Another classic piece from Pepe Escobar full of cold hard truth with interesting choice of words and phrases...
The name of the game is: Keep the conflict rolling, money is being made. and those who try to stop it? Get bombed. The sale of cheap oil to Turkey (and others) and the distributor making the big bucks will do whatever he must to keep the flow of oil going. Assad is the big loser here, even if he is still 'in power'. His oil is being stolen and not much is left of his once prosperous country.

Syria: The break for the border

Pepe Escobar

Who is the supreme profiteer of the Russia-Turkey drama? No question: it’s the Empire of Chaos. A desperate Ankara increasingly depends on NATO’s embrace.

In the crucial Pipelineistan arena, the Turkish Stream project has been suspended (but not canceled). Eurasia integration – the key 21st century project for both China and Russia – is severely hampered.
Meanwhile, what passes for the Obama administration’s “strategy” is more slippery than a Japanese eel. US Think Tank land interprets it as an “effort” to “de-conflict the battlefield” even as the main NATO planks acting in Syria (US, UK, France, Germany, plus Turkey) gear up for an alleged “large offensive” against Islamic State (ISIS). “Alleged” because the whole op involves prime shadow play. And “de-conflict” could rather mean “re-conflict.”
It’s no wonder President Putin interpreted Sultan Erdogan’s downing of the Russian Su-24 as supremely illogical. Reasons, of course, include the Russian Air Force’s pounding of the Turkmen – Ankara’s fifth column in northern Syria. And the relentless Russian assault on the stolen Syrian oil racket, which involves collusion between some pretty prominent Turkish figures and ISIS.
It gets even more illogical when we look at the crucial energy sphere. Ankara depends at a rate of 27 percent on oil, and 35 percent on natural gas. Last year, Turkey bought 55 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and 18 percent from Iran.
Because of its manifold infrastructure problems, Iran simply won’t be a strong competitor to Gazprom for supplying natural gas to Turkey – and Europe – anytime soon. Assuming it will be restarted in the future, Turkish Stream would be a very good deal for both Turkey and central and southern Europe.

Spin me a coalition

The current shadow play – which includes the deployment of US Special Forces to northern Syria – opens the possibility that Turks and Americans are about to launch a major offensive to expel Islamic State from the crucial Jarabulus crossroads. Erdogan’s pretext is well known: to block by any means the attempt by YPG Syrian Kurds to unite their three cantons in northern Syria. In this corridor, Erdogan wants to install a dodgy, hazy bunch of Turkmen – his proxies – mixed with unspecified Sunni “moderate rebels,” keeping all lines of communication (and smuggling) with Turkey open.
Syrian Kurds, on the other hand, want to get there first. With American air support. And with Russian air support. This is one of the few things Team Obama and the Kremlin do agree on in Syria – to the absolute despair of the Sultan. The inside word from Ankara is that Turkey would be ready for a ground push on Jarabulus but only under American cover. Quite absurd, considering Washington and Ankara hardly are looking for the same endgame.
Meanwhile, discussing Syria in Moscow, US Secretary of State John Kerry was forced to agree, on the record, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that “the Syrian people,” via elections, must themselves decide the future of Assad. So even the Obama administration now seems to convey the impression “Assad must go” may be six feet under.
Not so fast. Shadow play firmly remains part of the equation. After all, the famous Top Ten Terrorist List now being haggled upon by all players must be approved by… Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who continue to weaponize all manner of desert snakes, as long as they hiss “Assad must go.”
Into this snake pit crawls the joke of the holiday season; the 34-nation, Riyadh-led anti-terrorism coalition “from all over the Islamic world.” The perpetrator of the war on Yemen, Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman, even pledged this hazy new racket to “stop the flow of funds” to terrorists. As if the House of Saud would decapitate their own, indigenous wacko imams and pious, wealthy “financiers.”
This “coalition” inbuilt in the already existing, US-led, monstrously ineffectual Coalition of the Dodgy Opportunists (CDO) is undiluted spin. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have done absolutely nothing against ISIS since summer. They’d rather merrily bomb Yemen. Their “armies” are mercenary-infested. No mercenaries, no Saudi army. Pakistan and Egypt do have armies, but they are consumed by dire local problems and would not relocate troops to the “Syraq” quagmire even if bribed by a mountain of petrodollars.
With this spin, concocted by their savvy Edelman lobbyists, Riyadh believes it can change the subject from how it’s trying hard to break up Syria.
A breakdown of Syria’s population, including the masses of refugees, would yield something like 14 percent Alawite Shi’ites, 5 percent Christians, 3 percent Druze, 1 percent twelver Shi’ites, 10 percent Kurds – the absolute majority leftist - and around 40 percent Sunnis, mostly secular and many of them leftists, not to mention comfortably linked to the Damascus and Aleppo business elite, that is, accommodated with the government for generations.
Riyadh’s – and Ankara’s - belief that a small bunch of Salafi-jihadist, from whatever persuasion, would be able to disrupt such a complex balance, not to mention rule a whole nation, does defy any logical explanation.

The break for the border

So everything now hinges on the break for the border. Syrian Kurds have been loudly announcing something along the lines that “Real Kurds go to Jarabulus.” Jarabulus is, in a nutshell, Turkey’s last stand in Syria (the Russian Air Force has all but exterminated the Turkmen fight column in northern Latakia).
Imagine a Kurdish unification corridor – running from Afrin to the rest of Rojava. This means Turkey cut off from Syria; crucially, the end of the Jihadi Highway; the end of Turkish secret services offering lavish logistical support for Daesh, from Big Macs to holidays in Turkey; the end of the Syrian stolen oil Daesh Highway. Not to mention the YPG – allied with the PKK – controlling a semi-autonomous province with the status of a proto-state.
Make no mistake: the Sultan will go no holds barred to prevent it. ISIS was never an “existential threat” to Ankara. On the contrary; it was always a very useful indirect “ally.” Ankara will continue to plug the myth that the road to Daesh’s defeat goes through Assad regime change.
Russia exposed the bluff. Yet the lame duck Obama administration is still uncertain; should we use Erdogan even as he recklessly tries to pit NATO directly against Russia? Or should we dump him? The answer lies in who, and how, wins the break for the border.

Gas pipeline is one of the factors behind Syria bloodbath

The other being restraining Iranian (shia) influence and assure protection of Israel by weaking Assad and Hezbullah...

