RANT: OVERTURNINGS

 

IN MY PREVIOUS POST I wrote about icebergs “overturning”, but now a different kind of ‘overturning’ has occurred. This time it’s in the political realm, in the Middle East, as the Assad government of Syria, that had battled internally, for years, jihadist militias, CIA sponsored insurgents, and its neighbours, Turkey and Israel^*, suddenly collapsed in early December, while its military, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), melted away without firing a shot! On Sunday December 8, a relatively bloodless coup took place in Syria, with Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Sunni Islamist paramilitary organization, marched south from Idlib province to take power in the capital city, Damascus. A new Syrian flag flies over the city, and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani (real name: Ahmed al-Sharaahas) assumed the role as the country’s chief executive.

 

IT SHOULD most definitely be noted that Jolani was—in the very-recent past—a high-ranking chief in al-Qaeda (yes, that al-Qaeda!) in Iraq and in its offshoot al-Nusra militia in Syria. And until recently he had been declared a terrorist by the U.S. State Department with a $10 million bounty on his head! To be clear: Jolani is a terrorist. He, personally, chopped people’s heads off, doing the work like a good jihadi should. The Western media is bending over backwards to re-brand this vicious murderer as some kind of straight arrow freedom fighter. As they say: He may be a bastard, but he’s our bastard! CNN even did a puff-piece interview with him, where he dressed like Zelensky in his best, green army fatigues. He made nice mouth noises about Syrian independence, tolerance, democracy, yadayadayada, and didn’t threaten to behead any infidels during the interview. So, there’s that at least.

 

MANY PEOPLE in the West are cheering the downfall of Bashar al-Assad and the end to his repressive authoritarian rule. No doubt, he is guilty of crimes committed against the Syrian people, though he’s not likely to be brought to justice. He now lives in exile in Russia, having fled the country like a thief in the night, giving instructions for the Syrian army to stand down and allow for a peaceful transfer of power to HTS. He did not address the Syrian people. He left the Muhajireen Presidential Palace and went to the Russian air base in Khmeimim, and from there to Moscow, where he joined his wife and children. Most Syrians are glad to see the back of him and happy that the decades-long Assad family’s regime is finally over.

 

BUT, BE CAREFUL what you wish for. There are now militant jihadi extremists who are (at least notionally) in charge in Syria. Let that sink in. These bad boys come from Al-Qaeda/Isis/al-Nusra militias, morphing into their own rebranded group. HTS is a hodgepodge of Islamic militias. BUT, no matter how they change their name or polish their image—there are pics of Jolani wearing suit jackets and looking as comfortable as a cat in a tub of water—they’re still the same religious fanatics that cut off the heads and hands of those they judged apostate to their medieval brand of Islam. They ain’t schoolmarms, folks! And, if you think these nutters can change their spots like the proverbial leopard, then stick you hand inside the cage and find out.

 

“The black flag of Salafist Islam has been raised over Damascus. ISIS/Al-Qaeda has won…. They’re same terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. Whom we waged war against in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Losing thousands of our servicemen and women. Costing trillions of dollars. They won. And we helped them.”

 (Scott Ritter)

 

THE LIGHTNING QUICK FALL of Assad and the refusal of the Syrian army to fight HTS, which seems to have only between 20-30,000 rebel fighters, caught many geopolitical analysts by surprise. For one thing: the SAA had over 150,000 troops in its ranks. Battle-hardened and superior in numbers, so what happened? First, Syria has been under a brutal sanction’s regime for well over a decade that crippled its economy and immiserated its people. Recall the mass migrations of Syrians, the millions of refugees, fleeing the fighting and the “dirty war” of the last decade. [Canada has taken in over 100,000 since the fall of 2015. Ed.] The sanctions were imposed because Assad wouldn’t bend the knee to the American empire, instead he allied with Iran, Iraqi militias and Hezbollah, in the “Axis of Resistance”, and geopolitically, he was in Russia’s camp, allowing Russian naval and air bases to be sited in his country, and Russian warplanes to combat various terrorist groups (many Western sponsored), including HTS and its affiliates, threatening to topple his regime.

