Wednesday, April 09, 2014
Assad Is There to Stay
By Nicola Nasser*
Long gone the days when
the U.S.-led so-called “Friends of Syria” could plausibly claim that two thirds
of Syria was controlled by rebel forces, that Syrian capital Damascus was under
siege and its fall was just a matter of time and that the days of President
Bashar al-Assad were numbered and accordingly he “should step down.”
The war on Syria
The thinly veiled UN
legitimacy, which was used to justify the invasions of Iraq and Libya
The official Syrian Arab
Army (SAA), which was strategically organized and stationed to fight a regular
war in defence against the Israeli occupying power in the western south of the
country, was taken by surprise by an internationally and regionally coordinated
unconventional attack on its soft civilian backyard where it had zero presence.
Within a relatively
short period of time the SAA succeeded in containing the initial attack, in
adapting trained units to unconventional guerrilla war in cities and in winning
over the support of the civilian population, without acceding any ground of its
defence vis-à-vis Israel
Ever since, the SAA was
gaining more ground, liberating more civilian centers from insurgent
terrorists, closing more border crossing points used for infiltration of
foreign fighters into the country, cutting of their supply lines and besieging
pockets of their presence in inner old cities and in their isolated
concentrations in the countryside. The capital Damascus ,
more than 95% of the common borders with Lebanon
and the central heart of Syria
around Homs Raqqa ,
no where in Syria
The declared goal now of
the U.S., Saudi, Qatari and Turkish financial, military and logistical support
for the insurgents is no more the “regime change,” but creating a balance of
power aimed at improving their standing in future negotiations with the regime.
To do so, they claim they are extending their support to what they describe as
the “moderate” insurgents.
However, “moderate” rebels
are a rare species in Syrian insurgency. Entering its fourth year now, the war
on Syria
The fighting lines are
strictly drawn between homeland defence and foreign intervention, between national
forces and international terrorists and between an existing secular and civil
state and a future state perceived to be governed by an extremist or, at the
best, a moderate version of Islamist ideology supported by the most backward,
tribal and undemocratic regional states with similar sectarian ideologies.
During his testimony at
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on last September 3, U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry denied that the “moderate” Syrian rebels are infiltrated by the
al-Qaeda terrorists as “basically not true.”
The Syrian “opposition
has increasingly become more defined by its moderation, more defined by the
breadth of its membership, and more defined by its adherence to some, you know,
democratic process and to an all-inclusive, minority protecting constitution,
which will be broad-based and secular with respect to the future of Syria,”
Kerry testified.
However, hard facts on
the ground in Syria as well
as statements by other U.S.
Last March, General David
Rodriguez, head of the U.S. Africa Command, testified before the House Armed
Services Committee that “Syria
The previous month, James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, called Syria
Last January,
Clapper also told a Senate intelligence hearing that “training complexes” for
foreign fighters were spotted in Syria and chair of the Senate intelligence
committee Dianne Feinstein described Syria as “the most notable new security
threat in the year” since the committee’s last meeting.
Matthew Olsen, director of the U.S. government’s National
Counterterrorism Center ,
was on record to say that “Syria
Also on record was Jeh C.
Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security, who stated that the Syria war “has
become a matter of homeland security,” former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell
who identified Syria as “the greatest threat to U.S. national security,” FBI
Director until last September Robert Mueller who “warned that an increasing
flow of U.S. citizens heading to Syria and elsewhere to wage jihad against
regional powers could end up in a new generation of home-grown terrorists.”
All these and other high level U.S. conclusions do
not testify to the existence of “moderate” insurgents in Syria and vindicate
the official Syrian narration as much as they refute Kerry’s statement about
the “democratic,” “secular” and “moderate” Syrian “opposition.”
“Moderate” rebels are either
marginal or a rare species in Syrian insurgency and if they do exist they are
already increasingly concluding “reconciliation” agreements with the Syrian
government, according to which they disarm, join the government anti terror and
anti “strangers” military and security campaign or simply recurring to
attending to their personal lives.
The Americans and their
Saudi and Turkish bullies are left with the only option of artificially
creating artificial “moderates,” whom they unrealistically and wishfully dream
of turning into a credible leading force on the ground.
As part of his efforts
to mend fences with Saudi Arabia ,
a persistent advocate of war and militarization in Syria
Diplomatically, he
closed the Syrian embassy and consulates in the United States
Militarily, he promised
more arms to Syrian “moderate” rebels during his visit. After the visit he was
reportedly considering arming those “moderate” rebels with more advanced
weaponry, including anti-aircraft missiles or MANPADs.
While providing those
“moderates” with MANPADs is yet to be confirmed, Israel’s Debkafile
website on this April 7 reported that two moderate Syrian rebel militias - the
Free Syrian Army and the Syrian Revolutionary Front - have been supplied with
advanced US weapons, including armour-piercing, optically-guided BGM-71 TOW
missiles, which enter the Middle East for the first time. Images of rebels
equipped with these arms have begun to circulate in recent days. Both militias
are coordinating and cooperating with the al-Qaeda offshoot
the Islamic State in Iraq
and al-Sham (ISIS) and the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, both listed as
terrorist groups by the U.S. ,
Saudi Arabia Syria and Iraq
About Time for U.S.
Within this context, the
existing CIA-led program in Jordan for training pre-approved “moderates” will reportedly
be expanded to raise the number of trainees from one hundred to six hundred a
month.
At this rate, according
to Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Center in Qatar, writing
on this April 3, “it would take close to two years to produce a force” that
could numerically rival the extremist “Ahrar al-Sham” group and “it would take
seven years” to create a force that could rival the extremist “Islamic Front,”
let alone the mainstream groups of terrorist insurgents like the ISIS and the
al-Nusra.
Going ahead with such a
U.S.-Saudi training program in Jordan
is tantamount to planning an extended war on Syria
Moderate Syrian rebels
are a U.S. Turkey
It’s about time that the
U.S. policy makers reconsider,
deal with the facts on the ground in Syria
To contain this tidal
wave of change, Qatar , Saudi Arabia and Turkey U.S. Egypt Egypt
pre-empted for good any hope for its success in Syria
President Assad’s
statement on this April 7 that the “project of political Islam” has failed was
not overoptimistic or premature. Neither was the statement of his ally, the
leader of Lebanon
The U.S. campaign for more than three years now for
a “regime change” in Syria
Peaceful protesters were sidelined to oblivion.
More than three years of bloodshed left no room for moderates. “Regime change”
by force from outside the country, along the Iraqi and Libyan lines, has proved
a failure. U.S.
All world and regional indications as well as
military developments on the ground refer to one fact: Assad is there to stay.
Change will come only under his leadership or his guidance. Understanding with
him is the only way to internal and regional stability. More or less he has
succeeded in turning the “huge magnet” for international terrorists into their
killing field. His final victory is only a matter of time. Arming rebels,
“moderates” or terrorists regardless, will only perpetuate the Syrian people’s
plight and fuel regional anti-Americanism.
The sooner the United States
* Nicola Nasser is a
veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied
Palestinian territories. nassernicola@ymail.com
