Different Takes and Positions on Syria Attack

The most important nation in discourse over whether or not to attack Syria over the most recent use of chemical Weapons is the United States. The first item which would be expected to be clarified is to make all evidence made available validating the claims that it was actually the Syrian military that deployed the chemical weapons and that al-Assad gave the orders. Thus far President Obama and the spokespeople from within his administration have sounded in virtual unison forming a chorus of accusations blaming Syrian President Bashir al-Assad for giving the orders to use chemical weapons which murdered hundreds of civilians. Evidential proof has been lacking or at best thin with assurances that they have solid and unimpeachable evidence of al-Assad’s guilt in the matter of loosing weapons of mass destruction and the American people and the world are left to simply trust they are correct. What makes this somewhat puzzling is that those who are behind claiming that there has been use of WMDs on civilians in Syria are people who not so long ago had a completely different view on taking a President and his people’s guarantees on another country having possession and having used WMDs. The President was George W. Bush and the person presumably owning the WMDs in question was Saddam Hussein of Iraq. This was the same reasoning given for the invasion of Iraq by President Bush who also expected that his word would suffice. The Iraq War was the conflict of which John Kerry was for the war before he was against the war; Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel were simply against that war in Iraq; and Joe Biden supported the war in Iraq but changed his stance when he campaigned with President Obama claiming that he had made a serious mistake in supporting the Iraq War. Now we are supposed to simply take these same anti-war politicians when they last spoke of their positions regarding the Iraq War but are certain that there are WMDs in al-Assad’s arsenal and he has used them on his own people and we are told to simply trust them. The only thing missing is their blaming President George W. Bush for not attacking Iraq in time to prevent Saddam Hussein’s WMDs from being spirited out of Iraq and stored in Syria where they were the real reason that al-Assad was able to utilize these chemical weapons this past week; after all, isn’t just about everything George W. Bush’s fault?

 

Then there are the British who could be considered one of the instigators behind this entire emergency. This is the third time the British have claimed that al-Assad has deployed chemical weapons during the Syrian civil war and have been backed up in their intelligence reports by the French and the Israelis on at least two of these occasions. The British had already announced earlier this week that their resources in the Mediterranean theater were on standby and ready to assist the United States if they decide to move on the current intelligence of chemical weapons use in Syria. The British were also absolutely positive that Bashir al-Assad was the perpetrator of the release of chemical weapons on the Syrian people. Thus far the French have not announced their readiness to join any attack on Syrian targets which are used by the Syrian military presumably including the chemical weapons storage areas and other military targets which could be utilized in the deployment of chemical weapons in the future. In a straight forward description of targets one could just describe them as any military targets including airports, aircraft, artillery positions, and virtually any other military target. Initial reports claim that the United States already has a list of targets within Syria numbering one-hundred-fifty and includes everything mentioned above as well as command and control assets presumably as that is where the orders originate and if they are taken out new orders would be impossible to relay to the units. Then again, perhaps the Syrians might think to use the same technology the American troops which invaded Grenada resorted to using when they were faced with a small embarrassment, the different units from each branch of service were set to different frequencies and the Marines could not talk to the Army who could not talk to the Air Force who could not talk to the Navy, so resourceful Rangers made a collect phone call to an Air Force base in Florida to order up an airstrike. I am assuming they have telephones in Syria which is likely a safe bet.

 

Then there are the Israelis who have been put on notice by Bashir al-Assad and many of his ranking officers and other high officials that should the United States, British, French or any other Western power attack Syria then Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Hezballah will all attack Israel with everything they can muster. This threat will be their reaction whether Israel takes part in the attack or remains neutral. Since it has been made obvious that declaring themselves as neutral would be useless in protecting Israel from attack the Israelis went ahead and wasted their time and announced their intentions to leave Syria to their own civil war and not interfere in Syrian internal struggles. That is not to imply that Israel has had nothing to request about the entire situation that is developing over the Syrian use of chemical weapons on their own civilians. The Israelis actually asked the United States please advise them before they launch any attack. While Israel is not planning to assist any attack on Syria, with the standing threat that the Syrian response will be a general attack upon Israel by four nations and as many terrorists as they can muster, they probably would like the heads-up in order to at least be prepared for any eventuality. Unfortunately, for some reason I have a feeling that such a warning will not be forthcoming from President Obama. On the other hand, I would bet that the Israeli military monitoring capabilities would probably pick up any activity entering the Syrian theater, even if they were to do so from the Syrian Turkish border. This is even more likely as Turkey also accused Bashir al-Assad of using chemical weapons and has verified the British and French claims and has called for a military response.

