorism pic.twitter.com/v0UFDxEnSk
#Nasrallah: Daesh used coordinates provided by US drones when shelling forces attacking #AlBukamal. US jammed electronic frequencies of forces fighting Daesh. After the defeat, US facilitated evacuation of Daesh forces to SDF areas east of Euphrates #Syria
With
this US warning, it is clear that Washington is declaring the
presence of an occupying force in Syria, particularly as the presence
of the coalition was linked to fighting ISIS as previously announced.
Today ISIS has lost all cities under its occupation since July 2014
in Iraq and before this date in Syria. Therefore
there is no legal reason for the presence of the US forces in the
Levant.
By
becoming an occupation force, the US troops expose themselves, along
with the proxy Kurds operating under its command, to attacks similar
to the one in Iraq and the one in
Lebanon in 1982 during the Israeli invasion.
The
United States will no longer be able to block the Iraqi-Syrian road
(Al-Qaim-Albu Kamal) because it is related to the sovereignty of the
two countries. But
this does not mean Tehran will use this route to send weapons across
Baghdad and Damascus to Hezbollah in Lebanon, for two reasons: First,
Iraq has sovereignty and the Prime Minister Haider Abadi will not
allow any Iraqi armed party to keep its weapons because the Iraqi
armed forces are responsible for holding security, especially after
the defeat of ISIS in all cities. Abadi’s next step will be to
disarm all Iraqi movements and organizations by the year 2018 and
most likely after the forthcoming elections in May. According to
well-informed sources Iran and the Marjaiya in Najaf (and the
majority of the Iraqi parties) want Abadi to be re-elected for
another term.
This
means that Iraq will not allow its territory to be used to finance
non-state actors, even if these have taken part in the elimination of
ISIS. Neither will Abadi allow weapons to cross his country to an
ally that fought alongside the Iraqi forces – such as Hezbollah –
because he is not positioning himself against the United States and
the countries of the region. This is not Iraq’s battle.
Secondly,
Hezbollah does not need the land route from Tehran to Beirut because
the sea and air links with Tehran are open through Syria and from it
to Lebanon. Moreover, Hezbollah is no longer in need of additional
weapons in Lebanon, especially since the
Lebanese-Syrian front is unified against
any possible future Israeli war.
As
for Syria, the preparations for starting the challenging and complex
rounds of negotiation to open the way for political
talks which have begun in Sochi, Russia.
Naturally, these talks are difficult because the United States has
demands, as does Turkey, which has
shown its intention to stay for a very long in the north of Syria.
In
this context, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is ready to prepare
for a new constitution, on which work began several months ago.
Syrian and international human rights experts and law specialists
have been discussing with various groups how to establish new
constitutional foundations for Syria, aiming to invite the numerous
anti-Damascus parties to lay down their arms and join in the
negotiations for the future of Syria.
The
only problem remains with al-Qaeda in Bilad al-Sham, and the
thousands of foreign fighters in Idlib, waiting
for the results of the Turkish-Syrian negotiation. The
war was long and complex, mainly because of shifting alliances. But
the peace will be no less complex to construct if future wars based
on revenge and a greedy desire for territory are to be avoided.
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