The
photos validate previous
reports by
an Al-Masdar News military source suggesting a major Jordanian and US
buildup at the Syrian border
Is
North Korea a Diversion for a US-Jordan Invasion of Syria?
3
May, 2017
“Syrian
President Bashar Al-Assad said that his country has information that
Jordan is planning to send its troops into southern Syria in
cooperation with the United States….’Jordan is not an independent
country. Whatever the United States wants, it will happen,’
said Assad.”
— Middle
East Monitor
“In
the event of a de-facto partition of Syria, the US and its allies
will get a strategically important region. It is through Deir Ezzor
that the proposed gas pipeline from Qatar is supposed to run….The
Deir Ezzor province is also home to Syria’s largest oil deposit,
the Al-Omar. …the city and the province are of particular value
since the deposits there contain the highly valuable light sweet
crude usable in the production of gasoline and diesel fuel.”
— South
Front, “The Stronghold of Deir Ezzor; What You Need to Know”
The
United States is not going to launch a preemptive attack
on North Korea. The risks far outweigh the rewards and,
besides, the US has no intention of getting bogged down in a
conflict that doesn’t advance its geopolitical objectives. The
saber-rattling is just an attempt to divert attention from the
Syria-Jordan border where the US and Jordan are massing troops and
equipment for an invasion of Syria. That’s what’s really going
on. The Korean fiasco is a smokescreen.
True,
the Trump administration is milking the situation for all its worth,
but that doesn’t mean that they want a war with the
North. That’s not it at all. Washington wants to deploy
its controversial THAAD anti-missile system to South Korea, but
it needs a pretext to do so. Hence, the ominous threat of an
“unstable, nuclear-armed North Korea”, that’s all the
justification Washington needed to get its new weapons system
deployed. Mission Accomplished.
But
the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) isn’t
aimed at North Korea, it’s aimed at China, and China knows it
which is why it has protested its deployment repeatedly. The US wants
to surround China and Russia with military bases and missile systems
that are integrated into its broader nuclear weapons system.
These lethal systems are a crucial part of Washington’s plan to
pivot to Asia and rule the world into the next century. Here’s
the rundown from Tass:
“Anti-missile
elements that are being deployed around the world are part of a very
dangerous global project aimed at securing US’ overall overwhelming
superiority to the prejudice of security interests of other
states….The US missile defense architecture is tilting the
strategic balance of forces in the area of offensive weapons and
creates more and more serious risks of global instability.” (“US
anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe violate INF Treaty”)
And
here’s how Russian President Vladimir Putin summed it up:
“The
US is developing an anti-missile defense system which”….when it
is operational… “there will be a moment in time when our entire
nuclear capability will be neutralized, which means that the
entire global balance of power will be overturned.. This means one of
the powers will have absolute security and be able to do whatever it
likes in regional conflicts. We’re talking about unrivaled power in
global conflicts. ..This system forces us to create weapons that can
nullify the system asymmetrically.” (Tass)
Is
missile defense something the American people should want?
Heck
no. Just think of the number of people that Uncle Sam has
slaughtered in the last 16 years. Now try to imagine if all
the constraints on Washington’s rampaging were removed allowing the
US to conduct its bloody war on the world with complete
impunity?
No
one in their right mind would ever give the Washington crazies that
kind of power. It’s a prescription for global annihilation.
Besides, absolute security for one country means no security for
everyone else.
But
deploying the THAAD anti-missile system is just one part of
Washington’s North Korea swindle. The fear-mongering is
also being used to grease the wheels of the Military Industrial
Complex (MIC). Here’s the scoop from The Hill:
“Sen.
John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) push for a $7.5 billion fund to bulk up the
U.S. military’s capabilities in the Asia-Pacific is gaining
momentum as tensions with North Korea mount. The commander of
U.S. forces in the region threw his support behind the idea this
week, “This kind of money can help us bring together our
allies and partners,” said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the
Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American
Security. …The … proposal has gained more visibility amid
the intensifying concerns over North Korea and its nuclear program.”
(“McCain plan gains momentum amid North Korea threats”, The Hill)
So
the MIC lackeys in Congress had already been pushing this latest
boondoggle, but they needed a trumped up crisis in North Korea to
put them over the finish line. Typically, the process is called
“creative advertising”, which means scaring the shit out of the
public so you can rip them off. Here’s more from the same
article:
“I’d like to thank Chairman McCain and this committee
for proposing and supporting the Asia-Pacific Stability
Initiative,” Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific
Command, said at Thursday’s hearing. “This effort will
reassure our regional partners and send a strong signal to potential
adversaries of our persistent commitment to the region.”
The
weapons manufacturers love sugar-daddy McCain who’s
always on-hand with gobs of moolah.
Here’s
more: “We can thank North Korea for one thing in this,” said
Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the
National Interest”. “They’re amplifying the
imbalance in the Asia-Pacific.” (The Hill)
Good
idea, let’s thank North Korea for this latest windfall for the
weapons makers. Why not? Let’s send Kim a nice big
valentine from the American taxpayer with John
McCain’s name writ large at the bottom.