 

I guess we need to conclude with our expectations and insights all of which are officially a poke in the dark guess. The first thing we would like to see presented before any retaliatory actions are initiated is the convincing evidence President Obama and his supporting cast claim to have in their position. The one truth which appears to be a certainty is that there was an actual deployment of chemical agent which killed hundreds of Syrian civilians. It is actually very probably this was the third time that chemical weapons have been loosed in the Syrian civil war. The ideal time to have addressed the chemical weapons stores in Syria would have been very early in the conflict with a precision attack or Special Forces intervention with either method having one dedicated target and otherwise avoiding any further interference which might have further effects on the status-quo. Once such an opportunity was missed and other nations took sides in the conflict there became complications which made any interference a risk of incurring a much larger conflict. That has become the threat which has been placed by those backing Bashir al-Assad when Russia, Iran, and China all issued warnings to President Obama not to interfere in any way in the Syrian internal conflict or face serious ramifications. Iran has agreed with the threat made by al-Assad that should there be an attack on the Syrian military or any of its resources then Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Hezballah at a minimum will ally with Syria in mounting an attack on Israel as their reply. Syria has also claimed that there are some surprises in store for any American forces or those of their allies should they attack Syria which will defend their nation with everything at their disposal. The most unfortunate reality which may be possible is that President Obama decides that a Syrian reply with all of her Middle Eastern allies against Israel is something which he is willing to risk and actually could not really care one way or the other. This lack of concern over any threat to Israel might also allow President Obama to disregard the Israeli request to be notified before the Americans or anybody attacks Syria, even if it is just minutes before the forces cross into Syria. Such disregard and disrespect shown an ally would normally be unthinkable but then President Obama has a standing record for unthinkable treatments concerning Israel. The worst possible result would be the Russians and/or Chinese enter into the conflict in support of Syria responding to an attack by the United States or any Western nation. The one sliver of good news was that the United States appears to have put off any attack until Thursday which may give them time to find some way around actually attacking Syria. The one suspicion which needs to be completely ruled out before any attack is launched against Bashir al-Assad is to know for a great degree of certainty that it was actually the Syrian military and not the rebel forces which deployed the chemical weapons. Exactly how such a level of assurance is possible to accomplish may be difficult but it is also one certainty which should be met before taking such a drastic measure as an attack. My prayers are going to be that President Obama backs down as even should he act it would not make him any more credible at this point in his tenure. In the meantime, I will have a very nervous week and am hoping that I am able to go to Rosh Hashanah services and praying for the war to end, be the war be in between Israel and the combined forces of Syria and her allies or an even worse case of a general war between the United States and whoever decides to ally with Iran and Syria in a general war which could become the worst conflagration in world history.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Is Netanyahu About to Pull an Ariel Sharon?

Since the very first day after Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu accepted as the first party into his current coalition the Hatnuah Party and placed its leader Tzipi Livni as the new government’s Minister of Justice and placed Ms. Livni as the lead negotiator of the Israeli negotiations team with the Palestinians, I have had a creeping suspicion that Netanyahu was going to fall on his sword in order to satisfy President Obama and allow anything to be bargained away if it produced a treaty. What made things even worse, Netanyahu announced that she would have complete freedom and full latitude to do whatever she believed was necessary to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians in the model of the two state solution. The presumed safety catch that would limit anything that Minister of the Knesset Livni may eventually give away was presumably that there would have to be a Knesset vote to ratify any potential treaty and then if particular lands given away met the criteria, then there would also be a referendum of the Israeli people to decide whether or not any treaty would be accepted and ratified. But even here there are some suspicions and recent events and announcements have only served to deepen my qualms that all is not well in Jerusalem.

 

Before we theorize on the future and what we believe are the signs we will need to be on the lookout for and where such paths lead, perhaps we should review some of the most pertinent facts from the Gaza disengagement fiasco and what the steps were the last time such events transpired. The first item was that the President of the United States was George W. Bush who was perceived to be a good friend of Israel and one who, while not perfect, at least was not going out of his way to destroy and compromise Israel. The Secretary of State was Condoleezza Rice, who despite her misconceptions and misgivings such as believing the Palestinians were being persecuted in a similar manner to the Black Americans during the Jim Crow era; despite her idiosyncrasies, Secretary Rice honestly thought she was working towards a good end and really pursued peace and a better future for all, both the Palestinians and the Israelis; and despite their intents, the Bush Administration fell into a number of traps which doomed their efforts we can claim with some assurance as to its validity that they had honest and good intentions. Their first misstep was their decision to force Prime Minister Ariel Sharon into disengaging all Israeli presence from the Gaza Strip and turning it over to Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians presumably so that the Palestinian leadership could demonstrate their abilities to rule and manage their own areas and live at peace alongside the Israelis. The thought was that once the Palestinian leadership had proved to administrate the Gaza Strip while preventing any terrorist attacks on Israelis or their territories, then the final formation of a Palestinian State could proceed without any further problems.

