Direct involvement between the two parties rather than thru' proxies?
US Suspends Talks with Russia as Danger Mounts of Escalation in Syrian War
In a highly provocative move, the United States announced
yesterday it was breaking off bilateral talks with Russia on halting
fighting in Syria’s civil war. The decision is only the latest
indication that the US is preparing the ground for a major escalation of
military operations in its war for regime-change in Syria.
With boundless hypocrisy, US State Department spokesman John Kirby
said in a statement that Russia had failed to maintain its end of the
bargain. “This is not a decision that was taken lightly,” Kirby said.
“Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments, and was
also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to
the arrangements to which Moscow agreed.”
US officials added that contact between the two countries would
continue to reduce the risk of clashes between US and Russian aircraft
operating in Syrian air space. But this pledge cannot conceal the fact
that both powers have mutually incompatible agendas in Syria and are
perilously close to a direct military clash that could spiral out of
control and trigger a wider war. As White House spokesman Josh Earnest
bluntly put it, on Syria, there was “nothing more for the US and Russia
to talk about.”
Washington’s attempt to pin the blame on Russia for the breakdown of
diplomacy in Syria is thoroughly dishonest. The United States never had
any intention of abiding by the ceasefire agreement struck between
Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
last month. It exploited the week-long pause in fighting to enable its
proxy Islamist “rebels” to regroup in the face of a Russian- and
Iranian-backed offensive by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops in
Aleppo, while continuing to provide its Al Qaeda-linked allies with
arms. The US-backed anti-Assad forces never accepted the ceasefire.
Open differences emerged within the US political and military
establishment over the ceasefire terms, with the Pentagon publicly
rejecting military and intelligence cooperation with Moscow in the name
of fighting terrorism. It is likely that a September 17 US air strike on
a Syrian army outpost near the town of Deir ez-Zor, which helped ISIS
fighters capture positions in the area, was deliberately launched by a
faction of the US military opposed to intelligence-sharing with Russia,
for the purpose of blowing up the ceasefire agreement.
The incident had the desired effect. The ceasefire collapsed several
days later when a UN aid convoy came under attack. Washington and its
European allies blamed the attack on Moscow and used it to demand that
Russia and Syria ground their aircraft. Russia denied any involvement in
the bombing of the aid convoy.
The US government and media have seized on the bombardment of
“rebel”-held eastern Aleppo, controlled by the al-Nusra front, which
Washington lists as a terrorist organization, to accuse Russia of war
crimes and prepare the ground for an escalation of the war. Since
intervening on the side of the Syrian government last September, Moscow
has sought to advance its own interests by propping up its ally Assad.
Syria is the site of Russia’s sole naval base outside of the former
Soviet Union.
According to UN figures, at least 320 civilians have been killed in
Aleppo since the end of the ceasefire. Civilians have been targeted by
both sides, although the Western media has generally buried reports of
the shelling of government-controlled areas by Islamist “rebels.” Up to
270,000 civilians, including 100,000 children, are trapped in the city.
The crocodile tears shed by US and Western politicians over the fate
of Aleppo’s inhabitants are a transparent fraud, aimed at concealing the
fact that primary responsibility for the catastrophe in Syria, where
more than half a million people have lost their lives and over 50
percent of the population have fled their homes, lies with the US and
its allies. Washington deliberately fomented the civil war with the aim
of removing Assad, installing a puppet government, and asserting its
hegemony in the energy-rich Middle East against its main rivals, Russia
and China.
The Western powers’ humanitarian pretenses were further exposed by a
leaked UN report which placed chief responsibility for the disastrous
conditions in Syria on the US and European Union’s sanctions regime. The
report, which was published in May but only released Sunday by the Intercept after
it obtained a leaked copy, accuses Washington and Brussels of imposing
since 2011 “some of the most complicated and far-reaching sanctions
regimes ever imposed.”
US prohibition on money transfers has made it almost impossible for
aid groups to pay salaries and buy supplies, leaving the way open for
ISIS and the al-Nusra Front to open unofficial avenues for the transfer
of financial assistance. A separate letter from “a key UN official” in
August described the sanctions as a “principal factor” in the collapse
of the healthcare system.
The Obama administration never had any intention of reaching a deal
with Russia to curb the violence in Syria unless it fully capitulated to
US demands for the installation of a pro-Western puppet regime.
Moscow has instead made increasingly clear that it is unwilling to
back down in the face of US threats to encourage Islamist terrorists to
direct their attacks against Russia. After Kirby menacingly declared
last week that extremists could attack “Russian interests” and even
Russian cities, an ominous pronouncement given Washington’s
long-standing collaboration with Jihadi terrorists, Russia shot back
that any US escalation in Syria would lead to “total war” and cause
“tectonic shifts” throughout the Middle East.
Earlier on Monday, President Vladimir Putin announced the suspension
of the United States from an agreement regulating the disposal of
plutonium from decommissioned nuclear weapons. Putin cited as reasons
“the radical change in the environment, a threat to strategic stability
posed by the hostile actions of the US against Russia, and the inability
of the US to deliver on the obligation to dispose of excessive weapons
plutonium under international treaties.”
On Syria, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said
Washington had failed to separate US-backed “moderate rebels” from the
al-Nusra Front, which was to have been a first step under the ceasefire
deal to the establishment of a joint implementation center from which
Moscow and Washington would coordinate attacks on terrorists.
“We are becoming more convinced that in a pursuit of a much desired
regime-change in Damascus, Washington is ready to ‘make a deal with the
devil,’” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday. For the
sake of ousting Syrian President Assad, the US appears to be ready to
“forge an alliance with hardened terrorists.”
In truth, such an alliance has long been cemented. In 2011, the Obama
administration exploited similar “humanitarian” concerns as those now
being whipped up over Syria to justify the bombardment and destruction
of Libya so as to overthrow the Gaddafi regime. This was combined with
support to Islamist extremist forces, leading to the deaths of tens of
thousands and plunging the North African country into a brutal civil
war. Many of these same Islamists were then relocated to Syria, supplied
with arms funneled through the CIA, the Gulf states and Turkey, and
encouraged to wage war on the Assad regime. It was out of this
environment that ISIS emerged and began to gain ground.
The US political and military establishment is fully prepared to risk
an all-out conflict with nuclear-armed Russia to secure its
geo-strategic ambitions in the Middle East and beyond. Less than two
weeks ago, General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, told Congress that extending US control over Syrian air space
would mean war with Syria and Russia. He emphasized that the US military
had no intention in establishing any kind of intelligence-sharing
arrangement with Russia.
Last week, in another calculated provocation, Defense Secretary
Ashton Carter delivered remarks at a nuclear base in North Dakota
threatening nuclear conflict with Russia.
The escalation of tensions with Russia has the support of
Washington’s Western allies, including Britain and France. The
suspension of talks coincided Monday with reports that Paris is
circulating a draft UN Security Council resolution demanding that the
Assad regime halt its bombardment of Aleppo and warning that those
responsible for war crimes will be held accountable.
The text also refers to the need to immediately halt all military
flights over Aleppo, which in effect restricts only Syrian and Russian
planes and could serve as the initial step to a “no-fly” zone enforced
by US and allied aircraft. Diplomats expect Russia will veto the
resolution if it comes to a vote, a move that French Foreign Minister
Jean-Marc Ayrault has vowed would result in Moscow being labeled as
complicit in war crimes.
The original source of this article is World Socialist Web Site
Copyright © Jordan Shilton, World Socialist Web Site, 2016
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