Russia Squelches Trump's New Plan to Invade Syria
Eruc Zuesse, Stragetigic Culture Foundation
September 2, 2018
On Friday, August 31st, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Russia has handed to the OPCW (Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons), and to the U.N., "proof" that the U.S. Government has been working with Al Qaeda to set up a chemical incident that the U.S. and its allies can then use as a supposed justification for invading Syria as a ‘humanitarian' response to a chemical attack allegedly by Syria's Government, but actually done by U.S.-backed forces, to re-ignite the 7-year-old ‘civil war' between Syria's Government and U.S.-backed ‘rebels', who consist almost exclusively of fundamentalist-Sunni jihadists that are trained and led by Al Qaeda in Syria, with U.S. help and Saudi financing.
On August 29th Global Research headlined "Video: US Creates Strike Force to Attack Syria", and posted an August 28th report from South Front saying:
Reports are appearing that the Syrian Air Defense Forces (SADF) have already started preparing to repel an expected US-led missile strike by deploying additional specialists and air defense systems near the crucial objects of the infrastructure, which they expect may be targeted.
On August 22, US National Security Advisor John Bolton claimed that
"if the Syrian regime uses chemical weapons, we will respond very strongly and they really ought to think about this a long time."
This was only one of a series of threats to the Syrian government issued by the US, the UK and France. While all these threats are clearly exploiting the chemical weapons narrative, their main goal is to prevent the defeat of the terrorists in Idlib by delaying the Syrian Army operation.
On August 25, a source close to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) told the Kurdish news outlet Bas News that the US-led coalition began deploying radar stations at its bases in the governorates of al-Hasakah and Aleppo as part of a new plan to increase its control of Syrian airspace. The report pointed out the airbases in Kobani and Rmelan as places where the radars were installed.
Also on August 28th, the U.S.-backed Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that:
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was informed by reliable sources that negotiations are underway between the Turkish intelligence services and between Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham [Syria's Al Qaeda branch, formerly called "Al Nusra"], The Islamic Turkestani Party, and other jihadi groups, with the aim of reaching agreement and consensus for these factions to resolve themselves, where these endeavors coincide with accelerated preparations by the regime forces and their loyal fighters for the start of the grand battle of Idlib [the place to which the surrendered jihadists in Syria have been sent], through which the regime forces seek to control the province and other areas in its surroundings of Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia provinces, and the continuation of negotiation comes after the conflicted information about reaching consensus on this issue, where Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham and the rest of the groups continue to experience confusion among their leaders and members, as a section of which has agreed to the demands of the Turkish authorities to resolve themselves, while the larger section rejects this process and refuses to approve any of the Turkish terms within the Negotiations.
[In the] Idlib battle, Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham controls the largest part of Idlib province, and shares it with other 3 parties: the rebel and Islamic factions, the Islami Turkestani Party, and the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them.
The military operation to be conducted in Idlib province, the regime forces and their allies have been significantly preparing over the past weeks, by bringing in thousands of members of their forces and loyal gunmen as well as hundreds of faction fighters who have recently joined the "reconciliation", and hundreds of vehicles, armored vehicles, ammunition, and machinery.
Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham is one of the renewed names of al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda Organization in the Levant).
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored the regime forces bringing more vehicles, members, materiel and ammunition, to these lines, and in conjunction with these mobilizations by the regime forces, the SOHR monitored on the 21st of August 2018 the leader of Al-Nusra Front (Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham) Abu Mohammad al-Julani, taking a military tour in the northern mountains of Lattakia, where al-Julani reviewed with a number of the commanders of the first and second rank in Hayyaat Tahrir al-Sham, the members of Tahrir Al-Sham and the front lines.
Like other reports by U.S.-allied organizations, Syria's Government is called "the regime" instead of "the Government," and the jihadists (except for ISIS) are accepted as being the U.S. alliance's boots-on-the-ground in Syria to ‘liberate' the Syrian people from Syria's Government.
So, the U.S. Government can hardly call this allegation of U.S. working in conjunction with Al Qaeda, ‘Russian propaganda'. However, on that very same day, August 28th, RT bannered "US army accuses RT of ‘ridiculous misinformation' over Syria, but not UN or NBC", and reported: "A US Army colonel has accused RT of ‘ridiculous misinformation' for reporting a Russian government suggestion that Islamic State is operating inside a US-controlled zone in Syria, despite the UN and NBC reporting the same."