 

The next set of problems followed rapidly one on top of the next. President Bush gave Prime Minister Sharon guarantees that after Israel had released their control over the border areas between Egypt and Gaza, also known as the Philadelphia Corridor, that the European Union monitors and real-time remote video monitoring by Israeli security experts would prevent the movement of weaponry into Gaza as well as monitoring the passage of people interdicting any suspected terrorists. Soon thereafter it was time for the Palestinian government to hold elections. Big mistake number two was cued up as Secretary of State Rice insisted, with the backing of President Bush, that all factions be permitted to field candidates for the Palestinian Parliament, of course including Hamas. Despite warnings from Israel, Mahmoud Abbas, and numerous Middle East experts who warned that allowing Hamas to field candidates would guarantee that Hamas would take the majority of the seats and rise to unseat Fatah as the majority in the Palestinian Authority, the elections were held allowing Hamas candidates who won a majority of the seats as the Palestinians voted for anybody but Fatah as they perceived that Hamas would not commit fraud anywhere near the levels which had been rampant to date in the Palestinian Authority. The Hamas victory scared the living daylights out of Abbas who feeling certain that Hamas would also replace him as President and Chairman of the Palestinian Authority forcing him to cancel elections for these offices in order to preserve his positions. The Americans saw no problem with this as the overwhelming Hamas sweep in the Palestinian parliamentary elections had shaken their trust that they understood the Palestinian’s moods and proclivities. Soon the worst of the disasters that followed one after another came to fruition as Hamas executed a violent coup and took complete control over the Gaza Strip forcing Fatah and their portion of the Palestinian Authority from Gaza to Judea and Samaria, the West Bank. With Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip, the European Union monitors made a quick retreat from their posts back to their hotels in Israel never to return to their posts after which the Hamas personnel who took control of the Rafah Crossing destroyed the video monitoring equipment. This forced Israel to rely on the good graces of Egypt to monitor the Egypt-Gaza interchange which fortunately was more successful than one might have originally expected. As it turned out, the Egyptians had issues with Hamas as Hamas was directly tied to the Muslim Brotherhood which gave Egyptian President Mubarak reasons to be suspicious and to actually monitor the border.

 

Today the President of the United States Barack Obama is considered not exactly a trusted friend to Israel and some of the members of his Administration are equally not to be trusted by Israel. Some of those who cause both politicians and residents in Israel the most qualms would include Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power and some might add Vice President Biden though his record is not as adverse as others are. As anyone who has been watching the news out of Israel and the Palestinian areas has noted, the negotiations have been reinstated but at considerable cost to the Israelis who were cajoled and pressed into releasing over the period of the negotiations up to one-hundred-four terrorists who were serving life sentences, some multiple life sentences, and had much Israeli blood on their hands in order to entice and give proper cover for Mahmoud Abbas to agree to negotiate. Of course Israel only received the privilege of holding talks for their unprecedented concessions. Even with such a sacrifice by the Israelis in releasing many terrorists whom they had refused to release numerous times before, this momentous gesture was challenged by the Palestinian leadership who demanded even more. They demanded that the borders for their state be debated from the standpoint that they were to be assumed to be starting on the 1949 Armistice Lines and included every inch of the contested areas of Judea and Samaria plus they insisted they include all of Eastern Jerusalem including all of the Old City and Temple Mount. Israel refused to grant such a request but it has been leaked that Secretary of State Kerry assured Abbas that he would steer any discussion over borders in a direction that would meet his demand. Then, almost immediately after the first meeting when the Israelis announced their intention to build housing in parts of Jerusalem and the surrounding Israeli towns which the Palestinians claim is on their lands the Palestinians threatened to terminate the negotiations unless the Israelis instituted a building freeze immediately and were prevented from realizing such plans. This fortunately blew up in their faces as Secretary Kerry, to his credit, announced that the Palestinians had been offered a building freeze but had chosen the prisoner release instead and that they had been informed that such an announcement of the building was coming within the near future and they had not objected at that time. This squelched their threat to end the negotiations.