Russia currently supplies Europe with a quarter of the gas it uses for heating, cooking, fuel and other activities. In fact 80 per cent of the gas that Russian state-controlled company Gazprom produces is sold to Europe, so maintaining this crucial market is very important.

Gas pipelines in Europe

Much of Russia’s gas comes from established pipelines used to transport gas to Europe cheaply. But America does not want Europe to depend on Russia for fuel since it has its own interest to sell its fracked/shale gas to Europe by cutting off Russia. It is building a LNG terminal in Virgina to transport shale gas in LNG form to Baltic states and therefore is building LNG receiving terminals in Europe. The idea is to cripple Russia economically as well. But this export attempt is going to take some time. So, in the meantime, an alternative has been cooked i.e. to bring Saudi-Qatari-Omanese gas via pipeline to Europe overland by laying pipelines on Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The sticky point here is Syria which is where a compliant puppet ruler needs to be installed and as such the West-alliance war-cry for regime-change in Syria.

It is also interesting to note that US Vice-President Joe Biden's son has majority stake in shale gas exploration in East Ukraine and as such one of the reasons behind CIA-assisted coup in Ukraine.

Before the civil war, two competing pipelines put forward by Qatar and Iran aimed to transport gas to Europe through Syria.

Qatar’s plans were first put forward in 2009 and involved building a pipeline from the Persian Gulf via Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey.

The gas field located 3000 metres below the floor of the Persian Gulf is the largest natural gas field in the world. Qatar owns about two-thirds of the resource but can’t capitalise on it fully because it relies on tankers to deliver it to other countries and this makes its gas more expensive than Russia’s.

The proposed gas pipeline from Qatar via Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey to Europe

In the meantime Iran, which owns the other smaller, share of the Persian Gulf gas field, decided to lodge its own rival plan for a $10 billion pipeline to Europe via Iraq and Syria and then under the Mediterranean Sea.

Pipeline from Iran via Iraq and Syria to Europe

Assad signed off on the Iran plan in 2012 and it was due to be completed in 2016 but it was ultimately delayed because of the Arab Spring and the civil war.

Many countries supporting or opposing the war against Assad have links to these pipeline plans.

Failed pipeline bidder Qatar is funding anti-Assad rebel groups by $3 billion between 2011 and 2013 as has been Saudi Arabia.

The rival pipelines are influencing the conflict in Syria.

“Viewed through a geopolitical and economic lens, the conflict in Syria is not a civil war, but the result of larger international players positioning themselves on the geopolitical chessboard in preparation for the opening of the pipeline,” he noted.

Just as the 2003 Iraq War has been linked to oil in the Persian Gulf, Syria may turn out to be all about gas.

Turkey, which stands at the crossroads of Asia and Europe, is an aspiring member of the European Union, and some consider it to be the best option for facilitating the movement of gas supplies from the Middle East to Europe.

As a hub, Turkey would benefit from transit fees and other energy-generated revenues.

It could also insure, with US support, that all gas suppliers in the Middle East could freely export their product.

Qatar’s plans put Turkey at the centre of its plan.

As one of the countries relying on Russia for gas, freeing it from this dependence would be an added bonus.

But none of this can be realised if the pipeline bypasses Turkey and if Assad becomes instrumental in approving an alternative that does not involve it.

Putin accuses Turkish leadership of ‘aiding terror’

a speech to take note of...

Putin accuses Turkish leadership of ‘aiding terror’

Russian President Vladimir Putin lashed out at “part of the leadership in Turkey" during his annual address to the parliament, accusing Ankara of having trade ties with terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. He also promised more sanctions for Turkey over downing of the Russian jet.

Putin said Russia still cannot comprehend why the downing of the plane happened.

“We were prepared to cooperate with Turkey on most sensitive issues and go further than their allies. Allah knows why they did it. Apparently Allah decided to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by taking their sanity,” Putin said.

Putin stressed that Moscow’s anger over the incident is directed at particular individuals and not at the Turkish people.

“We have many friends in Turkey,” he said. “They should know that we do not equate them and part of the current Turkish leadership, which holds a direct responsibility for the deaths of our troops in Syria,” he said.

He added that the killing of Russian officers would have long-term consequences for those responsible.

“We will not forget this aid to terrorists. We have always considered betrayal the worst and most shameful act. Let those in Turkey know it who shot our pilots in the back, who hypocritically tries to justify themselves and their actions and cover up the crimes of terrorists,” he said.

Putin said Russia would not resort to saber-rattling to respond to the Turkish actions, but neither would it limit itself to the economic sanctions it imposed since the incident.

The incident with the Russian Su-24 bomber shot down by Turkish warplanes near the Turkish-Syrian border has greatly deteriorated relations between the two countries. Turkey insists it acted in response to a brief violation of its airspace and was justified in using lethal force. Russia insists no violation took place and has accused Turkey of supporting terrorists in Syria.

The downing of the bomber resulted in the deaths of two Russian troops, who were the first combat losses during the two month-long Syrian campaign. The pilot of the downed plane was killed by a pro-Turkish militant group as he was parachuting to the ground. A marine was killed by militants when a helicopter dispatched to rescue the bomber crew came under fire from the ground.

Putin’s address started with a minute’s silence to commemorate the two troops. The widows of the dead Russians were present at the event.

Putin stressed that the Russian operation in Syria is aimed first and foremost at preventing fighters who went to the Middle East from Russia and its neighboring countries from returning home and bringing the threat of terrorist attacks to Russian soil.

"They are getting money, weapons, gathering strength. If they get stronger, winning there, they will inevitably come here to sow fear and hatred, blast, kill and torture people," Putin said.

Putin called on all nations that have pledged to fight terrorism to join forces and abandon the notion that terrorist groups can be used for country’s own goals. He stressed that the rise of terrorism in the Middle East over the last few years was caused to a large degree by foreign meddling.

“Some countries in the Middle East and North Africa, which used to be stable and relatively prosperous – Iraq, Libya, Syria – have turned into zones of chaos and anarchy that pose a threat to entire world,” Putin said.

“We know why it happened. We know who wanted to oust unwanted regimes, and rudely impose their own rules. They triggered hostilities, destroyed statehoods, set people against each other and simply washed their hands [of the situation] – giving way to radicals, extremists and terrorists.”

