Airport employees park a plane with United Nations inspectors arriving from Syria at Rotterdam-The Hague Airport in Rotterdam, on 31 August 2013. (Photo: AFP - Evert-Jan Daniels)
With each passing moment, new implications are being uncovered for the expected Western strike on Syria. Much was said about the threatened Lebanese economy, leading it from recession to collapse. Much was also said about the refugees and the forthcoming tragedies. Even more was mentioned about the Lebanese sides betting on the strike.
If Washington wins, who will win with it? If Assad survives, who will benefit? And, if the impasse persists, how will we keep managing the chronic crises of our times?
But what about other options, which are more likely, and carry with it more dangerous ramifications?
For example, what if the US strike on Damascus aimed exclusively at finalizing the requirements of the Israeli-Palestinian settlement, more specifically to ensure the security of Israel? Why is Obama menacing before he strikes? Why is he revealing all his cards, his plans, and bank of targets, as if he was in a game of war, or a war which is a game?
Why did he then negotiate the surprise with the Russians as if he did not want them to be surprised? Why did he negotiate with the Iranians? So they would not accuse him of surprising their Syrian friends? The only thing left is for the White House to ask permission from the Syrians. He might as well rent out the places suggested for the strike, even for a few hours, and carry out a rehearsal with blanks, in front of a Syrian audience. Then he could return it to its owners and shout, "Shoot," like in Hollywood. Which in English means to fire a weapon or begin filming.
What does this behavior indicate? Some think that all Obama wants is to raise his voice against Syria to achieve two goals. At the minimum, he wants to protect the Israeli negotiations with Abu Mazen, who seems very smug and pleased these days. The maximum he wants is to disarm Damascus from non-conventional weapons, before it becomes one of the capitals ravaged by US policy in the region and the entire world.
The goal, then, is to liquidate what remains of Palestine and annihilate what remains of the Palestinian people. This is not because Bashar is the liberator of Jerusalem or that the slogans of resistance, resilience, and confrontation are a matter of fact in Syria. It is merely because the regional arrangements have been completed, from Egypt and Hamas, to Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. He does not aim for more than the negotiations with Abu Mazen. This includes eliminating the weapons, which Hafez al-Assad called the weapons of strategic balance with Israel following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the "weapons of the poor" against the mighty arsenals. That period is mentioned by many US researchers these days.
What if the strike leads to an actual change in the balance of forces on the ground? All expectations about this scenario, despite its lack of weight, show that it would lead to achieving one goal: declaring the partitioning of the Syria. The Americans attack the regime and central authority will fall. The armed opposition will benefit from the situation, and the last remnants of a unified state will disappear. Coastal Syria will be spared the chaos, and the rest will become like Somalia. Between the two, a long war of the Sudanese type will persist, before the recognition of the secession.
What about Lebanon in this situation? Some people are wishing for this scenario. They desire it in secret. But their secrecy is not very secret. Many are speaking with joy about the chance to fix "the mistake of Le Grand Liban" and the return of the four districts as in the recent French map about safe Lebanese zones and those dangerous for Westerners. They speak about listening to Walid Jumblatt's theory about reconnecting the mutasarrifiyya, or the historic autonomous Mount Lebanon under the Ottoman Empire. These are the delusions of grandeur that afflict those unaware of changes over the past century.
One last question remains. What if the US strike on Damascus was to cover its withdrawal from there, like it did in the early 1980s? At the time, the Ronald Reagan administration decided to withdraw from the Lebanese quagmire. It did it under the heavy smokescreen of bombardment by its destroyer New Jersey.
Aaron Miller reminded Obama of that period a few days ago, a period he lived and witnessed. But he did not mention how his country's position changed that day, from "commitment to the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Lebanon" before the strike, to considering the country an "epicenter of a leprosy epidemic, which we have to escape," as declared by then US Secretary of State George Shultz following New Jersey's historic mission, leaving a whole country in total chaos.
Every moment uncovers more disasters of the US spectacle in Syria. Let's hope we don't discover more.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
If Washington wins, who will win with it? If Assad survives, who will benefit? And, if the impasse persists, how will we keep managing the chronic crises of our times?
But what about other options, which are more likely, and carry with it more dangerous ramifications?
For example, what if the US strike on Damascus aimed exclusively at finalizing the requirements of the Israeli-Palestinian settlement, more specifically to ensure the security of Israel? Why is Obama menacing before he strikes? Why is he revealing all his cards, his plans, and bank of targets, as if he was in a game of war, or a war which is a game?
Why did he then negotiate the surprise with the Russians as if he did not want them to be surprised? Why did he negotiate with the Iranians? So they would not accuse him of surprising their Syrian friends? The only thing left is for the White House to ask permission from the Syrians. He might as well rent out the places suggested for the strike, even for a few hours, and carry out a rehearsal with blanks, in front of a Syrian audience. Then he could return it to its owners and shout, "Shoot," like in Hollywood. Which in English means to fire a weapon or begin filming.
What does this behavior indicate? Some think that all Obama wants is to raise his voice against Syria to achieve two goals. At the minimum, he wants to protect the Israeli negotiations with Abu Mazen, who seems very smug and pleased these days. The maximum he wants is to disarm Damascus from non-conventional weapons, before it becomes one of the capitals ravaged by US policy in the region and the entire world.
The goal, then, is to liquidate what remains of Palestine and annihilate what remains of the Palestinian people. This is not because Bashar is the liberator of Jerusalem or that the slogans of resistance, resilience, and confrontation are a matter of fact in Syria. It is merely because the regional arrangements have been completed, from Egypt and Hamas, to Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. He does not aim for more than the negotiations with Abu Mazen. This includes eliminating the weapons, which Hafez al-Assad called the weapons of strategic balance with Israel following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the "weapons of the poor" against the mighty arsenals. That period is mentioned by many US researchers these days.
What if the strike leads to an actual change in the balance of forces on the ground? All expectations about this scenario, despite its lack of weight, show that it would lead to achieving one goal: declaring the partitioning of the Syria. The Americans attack the regime and central authority will fall. The armed opposition will benefit from the situation, and the last remnants of a unified state will disappear. Coastal Syria will be spared the chaos, and the rest will become like Somalia. Between the two, a long war of the Sudanese type will persist, before the recognition of the secession.
What about Lebanon in this situation? Some people are wishing for this scenario. They desire it in secret. But their secrecy is not very secret. Many are speaking with joy about the chance to fix "the mistake of Le Grand Liban" and the return of the four districts as in the recent French map about safe Lebanese zones and those dangerous for Westerners. They speak about listening to Walid Jumblatt's theory about reconnecting the mutasarrifiyya, or the historic autonomous Mount Lebanon under the Ottoman Empire. These are the delusions of grandeur that afflict those unaware of changes over the past century.
One last question remains. What if the US strike on Damascus was to cover its withdrawal from there, like it did in the early 1980s? At the time, the Ronald Reagan administration decided to withdraw from the Lebanese quagmire. It did it under the heavy smokescreen of bombardment by its destroyer New Jersey.
Aaron Miller reminded Obama of that period a few days ago, a period he lived and witnessed. But he did not mention how his country's position changed that day, from "commitment to the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Lebanon" before the strike, to considering the country an "epicenter of a leprosy epidemic, which we have to escape," as declared by then US Secretary of State George Shultz following New Jersey's historic mission, leaving a whole country in total chaos.
Every moment uncovers more disasters of the US spectacle in Syria. Let's hope we don't discover more.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.