Article & AnalysisSyria

Anti-Syria Western axis coming apart

Anti-Syria Western axis coming apart
As in all criminal conspiracies when results do not go according to plan, the protagonists start blaming one another; and because of the treacherous nature of the conspiracy, the partners-in-crime are eventually prone to feelings of distrust, resentment and paranoia.
Anti-Syria Western axis coming apart
This splintering and bickering can be seen in the Western-led axis against Syria. In recent weeks, we have signs of emerging rivalries, spats and distrust that all point to the axis coming apart.

That may be the important backdrop to this week’s alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus, in which over 100 people were killed.

Suspicion points to the atrocity being ultimately the work of Saudi Arabia or Israel, or both, in an attempt to trigger a full-scale Western military intervention. This despicable act is more a sign of desperation stemming from failing cracks in the Western-led axis against Syria. It is an attempt to bring about cohesion in the axis, which has in recent weeks seen its various adherents drifting apart as a result of the losing war situation.

Thus, this past week we witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of Saudi King Abdullah rebuking the United States for “ignorant meddling” in Egypt; we also saw NATO member Turkey accusing Israel of fomenting the military coup in Egypt against Ankara’s allied Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi; and then the US slapped down Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for leveling such accusations against its client in Tel Aviv.

Before that rash of grouching, the Persian Gulf Arab sheikhdoms were aggrieved by Washington’s unprecedented closure of embassies throughout the region over an alleged terror threat. There were even paranoid accusations from the monarchs that the US was trying to destabilize their autocratic rule.

Within the Persian Gulf oil monarchs, there has of course been a seething rivalry between the dominant Saudi Arabia and the upstarts of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. This came to the fore last month when the House of Saud pushed Qatar out of the driving seat for gun-running in the Western-led axis against Syria.

Why these tensions within the Western-led axis are emerging now is because of the imminent failure of the military option for regime change in Syria. The main Western powers of the US, Britain and France seem to have given up the ghost on overthrowing the Damascus government through covert state-sponsored terrorism. Turkey’s Recep Erdogan has also reportedly decided to back off from supporting the Takfiri militants in Syria, probably reflecting his government’s concern that the repercussions of blowback terrorism are destabilizing Ankara’s internal authority.

Saudi Arabia and Israel appear to be still committed to the militarist option, not only in Syria, but also in Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere.

The recent spate of military setbacks heralding eventual defeat for the Western-led axis has created a new dynamic of calculations among the protagonists. This is typical of a criminal conspiracy coming unstuck. The different priorities of the protagonists start to diverge; that dynamic then induces feelings of distrust, treachery and resentment.

For nearly two and half years, Syria has been targeted by a relentless covert war of aggression aimed at destabilizing the country and instigating regime change. The Western axis sponsoring the covert war comprises primarily the United States and the former colonial powers Britain and France, along with their regional proxies Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey.

The military option for regime change in Syria is proving to be a failure. The turning point was the battle for Qusayr when the Syrian army liberated the key mid-regional town. Since then, the Western-backed mercenaries have been decisively on the retreat, engaging in more and more sickening atrocities. The elusive goal of overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad has created a sense of defeatism among the Western-led conspiracy.

This explains why the Americans, British and French have not delivered on promised weaponry to the foreign militants in Syria, despite having given the official go-ahead for this supply more than two months ago. This delay has engendered bitter resentment among the mercenaries and their Saudi paymaster towards the Western governments, whom they accuse of betraying.

Notably too when the Saudi-backed exile group, the Syrian National Coalition, sent its top delegates to the US at the end of July to drum up weapons and materials, they came away jilted and empty handed. The SNC delegation, headed up by Saudi protégé Ahmad al-Jarba, was told by US Secretary of State John Kerry that there was “no military solution” to the Syrian problem, and that they would have to sit down to negotiate with the government in Damascus.

That change in US tune was hardly picked up by the media at the time, but it signaled a significant backing away from the military option by Washington. Not that the US was discovering a long overdue sense of ethics, with more than 100,000 total dead and millions of refugees. It was more a realist assessment that another option to unseat Assad was needed, perhaps through political wrangling in the Geneva II process, combined with stepped-up economic sanctions against the Syrian government.

It is worth noting that Britain and France have also shied away from their previous vociferous demands that “Assad must go”. Again, as with the US, it is not that these Western states are ditching their long-held desires for regime change in Syria. It is more a case that the Western imperialists realize that a more sophisticated, nuanced political option must now be exercised, since the brute military option has proven futile.

Not so Saudi Arabia or Israel. Their desire for regime change in Syria is born out of a sharper, more virulent need than that of their Western patrons. The regimes in Riyadh and Tel Aviv see the resistance bloc of Syria, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran as an existential threat to their despotism. Iran is the nemesis that Saudi Arabia and Israel are obsessed with. Of course, the US, Britain and France want to rid the region of what they see as an impediment to their hegemony in the form of Syria, Hezbollah and Iran. But the Western powers’ antagonism does not have the existential, rabid urgency that Saudi Arabia and Israel are afflicted with. For the Western powers, they are prepared to play the alternative cynical game of politics in order to achieve their regime-change objectives.

As a result of the losing war situation in Syria and the diverging tactical priorities within the Western axis this has led to internal tensions and resentment. The alleged chemical weapons massacre this week would be a convenient way for Saudi Arabia and Israel to force a red line for Western military intervention, and in that way get the Western axis to stiffen its faltering cohesion. No doubt there are belligerent elements within the Western ruling elite who are only too willing to buy that pretext.

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