RECALL that Syria for a long time has been on the chopping  block for its resistance to Washington's diktats, even before the Arab Spring of 2011 which sparked demonstrations and a brutal crackdown by Assad's military. 

FOR YEARS, war planners in Washington plotted to overthrow Assad by funding and supplying arms to so-called “moderate” rebels—'good' jihadists who had a more modern approach to fighting infidels, as opposed to those 'bad' jihadi groups who were against the secular makeup of Syrian society and who wished to impose Sharia law and make Syria into an Islamic state. Last year, with the help of Russia and Iran, Assad seemed to have taken back most of Syria that had been under militant control, sequestering thousands of Islamist rebels in Idlib province and guarded by Kurds who control northern areas inside Syria along the border with Turkey. Turkey is fighting an internal insurgency with the PPK  (Kurdistan Workers Party) which is both a political movement and a guerrilla militia within Turkey. The PPK demands a Kurdish homeland, and it's just possible it will get one inside Syria. 

 

ANOTHER FACTOR in the fall of Assad was the Syrian economy. It was on life support due to American sanctions and control of the country’s oil fields and agricultural lands in its northeastern provinces. That's the main reason American troops are there--to guard the oil and use it however they will. Thus, the Syrian government receives no tax revenues from the sale of its oil and wheat. Instead, these  monies fell into the hands of the United States, which shipped the oil, in large part, to Israel. Thus, sanctions and the theft of Syria’s natural resources left the state increasingly hollowed out. The cash-strapped army was similarly impoverished and could pay its soldiers only a pittance. Unable to supply the troops with adequate arms and equipment to keep the jihadists, Turks, Kurds, Israelis, and Americans from operating on its soil, [Those '900' troops in Syria's northeastern provinces. The troop numbers were, in fact over 2,000. Ed.] Syria just folded like a house of cards and HTS marched on Damascus to take the capital without a fight. Syria is a complicated place.

 

RE: Turkish involvement. It’s safe to say that Turkey wants to establish a buffer zone inside Syria to keep Kurdish separatist rebels there.¹ It also has revanchist goals, namely to take land  back that was seeded to Syria after WWI. To this end, Turkey’s president Erdogan funds and supports Islamic militias in Syria, including HTS, to weaken the Assad government and give him free rein in the north. It is thought that Erdogan  was the prime mover behind the coup toppling Assad's removal. His security services helped plan and activate the coup, along with Israel,³ so the speculation goes. This was not a “colour revolution” nor was it a coup, where you'd normally see a government-in-exile (or a political opposition leader) promptly installed and supported by the military and the outside powers behind the regime change operation. The United States, the chief promoter of such ‘revolutions’, seems to have been kept in the dark by Turkey (its NATO ally, BTW) while Erdogan made his big play in supporting HTS's move on Damascus.  While the Americans would prefer a more predictable puppet than a ‘reformed’ jihadi militant, nevertheless, for the moment, it gave the green light (or its intelligence service did) to take out Assad, even though jihadists would now be in charge in Syria (or parts, thereof).

👉And  the Russians, who helped stabilize Syria and keep Assad in power since 2015 were quite ticked off by Erdogan's bold move. Again, there was an element of surprise among many observers, including the Americans, but also the Russians who feel betrayed by Erdogan for upsetting the apple cart in Syria through his jihadi proxies, and unseating the government the Russians have been supporting for almost a decade. In addition Russia's naval and air bases in Syria may be in jeopardy. [The Russians have decided to pick up sticks and move their military facilities to Libya. Ed.]

 

NOT TO BE DETERRED by Jolani’s head-chopping past, U.S. officials (among other governments ) met with the HTS chief in Damascus last week to give their imprimatur. They also dropped the $10-million-dollar bounty on Jolani’s head and revoked HTS’s “terrorist organization” designation. HTS, which is composed of several subgroups of jihadi militias, has become America’s ‘bastard', in Syria. In the main, the U.S. approves of the changes in leadership because it severs the supply line between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran, which has supported the Lebanese militia for years. As a result, Hezbollah’s fight against Israel and its support of Hamas in Gaza has been seriously interdicted. 

