[D66] A Short History of Obama’s Syria Policy

[J.N.]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/15/obamas-response-to-the-refugee-crisis-regime-change-in-syria/

September 15, 2015
A Short History of Obama’s Syria Policy

by Shamus Cooke

One drowned toddler has shifted global politics. The picture demanded
action in response to the largest migration crisis since World War II,
itself caused by the longest series of wars since WWII.  These wars have
dragged on and new ones started — Libya and Syria — under the Nobel
Prize winning U.S. President.

Obama could end the refugee crisis by brokering peace in Syria, but
instead he’s pushing hard and fast for war.  Few U.S. media outlets are
reporting about the critical  war resolution that the Obama
Administration is trying to push through Congress.

The BBC reports:

    “President Barack Obama has called on Congress to authorize US
military action in Syria. The move has provoked sharp, multifaceted
debate in the US Capitol as a resolution moves through the legislative
process.”

What’s in the Senate resolution demanded by Obama?

The Guardian reports:

    “…Barack Obama for the first time portrayed his plans for US
military action [in Syria] as part of a broader strategy to topple
[Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad, as the White House’s campaign to win
over skeptics in Congress gained momentum.”

The resolution would allow a “a 90 day window” for U.S. military attack
in Syria, where both ISIS and the Syrian government would be targeted;
with regime change in Syria being the ultimate objective.

The U.S. public has virtually no knowledge of these new developments. A
field of candidates campaigning for President haven’t mentioned the
subject.  The U.S. media’s silence on the issue is deafening.

War produces war refugees.  The once-modern societies of Iraq, Libya and
Syria were obliterated while the western world watched, seemingly
emotionless.  But the drowned toddler, named Aylan, unearthed these
buried emotions.

The public demanded that “something must be done” about the refugee
crisis. And now this feeling is being exploited by the Obama
Administration, funneling the energy back into the war canal that
birthed the problem.

The war march is happening fast, and in silence.   U.S. ally Australia
already announced it would begin bombing in Syria, while the U.K media
has also re-started the debate to join in.

While not mentioning Obama’s new Syrian war resolution, the U.S. media
is re-playing the 2013 Syria war debates, when public pressure overcame
Obama’s commitment to bomb the Syrian government.  History is now
dangerously repeating itself.   We’re back on the war track, with
bombing targets imagined with each new press release.

For example, Roger Cohen of the New York Times is just one of several
pundits making the absurd argument that Obama’s “lack of action” in
Syria has helped lead to the catastrophe.  Cohen’s argument has been
uttered in various forms in countless U.S. media outlets, pushing the
public to accept an expanded U.S. war in Syria:

“American interventionism can have terrible consequences, as the Iraq
war has demonstrated. But American non-interventionism can be equally
devastating, as Syria illustrates. Not doing something is no less of a
decision than doing it.”

Cohen doesn’t mention Obama’s war resolution.  But his well-timed war
propaganda hides behind the old arguments of ‘humanitarian
intervention’, a term meant to put a smiley face on the carnage of war.
 Obama used ‘humanitarian intervention’ arguments to justify the
destruction of Libya, whose war refugees continue to drown en masse in
the Mediterranean.

The many hack journalists of Cohen’s ilk are repeating — in unison–  the
big lie that Obama’s “inaction” in Syria produced the war and refugee
catastrophe.  The exact opposite is the case.  These pundits know very
well that Obama has intervened heavily in Syria from the beginning, and
remains the driving force of the war-driven refugee crisis.

Cohen’s own paper, the New York Times, reported in March 2013 that the
Obama Administration was overseeing a weapons ‘pipeline’ to Syria,
funneling tons of weapons via U.S. allies to help attack the Syrian
government where Obama desired –and still desires — regime change.

This story should have laid the foundation for our understanding of the
Syrian conflict, since it changed the course of the war and pushed
jihadist groups into positions of power, while leaving others powerless.
  But this narrative was ignored.  The story was dropped even while the
dynamic continued, intensifying the bloodbath that spilled into
neighboring countries.

Who received Obama’s trafficked guns? The New York Times reported in
October 2012 — before Obama’s role in the weapons pipeline was
discovered–  that the regional “flow” of weapons was going to jihadist
groups in Syria.

And a recent U.S. Department of Defense report shows that the Obama
Administration was fully aware that weapons were being shipped to Syrian
groups such as al-Qaeda linked rebels and those that later joined ISIS.

As a result, these groups are the the only real players among the rebels
attacking the Syrian government today.  And these are the groups that
will take power if the Syrian government falls, as Obama intends to achieve.

We also know that Obama’s  weapon ‘pipeline’ was assisted by a flow of
billions of dollars and foreign fighters from the U.S. allies that
surround Syria, most notably Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey.  This
‘perfect storm’ of Syrian destruction just didn’t happen by coincidence,
as the puzzled media would have you believe.  Close U.S. allies don’t
intervene in regional politics without having U.S. permission and support.

In 2013 the Telegraph reported the existence of a  U.S. ‘rebel’ training
camp in Jordan to arm and train fighters attacking the Syrian
government. This story was all but ignored in the U.S. media.  These
training camps have since been expanded to Saudi Arabia and Turkey,
while the U.S. media buried the story.

The bloody fingerprints of the U.S. government are all over this
conflict, while the U.S. media has the audacity to claim that “inaction”
was Obama’s cardinal sin. These same journalists never asked hard
questions about Obama’s weapons pipeline, or his rebel training camps,
or the actions of his close allies directly fueling the bloodshed.
Obama was invited to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s shows where he
received celebrity treatment.  Real discussion on Syria was always “off
the table”.

Baby Aylan’s death was an opportunity for peace, but Obama is intent to
stay on his war track.  We are at a critical moment. Russia has once
again proposed renewed peace talks in Syria.

Similar deals have been offered by Russia and Syria for several years.
But Obama’s peace-killing response has remained “Assad must go”.  Obama
continues to demand regime change: in practice this mean the war
continues, and his new war resolution would expand it.

Meanwhile, Russia has made moves to bolster the Syrian government
against ISIS and al-Qaeda linked rebels.  In response, the Obama
Administration issued a serious “warning’ to Russia” and pressured
neighboring governments, like Bulgaria, to block Russia’s transportation
of weapons to aid the Syrian government.

By attempting to block Russians weapons to the Syrian government Obama
is empowering the groups attacking the government–  al-Qaeda and ISIS.
 If Obama follows through with his new war resolution and topples the
Syrian President,  these groups are the ones who will fill the power vacuum.

Thus, millions more refugees will sweep into neighboring countries and
Europe, if they survive the onslaught.

To this day Obama has pushed zero peace initiatives in Syria.  Diplomacy
has been off the table.  Regime change remains the official position of
the Obama Administration, which his new resolution finally makes
official.  The war on ISIS was always a distraction to pursue regime
change in Syria, and most media pundits took the bait.

The world demands peace in Syria.  Obama must accept Russia’s peace
offering, and sit down with  Iran, Hezbollah, and the Syrian government
to hammer out a peace initiative, while demanding that U.S. allies in
the region “stand down”  and pursue a policy of strangling the flow of
guns, money, and fighters that bolster ISIS.

The U.S. must also open its borders to hundreds of thousands of refugees
that are the direct victims of U.S. foreign policy.   Immediately
agreeing to take 500,000 refugees would be a good start.

Drastic action is needed immediately to address the destruction of
Syria, it’s true.  But not the action demanded by the war-hungry U.S.
President Real humanitarian intervention cannot include missiles and
tanks. The world demands peace.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for
Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at
shamuscooke at gmail.com