Russia’s lost thousands of lives over two decades of terrorist attacks and is still not safe from terrorist attacks, as evidenced by the bombings in Volgograd in 2014 and the bombing of a Russian passenger plane in Egypt in October, Putin reminded.

“Breaking the bandits’ back took us almost 10 years,” he said. “We practically pushed the terrorists out of Russia, but we are still engaged in a fierce fight against the remainder of the gangs. This evil still comes back occasionally.”

Putin said the rise of jihadists in the Middle East in our time is not unlike the rise of Nazism in the mid-20th century, and that the world should learn from the mistakes of the past, when a failure to act in time resulted in the loss of millions of lives.

“We are facing a destructive barbaric ideology again and we have no right to allow those new obscurants to achieve their goals. We have to abandon all differences, create a single fist, a single anti-terrorist front, which would act in accordance with the international law and under the aegis of the United Nations,” he said.

Putin was speaking on Thursday before the Federal Assembly, a joint session of the two chambers of the Russian parliament, plus regional governors and the cabinet. The annual address is a traditional key policy report of the executive, which focuses on domestic politics rather than international relations.

‘Business as usual’ with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now over, Sergey Ivanov, the head of Putin’s office, confirmed to RT after the Russian president’s address:

“Yes, it is definitely over. But fighting terrorism is ‘business as usual’, as the Russian president said,” Ivanov said.

The Turkish leadership “must acknowledge that a tragic mistake was committed and to beg for [forgiveness], or this leadership will not play any significant role in bilateral relations between Russia and Turkey. We will not be able to have any ties with Turkey under this leadership if it doesn’t change its attitude,” Konstantin Kosachev, the chair of the State Duma Committee for Foreign Relations, told RT.

Middle-East Theatre of War -- illustrated

The perennially hot weather land mass with hot war zone...

When war is good business...

The business cycle of destruction and re-construction...

By Funding Foreign Militaries, the US Is Spreading Terrorism

Nothing recruits terrorists like corrupt security forces committing human rights abuses with impunity

by Jeremy Ravinsky, December 17, 2015 

 

The War on Terror is at a stalemate.
Recent, disparate terrorist attacks have shown that far from being “degraded and destroyed,” the Islamic State’s reach is growing. Unwilling to commit large numbers of U.S. boots on the ground, policymakers have instead doubled down on a “small footprint” approach of military aid to foreign governments. But this strategy is failing.
Contrary to what one might expect, US military aid doesn’t produce willing, cooperative, or effective security partners. Instead, it incentivizes bad behavior and drives the sources of terrorism: corruption, violence, and poor governance. Unwittingly, this policy is creating its own enemies.
The logic of military aid – or security assistance, as it is euphemistically referred to – is twofold: US military equipment, training, and support will build strategic relationships with partner nations and then empower them to fight terrorists on our behalf.
This thinking has led to explosive growth of military aid since 2001. According to the Security Assistance Monitor, the United States is poised to spend almost $20 billion on foreign military assistance in 2016 alone, through programs scattered between the State Department and the Pentagon.
In practice, this logic is severely flawed. Rather than creating cooperative partners, research shows that military aid produces reverse leverage: The more aid given to a recipient country, the less likely it is to do what we want. For example, Pakistan receives $1.6 billion in US military aid every year, but the Pakistani government still supports extremist groups in Afghanistan and has deep ties to the Haqqani terrorist network.
The reason lies with the incentives that US military aid creates.
Limitless and beyond the view of the public, US military aid is a tap foreign governments don’t want to turn off. The longer they’re “fighting terrorists,” the more “security assistance” they get. There’s no reason for them to actually defeat terrorists, because if they did, the cash would go away. Instead, foreign security partners are incentivized to maintain a form everlasting instability, wherein nobody wins and everybody loses.
Unfortunately, the US taxpayer isn’t the only victim. The crimes committed by U.S.-funded security forces are too many to list, but they include bombing weddings in Yemen, sexually abusing children in Afghanistan, and blowing up tourists in Egypt. Western support of these outrages is seldom lost on the local victims.
The perverse irony is that this type of behavior – underwritten and enabled by the United States – is perpetuating terrorism. Research has shown that nothing recruits terrorists like corrupt security forces committing human rights abuses with impunity.
Kenya illustrates this dynamic well. After the horrific attack at the Westgate Mall in 2013, Kenya responded with aggressive policing tactics, arresting and mistreating thousands of Kenyan Somalis and Muslims. That brutal response, however, helped al-Shabaab by inciting anger across the country.
After last month’s attack in Paris, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle called for a more aggressive strategy to counter terrorism. Days later, the State Department finalized a $1.29 billion sale of targeted bombs to Saudi Arabia. It’s hard not to note the irony: How exactly would extending the coercive arm of oppressive states like Saudi Arabia improve counterterrorism efforts?
After 15 years of letting the military take the lead in fighting terrorism, policymakers need to accept that political problems demand political and diplomatic solutions, which are seldom found on the path of least resistance. But the tools needed – robust diplomacy, accountability mechanisms, democracy support – are starved of funding.
As US military assistance grows every year, support for democracy shrinks. During Obama’s tenure in office, democracy assistance funding has declined by almost 30 percent. And while the Pentagon is slated to receive over $600 billion in funding, the State Department and foreign aid account will be lucky to get $50 billion.
By relying on military aid, the United States is fostering a world of endless war and insecurity. For the United States’ so-called security partners, that’s good for business.

Jeremy Ravinsky is a program assistant at the Open Society Foundations, working on issues relating to security assistance and human rights.

Atlantic Slave Trade Map

self-explanatory...

The oil smuggling sultan erdogan exposed

Pictures worth thousand words...

US unwilling to acknowledge Turkey-ISIS oil trade ‘smacks of direct patronage’ – Russian top brass
RT, 5 Dec, 2015

Russia’s Defense Ministry has slammed Washington’s reaction to the outing of the secret oil trade between Turkey and Islamic State terrorists, calling it a “theatre of the absurd” and saying it looks rather like “direct patronage.”

“Finally, our colleagues from the State Department and the Pentagon have confirmed that the photo-proof, which we presented at a briefing [on December 2], of the origin and destination of the stolen oil, coming from the areas controlled by the terrorists, is authentic,” Major General Igor Konashenkov, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told a media briefing on Saturday.