Recall earlier, prior to the overthrow of Assad, Israel had been conducting ground and air assaults of Lebanon, determined to push Hezbollah fighters north of the Litani River to deter the militia’s missile strikes on Israeli settlements. Last fall, some 60,000 Israelis were forced to leave their homes in northern Israel due to Hezbollah’s attacks. Now there is a ceasefire and the militia's missile attacks have ceased. Has the Lebanese militia been neutered by  Israeli forces? Unlikely. But it has been put on the back foot by Israels attacks, and there is talk in Lebanon about the militia being brought into the regular army ranks.

Recall, also, that Hezbollah’s leadership suffered "decapitation" attacks when Israel launched its pager and walkie-talkie bombings.²  The two sides agreed on a ceasefire, with the Israelis immediately breaking the truce and bombing in southern Lebanon, of course. And with Hezbollah injured and in disarray, Israel could turn its attention to Syria and capitalize on the fall of Assad by seizing a swath of territory in southern Syria—an illegal act under international law, but who’s going to stop them? In fact, there is evidence to suggest that Israel and Turkey engineered the HTS takeover (Turkey definitely so). Interestingly, the jihadi leadership in Damascus have stated they have no quarrel with Israel—even though they covet Jerusalem as the capital of a new Caliphate—even as Israeli air force launched some 800 sorties into Syria, destroying its military sites and weapons depots to prevent anyone, including HTS, from reconstituting Syrian military capabilities, no matter who’s in charge. How much Israel was in on the deal from the get-go is yet to be determined. But, Syria seems increasingly divided by Turkey in the north, Israel in the south and the new Damascus regime claiming a large section in the middle. How long this setup remains is unclear but, whatever happens, Syria as a nation state has ceased to exist, and chaos and bloodshed there are sure to follow.

 

SO, there’s a lot in play in Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey, and the details of who did what; who knew what, and who connived with who will be clearer in the future. But the big overturning in the Middle East is the weakening of the Axis of Resistance between Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas which results from Assad’s fall and the severing of the Syrian ‘land bridge’ between Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

 

Turkey is set to establish its buffer zone in northern Syria and continue its fight against separatist Kurd militias. Aleppo and environs will be seized by Turkey that has long-resented the Sykes-Picot redrawing of the borders following WWI, that ceded the Turkish province to Syria. With Syria's legitimate government 'decapitated', Erdogan now has free reign to fight the Kurds in northern Syria and establish a "security zone" along the border Turkey shares with Syria. Many analysts suspect that Erdogan was behind HTS's move on Damascus. Some  suggest there are even closer ties between Turkey and the jihadi militia group: One analyst even calls Jolani, the leader of HTS, a "Turkish-American intelligence asset." With funding and weapons coming from Turkey, such a surmise sounds reasonable. And the fact that  Jolani treats Israel with kid gloves, saying he means no harm to the Jewish state, despite the Israeli destruction of every military base and weapons depot it could find in Syria in a massive, country-wide bombing campaign its launched earlier this month, speaks volumes about which side his bread is buttered on. And Jolani says its only Hezbollah and Iran that HTS opposes. 

👉Question: Will hardliners in his militia and other militias in a lose alliance with him go along with Jolani's concessions to the infidels?  We shall see what we shall see.

 

ANOTHER REASON for Syria’s surprising fall was Assad’s stubborn refusal in the last few years to accept Russian aid in restructuring the Syrian army, which Russian intelligence assessed was on shaky ground. Similarly, Assad did not accept Iran’s offer of troops to shore up his military. Why? Last year, Syria was finally re-admitted into the Gulf Cooperation Council, and as a member of the U.S. friendly organization, Assad hoped to gain relief from the crippling sanctions regime imposed by the U.S. if he were to play ball with them. HE PUT all his money on the Americans³ but he bet on the wrong horse, and today Syria is balkanized and will quite probably descend into further chaos and violence. It remains to be seen where what's left of Syria goes. 

