A Mediterranean Battlefield - Syria

[David Guyatt]

More on the US strategy to wage war in Syria - albeit from the Iranian perspective.

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IRAN PULSE

نبض ایران

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[FONT=ArchivoNarrow]Syria's President Bashar al-Assad (center R) meets Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani (center L), Iran's Supreme National Security Council Director, in Damascus, Sept. 30, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/SANA)

Tehran drags Moscow deeper into Syria

[COLOR=#4D4D4D]For Iran, the ongoing war in Syria is no longer a matter of regional security. The conflict now has direct effects and implications for Iran's national security. This perspective is clear in the daily statements coming from Tehran, from the images of slain Iranian soldiers and high-ranking officers laid to rest in the Iranian capital and most recently the appointment of Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, as military and security coordinator of the joint cooperation group on Syria with Moscow and Damascus.Summary⎙ Print The war in Syria is hitting Iran ever closer to home, prompting Tehran to push for closer coordination with Russia, even as leaders on both sides complain of a lack of confidence and tactical misalignments.
Author Ali HashemPosted June 20, 2016
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[Jan van den Baard]

https://intelnews.org/2016/06/21/01-1922/

[Tobias Zackrisson]

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BOS/HRV/SRPSHQIP27 JUL 16

Making a Killing: The 1.2 Billion Euro Arms Pipeline to Middle East

An unprecedented flow of weapons from Central and Eastern Europe is flooding the battlefields of the Middle East.
[FONT=&amp]Lawrence Marzouk, Ivan Angelovski and Miranda Patrucic[/FONT] [FONT=&amp]BIRN[/FONT] [FONT=&amp]Belgrade, London, Sarajevo[/FONT]

As Belgrade slept on the night of November 28, 2015, the giant turbofan engines of a Belarusian Ruby Star Ilyushin II-76 cargo plane roared into life, its hull laden with arms destined for faraway conflicts.
Rising from the tarmac of Nikola Tesla airport, the hulking aircraft pierced the Serbian mist to head towards Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
It was one of at least 68 flights that in just 13 months transported weapons and ammunition to Middle Eastern states and Turkey which, in turn, funnelled arms into brutal civil wars in Syria and Yemen, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, OCCRP, has found. The flights form just a small part of €1.2 billion in arms deals between the countries since 2012, when parts of the Arab Spring turned into an armed conflict.

Belgrade Airport | BIRN
Meanwhile, over the past two years, as thousands of tonnes of weapons fly south, hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled north from the conflicts that have killed more than 400,000 people. But while Balkan and European countries have shut down the refugee route, the billion-euro pipeline sending arms by plane and ship to the Middle East remains open and very lucrative.
It is a trade that is almost certainly illegal, according to arms and human rights experts.
"The evidence points towards systematic diversion of weapons to armed groups accused of committing serious human rights violations. If this is the case, the transfers are illegal under the ATT (United Nations' Arms Trade Treaty) and other international law and should cease immediately," said Patrick Wilcken, an arms-control researcher at Amnesty International who reviewed the evidence collected by reporters.
But with hundreds of millions of euros at stake and weapons factories working overtime, countries have a strong incentive to let the business flourish. Arms export licences, which are supposed to guarantee the final destination of the goods, have been granted despite ample evidence that weapons are being diverted to Syrian and other armed groups accused of widespread human rights abuses and atrocities.

Robert Stephen Ford, US ambassador to Syria between 2011 and 2014, told BIRN and the OCCRP that the trade is coordinated by the US Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Turkey and Gulf states through centres in Jordan and Turkey, although in practice weapon supplies often bypass this process.
BIRN and the OCCRP examined arms export data, UN reports, flight records, and weapons contracts during a year-long investigation that reveals how thousands of assault rifles, mortar shells, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons, and heavy machine guns are pouring into the troubled region, originating from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia.
Since the escalation of the Syrian conflict in 2012, these eight countries have approved the shipment of weapons and ammunition worth at least 1.2 billion euros to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, and Turkey.

The figure is likely much higher. Data on arms export licences for four out of eight countries were not available for 2015 and seven out of eight countries for 2016. The four recipient countries are key arms suppliers to Syria and Yemen with little or no history of buying from Central and Eastern Europe prior to 2012. And the pace of the transfers is not slowing, with some of the biggest deals approved in 2015.
Eastern and Central European weapons and ammunition, identified in more than 50 videos and photos posted on social media, are now in use by Western-backed Free Syrian Army units, but also in the hands of fighters of Islamist groups such as Ansar al-Sham, Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIS, in Syria, factions fighting for Syrian President Bashar-al Assad and Sunni forces in Yemen.

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On April 7, 2016, twitter User @bm27_uragan, who monitors the spread of weapons in the Syrian conflict, posted a video apparently of Free Syrian Army rebel using Serbian made Coyote M02 heavy machine gun in Southern Aleppo in Syria. The Coyote M02 has been independently identified as a Coyote M02.