“However, the US claim that they ‘don’t see the border crossings with tanker trucks crossing the border,’ raises a smile, if only, because the photos are still images,” he added.

The spokesman advised the American side to have a look through the videos, which were also presented by the Russian Defense Ministry, showing “how the tanker trucks not only drive through checkpoints at the Turkish border, but pass through them without even stopping.”

If the Russian evidence is not enough, the US and its allies should look at the footage from their own state-of-the art drones, “the number of which has recently tripled above the Turkish-Syrian border and oil-rich areas controlled by the terrorists,” he said.

According to Konashenkov, it should be impossible for the Western coalition to miss the oil smuggling business running between Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and Turkey, given their range of technical capabilities in Syria and Iraq.

“So when US officials claim that they do not see oil smuggled by terrorists to Turkey, this is already not dodging the issue, but smacks of a direct patronage,” he added.

December 3, 2015. Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly at the Kremlin's St. George Hall. © Ramil Sitdikov ‘Allah took their sanity’: Putin accuses Turkish leadership of ‘aiding terror’

The spokesman pointed out that the coalition’s drones and warplanes have been intensively using Incirlik Air Base in Turkey for their operations.

On Friday, an unnamed US State Department official confirmed to Reuters that the Russian photos of thousands of oil tanker trucks in Syria were authentic.

However, the official stressed that he hasn’t seen “the imagery of the border crossing with trucks crossing the border, and that’s because I don’t believe that exists.”

Konashenkov also commented on a recent statement by US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, who said at a Senate hearing that “over the past several weeks” the Pentagon has “intensified the air campaign against ISIL’s war-sustaining oil enterprise.”

With the US-led air campaign against Islamic State beginning in September 2014, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman wondered: “Does this mean that over the last one and a half years the Americans were only destroying non-war-sustaining infrastructure of the militants?”

“Now we know where the bandits got the money to buy weapons, recruit new supporters, and stage bloody acts of terror, and why the territory controlled by IS increased by hundreds of times during this period,” he said.

Konashenkov called recent statements by the US State Department and Pentagon “‘a theater of absurd,’ based on double standards and the wordplay.”

“First, they see something – then they don’t. They divide the opposition into moderate and non-moderate. Even terrorists, in their view, can be bad or very bad,” he said.

“We are convinced that terrorism has no comparative degrees or nationalities. Terrorism – an absolute evil that must be fought in all its manifestations,” he added.

On Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry released photo and video proof that the main smuggling route for oil produced by Islamic State terrorists runs through Turkey, accusing Turkish leadership, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of being involved in the criminal trade.

Russia’s claims were denied by both Ankara and Washington, with Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman for the US-led coalition, calling Turkey “a great partner.”

America Created Al-Qaeda and the ISIS Terror Group

Incisive article...

America Created Al-Qaeda and the ISIS Terror Group

By Garikai Chengu

Global Research, December 16, 2015

Global Research 19 September 2014

Much like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) is made-in-the-USA, an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region.
The fact that the United States has a long and torrid history of backing terrorist groups will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore history.
The CIA first aligned itself with extremist Islam during the Cold War era. Back then, America saw the world in rather simple terms: on one side, the Soviet Union and Third World nationalism, which America regarded as a Soviet tool; on the other side, Western nations and militant political Islam, which America considered an ally in the struggle against the Soviet Union.
The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, General William Odom recently remarked, “by any measure the U.S. has long used terrorism. In 1978-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the U.S. would be in violation.”
During the 1970′s the CIA used the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as a barrier, both to thwart Soviet expansion and prevent the spread of Marxist ideology among the Arab masses. The United States also openly supported Sarekat Islam against Sukarno in Indonesia, and supported the Jamaat-e-Islami terror group against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan. Last but certainly not least, there is Al Qaeda.
Lest we forget, the CIA gave birth to Osama Bin Laden and breastfed his organization during the 1980′s. Former British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, told the House of Commons that Al Qaeda was unquestionably a product of Western intelligence agencies. Mr. Cook explained that Al Qaeda, which literally means an abbreviation of “the database” in Arabic, was originally the computer database of the thousands of Islamist extremists, who were trained by the CIA and funded by the Saudis, in order to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan.
America’s relationship with Al Qaeda has always been a love-hate affair. Depending on whether a particular Al Qaeda terrorist group in a given region furthers American interests or not, the U.S. State Department either funds or aggressively targets that terrorist group. Even as American foreign policy makers claim to oppose Muslim extremism, they knowingly foment it as a weapon of foreign policy.
The Islamic State is its latest weapon that, much like Al Qaeda, is certainly backfiring. ISIS recently rose to international prominence after its thugs began beheading American journalists. Now the terrorist group controls an area the size of the United Kingdom.
In order to understand why the Islamic State has grown and flourished so quickly, one has to take a look at the organization’s American-backed roots. The 2003 American invasion and occupation of Iraq created the pre-conditions for radical Sunni groups, like ISIS, to take root. America, rather unwisely, destroyed Saddam Hussein’s secular state machinery and replaced it with a predominantly Shiite administration. The U.S. occupation caused vast unemployment in Sunni areas, by rejecting socialism and closing down factories in the naive hope that the magical hand of the free market would create jobs. Under the new U.S.-backed Shiite regime, working class Sunni’s lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Unlike the white Afrikaners in South Africa, who were allowed to keep their wealth after regime change, upper class Sunni’s were systematically dispossessed of their assets and lost their political influence. Rather than promoting religious integration and unity, American policy in Iraq exacerbated sectarian divisions and created a fertile breading ground for Sunni discontent, from which Al Qaeda in Iraq took root.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) used to have a different name: Al Qaeda in Iraq. After 2010 the group rebranded and refocused its efforts on Syria.
There are essentially three wars being waged in Syria: one between the government and the rebels, another between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and yet another between America and Russia. It is this third, neo-Cold War battle that made U.S. foreign policy makers decide to take the risk of arming Islamist rebels in Syria, because Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, is a key Russian ally. Rather embarrassingly, many of these Syrian rebels have now turned out to be ISIS thugs, who are openly brandishing American-made M16 Assault rifles.
America’s Middle East policy revolves around oil and Israel. The invasion of Iraq has partially satisfied Washington’s thirst for oil, but ongoing air strikes in Syria and economic sanctions on Iran have everything to do with Israel. The goal is to deprive Israel’s neighboring enemies, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas, of crucial Syrian and Iranian support.
ISIS is not merely an instrument of terror used by America to topple the Syrian government; it is also used to put pressure on Iran.
The last time Iran invaded another nation was in 1738. Since independence in 1776, the U.S. has been engaged in over 53 military invasions and expeditions. Despite what the Western media’s war cries would have you believe, Iran is clearly not the threat to regional security, Washington is. An Intelligence Report published in 2012, endorsed by all sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies, confirms that Iran ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Truth is, any Iranian nuclear ambition, real or imagined, is as a result of American hostility towards Iran, and not the other way around.
America is using ISIS in three ways: to attack its enemies in the Middle East, to serve as a pretext for U.S. military intervention abroad, and at home to foment a manufactured domestic threat, used to justify the unprecedented expansion of invasive domestic surveillance.
By rapidly increasing both government secrecy and surveillance, Mr. Obama’s government is increasing its power to watch its citizens, while diminishing its citizens’ power to watch their government. Terrorism is an excuse to justify mass surveillance, in preparation for mass revolt.
The so-called “War on Terror” should be seen for what it really is: a pretext for maintaining a dangerously oversized U.S. military. The two most powerful groups in the U.S. foreign policy establishment are the Israel lobby, which directs U.S. Middle East policy, and the Military-Industrial-Complex, which profits from the former group’s actions. Since George W. Bush declared the “War on Terror” in October 2001, it has cost the American taxpayer approximately 6.6 trillion dollars and thousands of fallen sons and daughters; but, the wars have also raked in billions of dollars for Washington’s military elite.
In fact, more than seventy American companies and individuals have won up to $27 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last three years, according to a recent study by the Center for Public Integrity. According to the study, nearly 75 per cent of these private companies had employees or board members, who either served in, or had close ties to, the executive branch of the Republican and Democratic administrations, members of Congress, or the highest levels of the military.
In 1997, a U.S. Department of Defense report stated, “the data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement abroad and an increase in terrorist attacks against the U.S.” Truth is, the only way America can win the “War On Terror” is if it stops giving terrorists the motivation and the resources to attack America. Terrorism is the symptom; American imperialism in the Middle East is the cancer. Put simply, the War on Terror is terrorism; only, it is conducted on a much larger scale by people with jets and missiles.