In
any event, Washington’s policy towards North Korea hasn’t
changed. All the chest thumping and fireworks are just
part of a circus sideshow designed to justify additional defense
splurging and missile deployment. At the same time, the media
is trying to divert attention from critical developments in the
Middle East, particularly the Syria-Jordan border where Washington
has rallied its proxy-fighters into a makeshift army that will
(likely) invade southern Syria, charge northward to Deir
Ezzor, establish a no-fly zone over the occupied
territory, and partition the area east of the
Euphrates preventing loyalist forces from reestablishing Syria’s
sovereign borders. That appears to be the basic game-plan. Check
this out from the Middle East Monitor:
“The
Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad said that his country has
information that Jordan is planning to send its troops into southern
Syria in cooperation with the United States…
“We
have this information, not only from mass media, but from different
sources”…
Speaking to The Washington Post, King Abdullah of
Jordan reiterated that a planned joint operation could take
place against terrorists. “It is a challenge, but we are ready to
face it in cooperation with the US and Britain.” (“Assad accuses
Jordan of planning Syria invasion”, Middle East Monitor)
The
pretext for the invasion will be to fight ISIS, but the real goal is
to seize the eastern part of the country consistent with a plan that
was concocted by the Brookings Institute two years ago. After 6 years
of covert support for CIA-backed militants on the ground, the Trump
administration appears to be leaning towards a more traditional
military approach. Here’s more from the LA Times:
“Reports
have also emerged of Jordanian and U.S. troops on the section of the
Jordanian border opposite southwest Syria, a possible prelude to a
campaign in which rebels, supported by Jordanian and coalition forces
on the ground, would overrun Islamic State’s pocket in the Yarmouk
basin, near southwestern Syria’s borders with Israel and Jordan.”
(“How long can Jordan keep walking the Middle East tightrope?”, LA
Times)
Naturally, Moscow
is concerned about the developments on the Jordanian border. Last
week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued a statement
saying, “We will pay special attention to the issues most important
for us which concern the situation on the Jordan-Syria border.”
Also
worrisome, is the fact that US Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog”
Mattis has been traveling across the Middle East rallying
Washington’s allies in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. Mattis
sees the fighting in Syria as a proxy-war between the US and
Iran for influence in the region. This same erroneous view is
shared by all of the main powerbrokers in the Trump administration.
“Everywhere
there’s trouble in the region, you find Iran,” Mr. Mattis said on
a stop in Riyadh, adding that nations in the region are working to
“checkmate Iran and the amount of disruption, the amount of
instability they cause.”
These
latest developments take place just days before the resumption
of negotiations in Astana, Kazakhstan (May 3 and 4).
Russia, Turkey, Iran and a number of the leaders from the
rebel groups will gather to see if they can agree on the terms of a
ceasefire and an eventual settlement to the 6 year-long war. The
Trump administration’s cruise missile attack on a Syrian airbase in
early April has boosted the morale of many of the jihadists
militias and is keeping them away from the bargaining
table. In other words, Trump’s unexpected
escalation has sabotaged Putin’s efforts to resolve the
crisis and end the hostilities. The last thing Washington wants in
Syria is peace.
A
number of reports have confirmed that Trump has handed control of his
foreign policy to his Generals, Mattis and McMaster. And while Mattis
has shown little interest in getting more deeply involved in the
Syrian conflict, McMaster sees Russia as a “hostile revisionist
power” that “intimidates our allies, develops nuclear weapons,
and uses proxies under the cover of modernized conventional
militaries.”
McMaster
is a hard-boiled militarist with a driving animus towards Russia.
In a speech he delivered at The Center for Strategic and
International Studies, McMaster offered this remedy for so
called ‘Russian aggression’. He said: “what is required
to deter a strong nation that is waging limited war for limited
objectives… is forward deterrence, …(is) convincing
your enemy that (he) is unable to accomplish his objectives at a
reasonable cost.”
McMaster can
be expected to use his “forward deterrence” theory
in Syria by trying to lure Putin into a confrontation with US forces
east of the Euphrates. But there’s no reason
to think that Putin will fall into the trap, in
fact, it seems highly unlikely given the potential for a
catastrophic face-off between the two nuclear-armed superpowers.
Instead, Putin will probably take the high-road, present his case to
the UN Security Council, and denounce the US intervention
as another example of Washington’s destabilizing and
expansionistic foreign policy.
Putin’s
worst mistake would be to base his strategy entirely on the situation
on the battlefield. He doesn’t need to liberate every inch of
Syrian soil to win the war. Let the US and its
proxies seize the territory, establish their military bases and
no-fly zones, throw up a DMZ along the Euphrates, and wade
deeper into the Syrian morass. Putin has other fish
to fry. He needs to focus on winning hearts and minds,
strengthening alliances and building a broader coalition. He
needs to look like the only adult in the room, the
rational leader whose sole ambition is to end the dispute and
restore security. He needs to establish a contrast between
his behavior and that of his recklessly-violent and
mentally-unstable rival, Washington, whose flagrant
disregard for international law and civilian lives has plunged
the Middle East and Central Asia into chaos and carnage.
If
Putin’s ultimate goal is to rebuild the system of global
security based on the bedrock principles of national sovereignty and
greater representation for all the countries in the world, he must
lead by example. Restraint and maturity in Syria will move
him closer to that goal.
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