On August 25th, RT had headlined "Terrorists readying chemical attack to frame Damascus & provide pretext for US strikes – Russian MoD", and reported:
The US and its allies are preparing new airstrikes on Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said, adding that militants are poised to stage a chemical weapons attack in order to frame Damascus and provide a pretext for the strikes.
The attack would be used as a pretext for US, UK and French airstrikes on Syrian targets, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov said. USS ‘The Sullivans,' an Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer, was already deployed to the Persian Gulf a couple of days ago, he added.
The destroyer has 56 cruise missiles on board, according to data from the Russian Defence Ministry. A US Rockwell B-1 Lancer, a supersonic bomber equipped with 24 cruise missiles, has also been deployed at the Qatari Al Udeid Airbase.
On August 24th, RT had headlined "ISIS & Al-Nusra terrorists are hiding in Syrian refugee camp within US-controlled zone – Moscow", and reported that "Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and the Al-Qaeda proxy group Jabhat al-Nusra found quiet shelter in one of the biggest camps, Rukban, near the Syria-Jordan border. The same refugee camp was listed in a recent UN Security Council's Sanctions Monitoring Team report as one of the sources of IS reemergence. The same document reported that ISIS had been defeated in most of the Syrian Arab Republic during 2017, but ‘rallied in early 2018' due to ‘loss of momentum' by forces fighting in the east of Syria, where the US base is located."
The Wikipedia article on "Rukban" opens by saying that its population is 75,000, and that: "Rukban is an arid remote area near the extreme northeast of Jordan, close to the joint borders with Syria and Iraq. The area contains a refugee camp lying along the demilitarized berm between Jordan and Syria, a no man's land." That would be an ideal place for the U.S. and its allies to be assembling the materials for what will be alleged to be a chemical weapons attack ‘by the Assad regime'. Rukban is located in Jordan, a U.S. ally, and adjoining Syria, of which the U.S. has been an enemy ever since first failing in 1949 to turn Syria into a land controlled by the Saud family, as Obama and now Trump are again trying to do.
I had reported, on August 25th, the history of this sort of operation by the U.S. Government, going back to 1949, and mentioning recent faked ‘chemical attacks' set up by the U.S. Government working in conjuction with Al Qaeda in Syria. So: with that lengthy history as background, there exists very sound reason for Syria and its allies to be expecting now yet another invasion of Syiria by U.S.-and-allied missiles, to be ‘justified' on the basis of lies.
The latest of America's missile-invasions of Syria occurred back on 14 April 2018, allegedly in response to a Syrian Government ‘chemical weapons attack' in the city of Douma, which had allegedly occurred on April 7th. Russia tried to get the U.N. Security Council to announce that no invasion of Syria should occur until after the OPCW would enter Douma and collect samples and testimony to determine whether any such attack had actually occurred; and, if so, who had done it. The U.S. blocked that proposal, and invaded on the 14th. Despite that, the OPCW rushed in, to examine Douma, even after the invasion. On April 18th, America's jihadist allies in Douma shot at OPCW inspectors, who courageously continued their work, despite the U.S. Government's repeated efforts to stop it. The OPCW's findings have been kept secret, so that the public still doesn't know what the evidence about that April 7th matter actually showed. Also on April 18th, Turkey's newspaper Yeni Safak headlined "US to build Arab force in NE Syria as part of new ploy: The US is seeking to amass an Arab force in northeastern Syria comprised of funding and troops from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE." That effort by Trump failed; so, the only path forward for him on Syria now is a U.S. invasion, but this one will have to be much larger than the last one, which was done on April 14th, and in which UK and France also supplied a few of the 100+ missiles. Perhaps, if the U.S. does that, Russia will this time target and maybe destroy some U.S. planes and warships. Then, the question would be whether to go to all-out nuclear war, over the Syrian matter and, of course, over America's other excuses for its aggressions against Russia and its allies, such as America's 2014 conquest of Ukraine and turning that country over to nazis.
Perhaps these are the reasons why Russia is announcing clearly, ahead of time, that it won't simply acquiesce if the U.S. tries this faked accusation against Syria, yet again. Perhaps things won't be so easy, if there is a "next time" on this particular matter.