Markings on some of the weapons identifying the origin and date of production reveal significant quantities have come off production lines as recently as 2015.
Out of the 1.2 billion euros in weapons and ammunition approved for export, about 500 million euros have been delivered, according to UN trade information and national arms export reports.
The frequency and number of cargo flights BIRN and the OCCRP identified at least 68 in just over one year reveal a steady flow of weapons from Central and Eastern Europe airports to military bases in Middle East.
The most commonly used aircraft - the Ilyushin II-76 - can carry up to 50 tonnes of cargo or approximately 16,000 AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles or three million bullets. Others, including the Boeing 747, are capable of hauling at least twice that amount.
But arms and ammunitions are not only coming by air. Reporters also have identified at least three shipments made by the US military from Black Sea ports carrying an estimated 4,700 tonnes of weapons and ammunition to the Red Sea and Turkey since December 2015.
One Swedish member of the EU parliament calls the trade shameful.
"Maybe they [Bulgaria, Slovakia and Croatia] do not feel ashamed at all but I think they should," said Bodil Valero, who also served as the rapporteur for the EU's last arms report."Countries selling arms to Saudi Arabia or the Middle East-North Africa region are not carrying out good risk assessments and, as a result, are in breach of EU and national law.".
OCCRP and BIRN talked to government representatives in Croatia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovakia who all responded similarly saying that they are meeting their international obligations. Some cited that Saudi Arabia is not on any international weapons black lists and other said their countries are not responsible if weapons have been diverted.
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[TD]A question of legality
The global arms trade is regulated by three layers of interconnected legislation -- national, European Union, EU, and international but there are no formal mechanisms to punish those who break the law.
Beyond the blanket ban on exports to embargoed countries, each licence request is dealt with individually.
In the case of Syria, there are currently no sanctions on supplying weapons to the opposition.
As a result, the lawfulness of the export approval hinges on whether countries have carried out due diligence on a range of issues, including the likelihood of the arms being diverted and the impact the export will have on peace and stability.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia are signatories of the UN's Arms Trade Treaty, which entered into force in December 2014, and lists measures to prevent the illicit trade and diversion of arms.
Member states of the EU are also governed by the legally-binding 2008 Common Position on arms exports, requiring each country to take into account eight criteria when accessing arms exports licence applications, including whether the country respects international human rights, the preservation of "regional peace, security and stability" and the risk of diversion.
As part of their efforts to join the EU, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro have already accepted the measures and have amended their national law. Serbia is in the process of doing so.
Weapons exports are initially assessed based on an end-user certificate, a key document issued by the government of the importing country which guarantees who will use the weapons and that the arms are not intended for re-export.
Authorities in Central and Eastern Europe told BIRN and the OCCRP that they also inserted a clause which requires the buyer to seek approval if they later want to export the goods.
Beyond these initial checks, countries are required to carry out a range of other risk assessments based on national and EU law and the ATT, although conversations with, and statements from, authorities revealed little evidence of that.
OCCRP and BIRN talked to government representatives in Croatia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovakia who all responded similarly saying that they are meeting their international obligations. Some cited that Saudi Arabia is not on any international weapons black lists and other said their countries are not responsible if weapons have been diverted. The three other countries did not respond to requests for comment.
The Czech Foreign Ministry was the only public body to directly address concerns about human rights abuses and diversions, saying it took into account both when weighing up an export licence and had blocked transfers on that basis.
How legal are these arms sales to the Middle East? Find out more here[/TD]
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Saudi Arabia The weapons king
The Central and Eastern European weapons supply line can be traced to the winter of 2012, when dozens of cargo planes, loaded with Saudi-purchased Yugoslav-era weapons and ammunition, began leaving Zagreb bound for Jordan. Soon after, the first footage of Croatian weapons in use emerged from the battleground of Syria.