Garikai Chengu is a research scholar at Harvard University. Contact him on garikai.chengu@gmail.com

A Wahhabi Colony in the making in North Syria

A very interesting read...

Islamic State (ISIL) based in Northern Syria: A Wahhabi Colony of Saudi Arabia?

By Tony Cartalucci

Global Research, December 16, 2015

New Eastern Outlook 16 December 2015

ISIS’ ideological source code can be found among America’s allies in Riyadh.  A recent confab of so-called “Syrian rebels” took place recently in Saudi Arabia. Those attending included a collection of dysfunctional expatriate “opposition” leaders as well as commanders from various militant groups operating in Syria including Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam – both affiliates of Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front – a US State Department designated foreign terrorist organization since 2012.

The BBC in its article, “Syria conflict: Divided opposition begins unity talks in Riyadh,” would report:

More than 100 Syrian rebels and opposition politicians are meeting in Riyadh in an attempt to come up with a united front for possible peace talks.

As the conference in the Saudi capital began, one of the most powerful rebel groups struck an uncompromising tone.
Ahrar al-Sham insisted President Bashar al-Assad would have to face justice.
It also criticised the presence of Syria-based opposition figures tolerated by Mr Assad and the absence of al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country.

In other words, Ahrar al-Sham openly wanted Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front in Riyadh as well – and along with Jaysh al-Islam, the only other militant group mentioned by name by the BBC as attending the confab – reveals that the entire so-called “opposition” are all direct affiliates of Al Qaeda – fighting alongside Al Qaeda on the battlefield and supporting them politically off of it.
Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam are part of the US and Saudi Arabia’s wider shell game in which they train, fund, arm, and back Al Qaeda terrorists under a myriad of varying and constantly shifting aliases and front groups. The result has been Al Qaeda and ISIS’ otherwise inexplicable rise upon and domination of the battlefield, not to mention a large and steady stream of US-provided weaponry and vehicles “falling into” Al Qaeda’s hands.
Al Qaeda’s Rise in Syria was the Plan All Along 
Al Qaeda’s original inception itself was a joint product of US-Saudi geopolitical ambitions. The Muslim Brotherhood, destroyed and scattered in Syria by Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s father, President Hafez Al Assad, was reorganized and sent to Afghanistan by the US and Saudi Arabia to fight a proxy war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
Since then, the group has serendipitously found itself engaged on every battlefield and in every region the US has sought to influence, whether it was in the Balkans and Chechnya, across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), or even as far flung as Southeast Asia.
During the US occupation of Iraq, Al Qaeda would find itself playing a pivotal role dividing Iraqis against one another and confounding what was at first a unified Shia’a-Sunni front against the occupation. Terrorists were funded by Saudi Arabia and brought in from across the MENA region, including from the now infamous terror capital of Benghazi Libya, through NATO-member Turkey, and with the help of Syria’s future opposition, through Syrian territory and finally into Iraq.
In 2007, it would be revealed that the US and Saudi Arabia were openly conspiring to use these terrorists again, this time to overthrow the governments of Syria and Iran. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007, 9 page report, “The Redirection,” would spell out in great detail not only how this was being planned, but the sectarian bloodbath it would almost certainly precipitate.
Come 2011, when the first shots were fired in the Syrian conflict, those who have been paying close attention to Al Qaeda knew that from the very beginning, Hersh’s prophetic report was finally being fulfilled. The sectarian bloodbath he predicted in 2007, became a horrific reality from 2011 onward, and there was no question that after the West’s intentionally deceptive spin regarding just who the opposition was faded, it would emerge that it was Al Qaeda all along.
In fact, the US State Department’s own statement designating Al Nusra as a foreign terrorist organization admits that even from the beginning, it was conducting nationwide operations.
The statement would claim:

Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks – ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations – in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. During these attacks numerous innocent Syrians have been killed. Through these attacks, al-Nusrah has sought to portray itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition while it is, in fact, an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes.

