Syria: Right to protect or right to bomb?

“Our military has positioned assets in the region. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has informed me that we are prepared to strike whenever we choose. … And I’m prepared to give that order.”

– US President Barack Obama.

The responsibility to protect (R2P) is a principle of international law established by the United Nations at the 2005 World Summit, where government leaders unanimously agreed that “each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”

If a state fails to protect its own citizens from such horrors, R2P implies a collective responsibility of humanitarian intervention upon other agencies. However, the United States, in furtherance of its global agenda, has usurped this principle to justify unilateral military action, which effectively transforms R2P into what one might call R2B, the right to bomb. And this is exactly what is happening in the case of Syria.

US President Barack Obama is ready to bomb Syria over an alleged chemical attack, but not with the goal of regime change, mind you, only to give President al-Assad a slight slap on the wrist with a few dozen cruise missiles delivered by US naval assets already positioned in the Mediterranean.

“The American people have the good sense to know we cannot resolve the underlying conflict in Syria with our military,” acknowledges the arrogant commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military, yet he feels no need for authorization from the UN or his own congress to carry out what journalist Pepe Escobar has called “Tomahawk diplomacy.”

“I’m confident in the case our government has made without waiting for UN inspectors. I’m comfortable going forward without the approval of a United Nations Security Council,” he declared. “I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization,” he added haughtily.

Then, after displaying his complete distain for international law, he asked self-contradictorily, “If we won’t enforce accountability in the face of this heinous act, what does it say about our resolve to stand up to others who flout fundamental international rules?” Judging by Obama’s non-reaction to the Egyptian army’s recent coup against the democratically-elected president, one must conclude that American resolve depends heavily on the status of the flouter within the US-imposed international pecking order.

While the United States continues to accuse the Syrian government of carrying out chemical attacks in suburbs of Damascus, evidence to the contrary appears to be accumulating, with doctors, local residents and rebels reporting that chemical weapons were supplied by Saudi Arabia to al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Another report implicates Colorado Springs, Colorado-based defense contractor TechWise and the US Department of Defense in planning the chemical operations. Recent revelations of shocking atrocities committed by foreign-backed militants in Syria demonstrate that the cancer of terrorism is metastasizing, but US Secretary of State John Kerry optimistically insists that these “bad guys” only constitute 15 or 20 percent of the “oppositionists.”

All of this is happening against a bloody backdrop of ever-expanding, externally-fueled conflict raging since March 2011, which has resulted in over 100,000 lives lost and nearly 7 million displaced: almost 5 million within Syria and over 2 million outside.

Clearly, the crisis in Syria begs for humanitarian intervention, but one must ask how would a cruise missile attack by the US have an ameliorating effect? It would seem obvious that such action would only aggravate an already grave situation.

While Obama himself conceded that “Syria’s conflict has no military solution,” and that “we reaffirm our commitment to seek a peaceful political settlement,” he is nevertheless determined to launch cruise missile strikes on Syria. This is while he plans “to provide support to address the growing humanitarian needs in Syria and their impact on regional countries,” which his missile assault will surely aggravate.

Questioning the rationale of bombing Syria, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul remarked, “We are told there is no military solution in Syria, yet we are embarking on a military solution. … To be sure, there is a tragedy of a horrific nature in Syria, but I am unconvinced that a limited Syrian bombing campaign will achieve its intended goals.”

Pointing out the rather obvious consequences, the senator added that the attack “may increase instability in the Middle East and may draw Russia and Iran further into this civil war.”

Louisiana Senator David Vitter concurring with Senator Paul, wrote, “U.S. military action could spark a broader war, and it could potentially entangle us in Syria’s protracted civil war where elements of the opposition are even worse than the Assad regime.”

By demonizing President Bashar al-Assad, the US has attempted to justify its unilateral military intervention under the guise of humanitarian intervention, but most of the world is not buying Washington’s bill of goods this time around. China’s President Xi Jinping, urging against taking military action, said, “A political solution is the only right way out for the Syrian crisis, and a military strike cannot solve the problem from the root.”

At the G20 Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin unequivocally declared, “The alleged chemical weapons use in Syria is a provocation carried out by the rebels to attract a foreign-led strike.” Out of the major economic powers, only Turkey, Canada, Saudi Arabia and France appear willing to go along with the US warmongering; the rest are firmly opposed to a strike on Syria.

The US even tried to bribe Russia into withdrawing its support for President al-Assad by having its Saudi client withhold oil to keep market prices above $100 per barrel. However, if Moscow refused to accept the generous offer, which was relayed by Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, hints were made by him concerning the possibility of Chechen militant groups threatening security at the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014. Russian President Putin turned Bandar down cold, stating emphatically, “Our stance on Assad will never change. We believe that the Syrian regime is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people, and not those liver eaters,” referring to one of the recent atrocities committed by Wahhabi militants.

One staunch supporter of US military action is, of course, the Zionist regime, which is backing Obama’s limited strike approach to the Syrian situation in hopes that neither the rebel forces nor President al-Assad will prevail. Bluntly explaining Tel Aviv’s Kissinger-like position in the conflict, former Zionist entity consul general Alon Pinkas said, “Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from Syria.”

The Zionist political arm in the US, AIPAC, also has gone into lobbying overdrive, insisting, “The civilized world cannot tolerate the use of these barbaric weapons, particularly against an innocent civilian population including hundreds of children.” To clarify, AIPAC is referring here to the chemical weapons allegedly used in Syria, not the Tomahawk cruise missiles about to be unleashed upon the Syrian civilian population by the US at the behest of its Zionist ally.

Meanwhile, no sooner had the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a resolution approving a military strike on Syria, when Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama called upon the Pentagon to expand its target list. With four Tomahawk cruise-missile-carrying Arleigh Burke-class destroyers already deployed in the Mediterranean and the USS Nimitz with its nuclear-capable F/A-18E Super Hornets along with three additional missile cruisers on their way from Bahrain, the US commander-in-chief and primary Potomac prevaricator appears to have more in mind than mere humanitarian intervention in Syria.

“What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price,” Obama asked rhetorically in his address on August 31. Is he not aware that the US has already sent a very loud and clear message that if the dictator is an asset, he can use lethal nerve gas with Washington’s full backing, as recently declassified documents show? With the Reagan administration’s approval and intelligence assistance from the CIA, Saddam used deadly mustard and sarin gas in the 1980s against Iranians and Iraqi Kurds in some of the worst chemical attacks in history. Incidentally, while the Geneva protocol banning chemical warfare was introduced in 1925, the US did not sign it until 50 years later.

Concluding his impassioned plea for action against Syria while reminding any potentially errant nation who calls the shots, the Pennsylvania Avenue potentate averred, “But we are the United States of America, and we cannot and must not turn a blind eye to what happened in Damascus. Out of the ashes of world war, we built an international order and enforced the rules that gave it meaning.” So we see that a Tomahawk cruise missile strike on Syria is a small but necessary part of enforcing the rules of the US-imposed system of international order that we hope to see rapidly unravel.