The Turks continue to occupy the northern border areas. Israel has moved into land bordering the Golan Heights and is less than 15 miles from Damascus. In the capital HTS controls a number of major cities in the central part of Syria. For now, Israel and Turkey have agreed to live and let live. And Jolani, who was given direct support by Turkey and probably planned his march of Damascus with Turkish military, will let Turkey and Israel do what they want in their sectors. How much of a stooge to the West JoIani will prove is a good question. That the U.S. sent in a State Department official to talk with the former-jihadist so soon after Jolani's taking control (sort of) in Damascus suggests he may be the recipient of CIA largess and is on the payroll. Who knows; the Agency likes chaos, after all, that being the state it can best operate in. So, it remains to be seen how long this arrangement will last and how long before this clusterfuck blows up. Turkey will want more. Israel will want more. And the jihadi militias not  affiliated with HTS will also want more. Grab your popcorn and watch the show.

 

👉THE BIG WINNERS are Turkey and Israel. Israel has emerged stronger than it was barely a month ago following its ceasefire with Hezbollah and its pivot to Syria. The Zionist goal to claim land in Lebanon, Syria, Jordon and Egypt as part of “Greater Israel” gains momentum as Israel flexes its muscles against its neighbours. For now, Israel is riding high in the saddle and the fascists in Jerusalem continue their ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and their genocidal butchery in Gaza with much of the world distracted by events in Syria. No doubt, the Palestinian resistance inside Israel has suffered a heavy blow with the supply of armaments through Syria stopped and Hezbollah's retrenchment of its forces in Lebanon following weeks of relentless bombing by the Israeli air force. Only the Houthis of Yemen remain active in their support of the Palestinians in Gaza by disrupting Israel-bound ships in the Red Sea.

Note that none of Gaza’s Arab neighbours will lift a finger to help the Palestinians, and the enclave looks doomed. Its captive population continues to be decimated by Israel’s criminal campaign of bombing and mass atrocities, including starving those who resist, until what's left of them can be expelled from ‘Greater’ Israel’s borders.⁴ 👌GENOCIDES “Я” US!  

 

👉THUS the Gaza Strip becomes a wasteland, a graveyard, and the world does nothing.

War crimes. Crimes against humanity. Genocide and ethnic cleansing. What will the new year bring?   

 

Cheers, Jake._________________________________ 

         

          * And Israel’s sugar daddy, the United States.  

    

1. The Kurds are an ethnic minority inside Turkey that wishes to establish an independent homeland. They have significant militia forces and fight to create a "Kurdistan" state along the Turkish and Syrian border. Turkey’s President Erdogan wants the Kurds gone and I assume his goal is to push them into Syria and out of his hair. (He also wants the more than two-million Syrian refugees who have taken asylum in his country to return home ASAP.)

 

2. Some years prior, Israel planted explosives in the pagers and walki-talkis that Hezbollah purchased in bulk from a foreign supplier, a company the militia assumed was legitimate. In an audacious and clever plan, Mossad  (Israel's security forces) set up shell companies that sold the communication devices to Hezbollah then waited for the right time to trigger them. The September bombings killed over 40 people and wounded nearly 4,000, many suffering grievous head wounds and loss of sight. Many were civilian workers of Hezbollah and were not involved in the fighting.

 

3. Don’t forget the Americans are in NE Syria, as well, in Kurdish rebel-held territory guarding the oil. They support a faction of Kurds that are fighting its NATO ally Turkey. So, stay tuned for more fun and games in the Middle East. [BTW, the United States has over two thousand troops on the ground in Syria, a figure that is more than twice the number that had been previously claimed by officials. Ed.]

 

 4. That's the problem with having nuclear weapons: Everyone treats you with kid gloves because they don't want to get irradiated if they can help it. What Israel and the Collective West need is a real smack-down, to smarten them the fuck up before those nukes start flying for real! Just sayin'.😅

GAZA: CHRISTMAS 2024