The last point is particularly interesting, since not only did the US State Department claim Al Nusra sought to portray itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition, groups the US claims are the legitimate opposition have also attempted to portray Al Nusra as such.
Al Nusra and ISIS’ rise to prominence was not the result of US foreign policy backfiring in Syria, it was the result of US foreign policy working precisely as planned.
Hersh’s article would claim that US and and Saudi efforts to create an armed opposition with which to overthrow the Syrian government would have the predictable consequence of “the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.”
And that is precisely what happened.
ISIS is a Wahhabi Colony 
Having failed to overwhelm Syria in the opening phases of the proxy war in 2011, “deconstructing Syria” is the secondary objective. Carving out a region influenced by Washington’s principle Kurdish proxy, Masoud Barzani, and a Saudi-Qatari-Turkish sphere of influence dominated by Al Qaeda appear to be the current focus of Western ambitions in the region. A divided, weakened Syria still serves the purpose of further isolating and weakening Iran in the region.
Saudi Arabia has proved over the decades to be an extremely pliable client state. Attempts to replicate this, even on a smaller scale in Syria and Iraq would be ideal. Having a Saudi-Qatari-Turkish arc of influence from the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf would be as ideal for Washington as a Shia’a arc of influence would be to Syria, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia.
ISIS then, serves as a means to “colonize” parts of Iraq and Syria with the very same toxic ideology that has prevailed for so long in Riyadh – Wahhabism – an extreme perversion of Islam created to serve the House of Saud’s own interests as far back as the 1700s.

Wahhabism was a means to indoctrinate and differentiate followers from mainstream Islam. This was necessary because its primary sponsors, the House of Saud, sought to use it as a means of achieving regional conquests and long-term regional domination. It green-lighted forms of barbarism, violence, and war strictly prohibited under Islam and relatively absent among the Saudis’ neighbors.

It has been used ever since as a means of filling the House of Saud’s rank and file with obedient, eager extremists ready to fight unquestionably for Saudi Arabia’s self-serving interests, and constitutes the cornerstone upon which the Saudis and their sponsors on Wall Street and in Washington maintain their grip on power within their borders, and influence the world beyond them. ISIS then, represents the export of this toxic ideology, not in the form of a shadowy terrorist group, but as a full-fledged army and “state.” The similarities between ISIS and the House of Saud, even superficially, are difficult to ignore.

Saudi Arabia beheads offenders of all kinds, ISIS beheads offenders of all kinds. Saudi Arabia does not tolerate opposition of any kind, ISIS doesn’t tolerate opposition of any kind. Women, minorities, and political enemies are stripped of anything resembling human rights in Saudi Arabia, and likewise by ISIS. In fact, besides geographical location, it is difficult to make and distinction at all between the two. That the two are inexorably linked politically, financially, ideologically, and strategically makes the case that the so-called “Islamic State” is actually nothing more than a Wahhabi colony, all the more compelling.

What is perhaps more damning than this superficial examination, or even deductions made regarding ISIS’ obvious logistical lines leading to NATO-member Turkey and Saudi Arabia itself, is the fact  that official documents from the US Department of Intelligence Agency (DIA), drafted in 2012 (.pdf) quite literally admitted:

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).

To clarify just who these “supporting powers” were that sought the creation of a “Salafist principality,” the DIA report explains:

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.

It is clear that – just as was planned since 2007 regarding the rise of Al Qaeda in Syria – the rise of a “Salafist” (Islamic) “principality” (State) was planned and pursued by the United States and its allies, including, and specifically Turkey and Saudi Arabia – with Turkey supplying logistical support, and Saudi Arabia supplying the ideological source code.
For those wondering why the United States has spent over a year bombing Syria allegedly to “fight ISIS” but has yet to make any progress, the fact that the US intentionally created the organization to gut Syria and would like to delay the liquidation of the terrorist army as long as possible until that occurs may provide a viable explanation.
For those wondering why Russia and the regime in Ankara are on the brink of war just as ISIS’ supply lines near the Turkish border with Syria are threatened, the fact that Turkey created and has gone through extraordinary measures to ensure those lines are maintained may also be a viable explanation.

And for those wondering why Saudi Arabia is inviting obvious accomplices of Al Qaeda to its capital, Riyadh, for a confab about Syria’s future, it is precisely because Saudi Arabia played a leading role in creating Al Qaeda as a means of influencing Syria’s future to begin with – a conspiracy it is still very much, clearly involved in and a conspiracy the United States doesn’t seem troubled leading along.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

Washington's 'Plan B' in Syria

The cunning fox is at it again...

Washington's 'Plan B' in Syria: Renewed military intervention to oust Assad?

16 Dec, 2015

US top diplomat John Kerry appeared to offer cooperation during lengthy talks in Moscow this week with President Vladimir Putin. Kerry said that US policy was not trying to isolate Russia, neither was it seeking regime change in Syria.