 

The negotiations are supposed to be held in complete silence with nothing to be released to the press or announced in any other manner. Thus far that criterion has unfortunately held. The first sign that trouble is on the horizon came this week when Shelly Yachimovich announced that the Labor Party is ready, willing and very able if not anxious to replace Bayit Yehudi and Naftali Bennett in order to assure that any treaty will be enacted without any difficulties. Here are some of the signs that we need to look for in the coming months of this presumably nine-month series of negotiations which are to produce a workable treaty. There will be meetings out of which there will be no announcements or release to the press held by Prime Minister Netanyahu with his inner cabinet, the same people who voted to allow the release of the hundred plus terrorists. Lead negotiator Tzipi Livni will be noticeable at each of these meetings and may even appear to have a spring in her step and a bright smile that refuses to droop. Eventually there will be disagreements which at some point will lead to a rearrangement of the makeup of the coalition. We will begin to hear rumors that Naftali Bennett and his Bayit Yehudi are being marginalized and may soon be replaced in the coalition. At the same time it is possible that Yair Lapid and the Yesh Atid Party may also be mentioned as inhibiting certain objectives and may join Bennett in being replaced in the coalition. The new coalition will replace these two Zionist parties with Shas and Labor both of whom will willingly and enthusiastically approve virtually any peace agreement hammered out by Tzipi Livni and Saeb Erekat.

 

Many people would claim that this would not make any difference as any peace treaty if it requires surrender of any sizeable amount of territories must face a referendum of the people and the Israelis would never allow Jerusalem to be divided or for all of the lands beyond the Green Line to be forfeited to the Palestinians. The problem here is the wording as I have been led to understand is rather vague on which lands being forfeit would require a referendum by the people. The last item which will signal an imminent disaster will be the start of a debate in the United States over providing peacekeeping troops to be placed in the new Palestinian State to prevent terrorist attacks and keep everything quiet between the new Palestinian State and Israel. Needless to point out that the American peacekeepers will provide little protection and instead simply provide the terrorists a plethora of targets until they are pulled due to overwhelming demands by the Americans themselves as their ire is raised over mounting casualties. Once we get to the point that there are debates in the United States over providing peacekeepers the only salvation which Israelis may pray for is either the American public raising a holy eruption of indignation that prevents President Obama from following through with his promise to provide peacekeepers or for Heavenly intervention. My prayers will be for Heavenly intervention.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Fall Upends Obama Middle East Aims

It has been reported by the <a href=http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/03/29/obama-promoted-egypt-iran-turkey-alliance-in-tense-israel-meeting/>World Tribune</a> website the absolutely shocking and controversial content of President Obama rendition of the future for the Middle East which the United States as their policy goals for his second term in the White House. The Israelis did not respond in any manner and allowed President Obama to enthusiastically reveal every detail of his vision for solving all the problems in the Middle East simply by building an alliance under a triumvirate of shared absolute power by Shiite Iran teamed with Sunni Egypt and Turkey. It was in the pursuit of this end that President Obama pressured to the point of threatening Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu into apologizing and committing to a complete capitulation to Turkey over the Mavi Marmara terror incident when a Turkish backed flotilla attempted to run the Gaza blockade. When the prearranged ambush was sprung on the IDF soldiers, who boarded the ship armed with paintball guns loaded with pepper spray balls, beating them with metal rods, large knives and other bludgeoning weapons (some reports included gunshots coming from the ship’s attackers before the IDF soldiers responded) as well as taking one soldier below decks and throwing two other IDF soldiers overboard, the IDF soldiers resorted to live fire, as they feared for their lives, killing nine of their attackers. This exchange was the cause of Turkish President Erdogan breaking off relations with Israel and demanding a formal apology and paid retribution for the families of the slain attackers aboard the Mavi Marmara. It was said that the Israelis were in a state of shock but heeded their instruction not to question or comment on anything presented by the American leader.

The plan which has President Obama so enthusiastically engaged calls for the strengthening of Iran, Turkey and Egypt, the Egyptian strengthening has begun with the shipment of F-16 fighter jets to be delivered during this year, and having these three strengthened Muslim nation cooperate and through such cooperation form a single Muslim federation. President Obama claims that such an arrangement would relieve any troubles that might have developed due to the Iranian drive to attain nuclear weapons. President Obama informed the Israeli leaders that once his plan was executed that with Iran now allied with Turkey and Egypt the threat of a nuclear arms race between the various Muslim and Arab nations would no longer be a threat so nobody would need fear a nuclear armed Iran in this scenario. I am sure that this calmed the Israelis being informed that allying Iran with Egypt and Turkey would remove any threat of Iran nuclear weapons being used against the other Arab and Muslim nations and that there would be no adverse results to a nuclear armed Iran as long as the three nations were responsible to each other. President Obama apparently believes that Iran would refrain from attacking Israel with nuclear weapons because Turkey and Egypt would object and prevent such actions. Yes, sure they wouldn’t.