Rhetoric aside, Kerry’s expressions of goodwill simply do not cut it.
During a walkabout in Moscow, the US Secretary of State chanced on a little Christmas shopping, with Kerry buying a Babushka stacking doll among other souvenirs. The iconic Russian doll containing six shelled figurines could serve as a metaphor for Washington’s elusive rhetoric.
Following his three-hour discussion with Putin, Kerry said: “While we don’t see eye to eye on every aspect of Syria, we see Syria fundamentally similarly.”
US government-owned media outlet Voice of America added: “He [Kerry] said the US and Russia identify the same challenges and dangers, and want the same outcomes [in Syria].”
That, to put it bluntly, is simply not true. Washington and Moscow do not see Syria fundamentally similarly nor want the same outcomes.
Washington wants regime change, no matter what Kerry may declare. From the outset of the conflict in Syria in March 2011, the Obama administration has been demanding that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “must go”.
Indeed, it is well documented that Washington and its NATO partners have been seeking regime change against Russia’s long-time Syria ally going back to 2007 during the George W Bush presidency. The whole foreign-backed war in the Arab country – resulting in 250,000 deaths and millions of refugees over the past five years – has been orchestrated for the precise purpose of destabilizing Syria.
Certainly, Kerry’s latest visit to Moscow marked a softening of the “Assad must go” line. Washington is now saying that the Syrian president may remain in office until a political transition is negotiated. But at the end of the so-called transition, the US still wants Assad gone, as Kerry again noted. That is regime change no matter how you slice it.
Like Kerry’s coy claim that the US is not trying “to isolate Russia as a matter of policy,” the bottom line is that Washington has imposed unilateral economic sanctions on Russia as a result of provable US regime change in Ukraine in February 2014, and cajoled its European allies to follow suit. Withdrawing unilaterally from arms control treaties and expanding NATO forces on Russian territory are hardly the actions of a party “not seeking isolation” of Moscow.
Washington sure wants regime change in Syria, just as former US General Wesley Clark disclosed back in 2007 – a policy that the American military-industrial complex formulated in 2001 following the 9/11 terror events. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the same US hegemonic ambitions for the Middle East and beyond have changed under Obama.
What has changed is that Russia’s dramatic military intervention in Syria two months ago has shredded the US-led plans.
This week, President Obama made a speech at the Pentagon in which he made the laughable claim that the US was leading the global fight against the Islamic State terror group. “We are hitting them harder than ever,” he said.
Such claims by the US commander-in-chief are just downright delusional. It is the Russian aerial bombardment in close cooperation with the Syrian Arab Army that has completely turned the military tables on Islamic State (IS) and other illegally armed groups.
Moreover, it is Russian airstrikes which have wiped out the oil smuggling and weapon supply routes to the jihadists from Turkey.
These jihadists – whether they go by the shell names IS, Nusra, Army of Conquest or Free Syrian Army – are all part of the foreign-backed mercenary force that the US has deployed for sacking Syria.
Washington’s losing streak in the covert military objective has forced the US to seek a political track to achieve the same end result of regime change. That explains why Washington is now softening its rhetoric in order to inveigle Moscow into a political transition, euphemistically called a “peace process”.
Kerry said that the US and Russia have reached “common ground” on which Syrian opposition groups would be invited to peace talks in New York this Friday. The aim is to create a political opposition to the Assad government ahead of negotiations for a transition beginning in January.
A preview of these “opposition” groups was given last week when Saudi Arabia invited more than 100 so-called leaders of political and militant factions. As the New York Times reported the formation of this front was deemed by Washington as a “prerequisite” for the future talks. John Kerry welcomed the summit in Saudi capital Riyadh as “an important step forward”.
Although Al Qaeda-linked groups, IS and Al Nusra, did not attend the Saudi-sponsored and US-countenanced gathering, the NY Times admitted that delegates included “hardline Islamists”. Those in attendance included Ahrar al Shams and Jaish al Islam. The latter gained notoriety for holding civilian human shields in cages, as well as being linked to the chemical gas atrocity near Damascus in August 2013.
The Saudi-sponsored opposition that Washington is trying to line up against the Syrian government are braying for Assad’s immediate departure. John Kerry may say belatedly that US policy has shifted to permit Assad to remain in power for the duration of a transition, but it should be obvious that Washington is setting up a framework under the guise of a peace process in which Assad’s departure is put on the agenda.
But what gives the US and its NATO and Arab cronies any right to make such demands on Syria’s political future?
Washington does not seem to get it that its arrogant assertions about political change in Syria are null and void. Russia has time and again rightly pointed out that Syria’s political future is for the Syrian people to decide as a matter of sovereignty. Russia’s position is fully supported by Iran.
As for Syria’s President Assad he has said that there will be no negotiations with the Saudi-sponsored political opposition, labeling them with reasonable justification as “terrorists”.
In a parallel development, Saudi Arabia also announced the formation of a 34-nation alliance of Muslim countries supposedly dedicated to fighting the “disease of Islamic terrorism”. The newly formed bloc comprises in addition to Saudi Arabia: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Turkey – all countries associated with the funding and arming of extremist groups in Syria and elsewhere. Strangely, or perhaps not, Iran, Iraq and Syria were not invited to join the bloc.
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter welcomed the new alliance. And the Saudis said that troops from the 34-nation coalition could be sent into Syria and Iraq to “combat” the IS network. Washington also endorsed that, saying that it wanted more regional “boots on the ground” to help fight terrorism.
What that suggests is that if the political track does not go well for ousting Assad, then the US and its allies are giving themselves the license to openly intervene in Syria – ostensibly to fight terror groups, which they have covertly fomented. Such a renewed military intervention can be seen as Plan B, where Plan A – the covert use of terror groups – has failed.

Why did Turkey shoot down that Russian warplane?

A good piece of investigative journalism...

Powerful forces are maneuvering to torpedo any Syrian peace process that could leave room for Bashar al-Assad

by Conn Hallinan, December 12, 2015

It was certainly not because the SU-24 posed any threat. The plane is old and slow, and the Russians were careful not to arm it with anti-aircraft missiles. And it wasn’t because the Turks are quick on the trigger, either. Three years ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphatically declared that a “short-term violation of airspace can never be a pretext for an attack.” There are even some doubts about whether the Russian plane ever crossed into Turkey’s airspace at all.
Indeed, the whole November 24 incident looks increasingly suspicious, and one doesn’t have to be a paranoid Russian to think the takedown might have been an ambush. As retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, former U.S. Air Force chief of staff, told Fox News, “This airplane was not making any maneuvers to attack the [Turkish] territory.” He called the Turkish action “overly aggressive” and concluded that the incident “had to be preplanned.”
It certainly puzzled the Israeli military, not known for taking a casual approach to military intrusions. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told the press on November 29 that a Russian warplane had violated the Israeli border over the Golan Heights. “Russian planes do not intend to attack us, which is why we must not automatically react and shoot them down when an error occurs.”
So why was the plane downed?
Perhaps because, for the first time in four years, some major players are tentatively inching toward a settlement of the catastrophic Syrian civil war, and powerful forces are maneuvering to torpedo that process. If the Russians hadn’t kept their cool, several nuclear-armed powers could well have found themselves in a scary faceoff, and any thoughts of ending the war would have gone a-glimmering.
A Short Score Card
There are multiple actors on the Syrian stage – and a bewildering number of crosscurrents and competing agendas that, paradoxically, make it both easier and harder to find common ground. Easier, because there is no unified position among the antagonists; harder, because trying to herd heavily armed cats is a tricky business.
A short score card on the players:
The Russians and the Iranians are supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and fighting a host of extremist organizations ranging from al-Qaeda to the Islamic State, or ISIS. But each country has a different view of what a post-civil war Syria might look like. The Russians want a centralized and secular state with a big army. The Iranians don’t think much of “secular,” and they favor militias, not armies.
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and most the other Gulf monarchies are trying to overthrow the Assad regime, and are the major supporters of the groups Russia, Iran, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah are fighting. But while Turkey and Qatar want to replace Assad with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Arabia might just hate the Brotherhood more than it does Assad. And while the monarchies are not overly concerned with the Kurds, Turkey is bombing them, and they’re a major reason why Ankara is so deeply enmeshed in Syria.
The US, France, and the United Kingdom are also trying to overthrow Assad, but are currently focused on fighting ISIS using the Kurds as their major allies – specifically the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Party, an offshoot of the Turkish Kurdish Workers Party that the US officially designates as “terrorist.” These are the same Kurds that the Turks are bombing and who have a friendly alliance with the Russians.
Indeed, Turkey may discover that one of the price tags for shooting down that SU-24 is the sudden appearance of new Russian weapons for the Kurds, some of which will be aimed at the Turks.
A Suspension of Rational Thought
The Syrian war requires a certain suspension of rational thought.
For instance, the Americans are unhappy with the Russians for bombing the anti-Assad Army of Conquest, a rebel alliance dominated by the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria. That would be the same al-Qaeda that brought down the World Trade Center towers and that the US is currently bombing in Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan.
Suspension of rational thought is not limited to Syria.
A number of Arab countries initially joined the US air war against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, because both organizations are pledged to overthrow the Gulf monarchies. But Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar have now dropped out to concentrate their air power on bombing the Houthis in Yemen.
The Houthis, however, are by far the most effective force fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda in Yemen. Both extremist organizations have made major gains in the last few weeks because the Houthis are too busy defending themselves to take them on.
Moves Toward a Settlement
In spite of all this political derangement, however, there are several developments that are pushing the sides toward some kind of peaceful settlement that doesn’t involve regime change in Syria. That is exactly what the Turks and the Gulf monarchs are worried about, and a major reason why Ankara shot down that Russian plane.
The first of these developments has been building throughout the summer: a growing flood of Syrians fleeing the war. There are already almost 2 million in Turkey, over a million each in Jordan and Lebanon, and as many as 900,000 in Europe. Out of 23 million Syrians, some 11 million have been displaced by the war, and the Europeans are worried that many of those 11 million people will end up camping out on the banks of the Seine and the Ruhr. If the war continues into next year, that’s an entirely plausible prediction.
Hence, the Europeans have quietly shelved their demand that Assad resign as a prerequisite for a ceasefire and are leaning on the Americans to follow suit. The issue is hardly resolved, but there seems to be general agreement that Assad will at least be part of a transition government. At this point, the Russians and Iranians are insisting on an election in which Assad would be a candidate because both are wary of anything that looks like “regime change.” The role Assad might play will be a sticking point, but probably not an insurmountable one.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia are adamant that Assad must go, but neither of them is in the driver’s seat these days. While NATO supported Turkey in the Russian plane incident, according to some of the Turkish press, many of its leading officials consider Erdogan a loose cannon. And Saudi Arabia – whose economy has been hard hit by the worldwide fall in oil prices – is preoccupied by its Yemen war, which is turning into a very expensive quagmire.
Russia’s Role
The second development is the Russian intervention, which appears to have changed things on the ground, at least in the north, where Assad’s forces were being hard pressed by the Army of Conquest. New weapons and airpower have dented a rebel offensive and resulted in some gains in the government’s battle for Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.
Russian bombing also took a heavy toll on the Turkmen insurgents in the Bayir-Bucak region, the border area that Turkey has used to infiltrate arms, supplies, and insurgents into Syria.
The appearance of the Russians essentially killed Turkey’s efforts to create a “no fly zone” on its border with Syria, a proposal that the US has never been enthusiastic about. Washington’s major allies, the Kurds, are strongly opposed to a no fly zone because they see it as part of Ankara’s efforts to keep the Kurds from forming an autonomous region in Syria.
The Bayir-Bucak area and the city of Jarabulus are also the exit point for Turkey’s lucrative oil smuggling operation, apparently overseen by one of Erdogan’s sons, Bilal. The Russians have embarrassed the Turks by publishing satellite photos showing miles of tanker trucks picking up oil from ISIS-controlled wells and shipping it through Turkey’s southern border with Syria.
“The oil controlled by the Islamic State militants enters Turkish territory on an industrial scale,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said November 30. “We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure the security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports.”
Erdogan and NATO
Erdogan didn’t get quite the response he wanted from NATO following the shooting down of the SU-24. While the military alliance backed Turkey’s defense of its “sovereignty,” NATO then called for a peaceful resolution and de-escalation of the whole matter.
At a time when Europe needs a solution to the refugee crisis – and wants to focus its firepower on the organization that killed 130 people in Paris – NATO cannot be happy that the Turks are dragging them into a confrontation with the Russians, making the whole situation a lot more dangerous than it was before the November 24 incident.
The Russians have now deployed their more modern SU-34 bombers and armed them with air-to-air missiles. The bombers will now also be escorted by SU-35 fighters. The Russians have also fielded S-300 and S-400 antiaircraft systems, the latter with a range of 250 miles. The Russians say they’re not looking for trouble, but they’re loaded for bear should it happen.
Would a dustup between Turkish and Russian planes bring NATO – and four nuclear armed nations – into a confrontation? That possibility ought to keep people up at night.
Coming to the Table
Sometime around the New Year, the countries involved in the Syrian civil war will come together in Geneva. A number of those will do their level best to derail the talks, but one hopes there are enough sane – and desperate – parties on hand to map out a political solution.
It won’t be easy, and who gets to sit at the table has yet to be decided. The Turks will object to the Kurds; the Russians, Iranians, and Kurds will object to the Army of Conquest; and the Saudis will object to Assad. In the end it could all come apart. It’s not hard to torpedo a peace plan in the Middle East.
But if the problems are great, failure will be catastrophic. That may be the glue that keeps the parties together long enough to hammer out a ceasefire, an arms embargo, a new constitution, and internationally supervised elections.

Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Conn Hallinan can be read at www.dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and www.middleempireseries.wordpress.com.