Another nation that is most conspicuous by their absence from President Obama’s new Middle East scheme is Saudi Arabia. The implication was that Saudi Arabia along with Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, Qatar and the rest of the nations of the Arabian Peninsula would be under Iranian control making the land to be renamed the Persian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. The betrayal of Saudi Arabia and all of the other member nations of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) as a sacrifice given for the honoring of Iran and to reward them for joining President Obama and his plan super Caliphate where the Iranian Shiites along with the Turkish Sunnis and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Sunnis all lie down together in harmony and bliss for the good of the Muslim World with President Obama as the great facilitator. This is where the little upheaval in Egypt becomes far more than an inconvenience as for President Obama to make his plan work must have the Islamists in control of each of his three chosen nations, and the Muslim Brotherhood just lost Egypt. Of course this dream Islamist coalition shoves aside the centuries of Sunni-Shiite hatreds in the immediate timeframe in order to unite the adversaries into an irresistible unified force for Islam and return to the glorious Caliphate such as was the Ottoman Empire at its height. What President Obama has caught on to as the solution to all the world’s ills, especially the Muslim World, is the simple walking back the results of World War I, the repealing step-by-step the entirety of the Treaty of Versailles and the Mandate System as they pertain to the world of Islam. No more separate Arab and Muslim nations or any other arbitrary lines and chosen potentates which were put in place just to serve the colonialist European powers, those decrepit and corrupt enslavers of all who were different than they. This is President Obama’s vision, the end of the ill effects of colonialism on the Muslim World and by ridding the Muslim World of this European imposed crippling systems and divisions, the Muslim World will be returned to its golden age.

There are a few major items which might cause this stratagem to fail and fail in a splendid and admirable fashion, a failure unequalled in all of human history, rivaling the Tower of Babel and other epic failures. The most glaring is that the Shiites and Sunnis only know one method for burying the hatchet, and that is to bury it as deeply as possible in the other’s skull which tends to settle any argument. Another problem for President Obama is to get Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to agree to share power and make compromises even with the Muslim Brotherhood approved leader of Egypt, assuming that President Obama can manage to reinstate the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt, no easy task all things considered, let alone the Shiite Grand Ayatollah in Iran. Further problems might arise as I seriously doubt that Saudi Arabia (especially the Royal Family and the Wahhabis), Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman or Bahrain would be enthusiastic about being handed to Iran no matter what the reasons. Looking at just the countries which have experienced governmental changes as a result of the Arab Spring one will be witness to a collection of train wrecks where the whole idea was for elected governments to be in place and improvements in every aspect of society with the most advancement coming financially and in personal rights and freedoms. Instead we see a state of affairs better described as having entered an Arab Winter with Libya, Yemen and Syria still experiencing internecine violence as the different factions and tribes struggle for preeminence and control where those interests vary including tribal groups, al-Qaeda and Hezballah fighters, the Muslim Brotherhood forces, State Militaries, and Mujahedeen fighters from throughout the Muslim World and the four corners of the Earth. And last but not least, little Israel would definitely fight to the last soul against any attempts to remove the Jews from their homeland as they have just started to get it together and hit high gear towards rebuilding their society and gathering in their lost children from every corner of the globe.

President Obama may be enthusiastic and all excited, one might even say all atwitter, over the concept of redrawing the Middle East and the rest of the Arab and Muslim Worlds to suit some grant strategy to reconstruct and usher in a second Golden Age of Islam. The idea that the borders between countries, even those borders as artificial as those drawn mostly by the French and the British, can be erased with a few words and there would not be any resistance to turning everything everybody has known in their lives upside-down is foolish and not something worthy of the man who is the leader of the United States. There should be somebody within the Administration to advise the President that his plan is simply not possible. But then we need to remember who the real people are who make up President Obama’s inner circle of advisers. Recognizing that we are counting on Secretary of State John Kerry, Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, and Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett, among others, to give sagely, well thought out, wise and experienced advice to President Obama reveals the crux of the deficiencies surrounding the President. The problem is that each of these high Administration officials have little if any experience in foreign affairs and other than John Kerry and Chuck Hagel the rest of these Presidential Advisors have spent the better part of their lives as agitators for social justice and social transformation and would be more at home designing government mandated single payer healthcare regulations than advising on anything to do with international affairs. And the fact that one has to resort to Chuck Hagel and John Kerry for astute, intricate and nuanced advice should be sufficient to send shiver down one’s spine and a cold chill throughout one’s body filling them with a strong sense of anxiety and trepidation. I can assure you it does so for me.

Beyond the Cusp