According to a New York Times report from February 2013, a senior Croatian official offered the country's stockpiles of old weapons for Syria during a visit to Washington in the summer of 2012. Zagreb was later put in touch with the Saudis, who bankrolled the purchases, while the CIA helped with logistics for an airlift that began late that year.
While Croatia's government has consistently denied any role in shipping weapons to Syria, former US ambassador to Syria Ford confirmed to BIRN and the OCCRP the New York Times account from an anonymous source of how the deal was hatched. He said he was not at liberty to discuss it further.
This was just the beginning of an unprecedented flow of weapons from Central and Eastern Europe into the Middle East, as the pipeline expanded to include stocks from seven other countries. Local arms dealers sourced arms and ammunition from their home countries and brokered the sale of ammunition from Ukraine and Belarus, and even attempted to secure Soviet-made anti-tank systems bought from the UK, as a Europe-wide arms bazaar ensued.
Prior to the Arab Spring in 2011, the arms trade between Eastern Europe and Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, UAE, and Turkey four key supporters of Syria's fractured opposition was negligible to non-existent, according to analysis of export data.
But that changed in 2012. Between that year and 2016, eight Eastern European countries approved at least 806 million euros worth of weapons and ammunition exports to Saudi Arabia, according to national and EU arms export reports as well as government sources.
Jordan secured export licences worth 155 million euros starting in 2012, while the UAE netted 135 million euros and Turkey 87 million euros, bringing the total to 1.2 billion euros.
Qatar, another key supplier of equipment to the Syrian opposition, does not show up in export licences from Central and Eastern Europe.
Jeremy Binnie, Middle East arms expert for Jane's Defence Weekly, a publication widely regarded as the most trusted source of defence and security information, said the bulk of the weapon exports from Eastern Europe would likely be destined for Syria and, to a lesser extent, Yemen and Libya.
"With a few exceptions, the militaries of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE and Turkey use Western infantry weapons and ammunition, rather than Soviet-designed counterparts," said Binnie. "It consequently seems likely that large shipments of such materiel being acquired by or sent to those countries are destined for their allies in Syria, Yemen, and Libya."
BIRN and the OCCRP obtained confidential documents from Serbia's Ministry of Defence and minutes from a series of inter-ministerial meetings in 2013. The documents show the ministry raised concerns that deliveries to Saudi Arabia would be diverted to Syria, pointing out that the Saudis do not use Central and Eastern European stock and have a history of supplying the Syrian opposition. The Ministry turned down the Saudi request only to reverse course more than one year later and approve new arms shipments citing national interest. Saudi security forces, while mostly armed by Western producers, are known to use limited amounts of Central and Eastern European equipment. This includes Czech-produced military trucks and some Romanian-made assault rifles. But even arms exports destined for use by Saudi forces are proving controversial, given their involvement in the conflict in Yemen.
The Netherlands became the first EU country to halt arms exports to Saudi Arabia as a result of civilian deaths in Yemen's civil war, and the European Parliament has called for an EU-wide arms embargo.
Supply Logistics: Cargo flights and airdrops
Weapons from Central and Eastern Europe are delivered to the Middle East by cargo flights and ships. By identifying the planes and ships delivering weapons, reporters were able to track the flow of arms in real time.
Detailed analysis of airport timetables, cargo carrier history, flight tracking data, and air traffic control sources helped pinpoint 68 flights that carried weapons to Middle Eastern conflicts in the past 13 months. Belgrade, Sofia and Bratislava emerged as the main hubs for the airlift.

Most frequent were flights operated from Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The flights were either confirmed as carrying weapons, were headed to military bases in Saudi Arabia or the UAE or were carried out by regular arms shippers.
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[TD]The Middle East Airlift
At least 68 cargo flights from Serbia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have carried thousands of tons of munitions in the past 13 months to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan, three key suppliers of the Syrian rebels.
These were identified through detailed analysis of airport timetables, cargo carrier history, flight tracking data, leaked arms contracts, end user certificates, and air traffic control sources.
Cargo flights from Central and Eastern Europe to the Middle East, and particularly military bases, were extremely uncommon before late 2012, when the upsurge in weapons and ammunition purchases began, according to EU flight data and interviews with plane-spotters.
The most commonly used aircraft - the Ilyushin II-76 - can carry up to 50 tonnes of cargo or approximately 16,000 AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles or three million bullets. Others, including the Boeing 747, are capable of hauling at least twice that amount.
Of the 68 flights identified, 50 were officially confirmed to have carried arms and ammunition:

• Serbia's Civil Aviation Directorate confirmed that 49 flights departing or passing through Serbia were carrying arms and ammunition from June 1, 2015 to July 4, 2016. The confirmation came following weeks of refusal to comment on grounds of confidentiality and after BIRN and the OCCRP presented its evidence, including photographs showing military boxes being loaded onto planes at Belgrade's Nikola Tesla Airport on four different occasions.
  
• An official at the Bulgarian National Customs Agency confirmed one flight, operated by Belarussian cargo carrier Ruby Star Airways, was carrying arms from the remote Bulgarian Gorna Oryahovitsa Airport to BrnoTurany Airport, the Czech Republic, and on to Aqaba, Jordan.
  
• An additional 18 flights were identified as very likely to have been carrying arms and ammunition based on one of three variables: the air freight company's history of weapons supplies; connections to earlier arms flights; or a destination of a military airport:
  • Ten flights were made to Prince Sultan Air Base in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia and Al Dhafra Air Base in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, indicating the likely presence of weapons or ammunition. Additionally, 14 flights to Prince Sultan and Al Dhafra air bases are confirmed as having carried weapons during the same period by Serbia's Civil Aviation Directorate.
    
  • Seven flights were operated from Slovakia and Bulgaria by Jordan International Air Cargo, part of the Royal Jordanian Air Force, which were revealed to have carried weapons and ammunition from Croatia to Jordan in the winter of 2012. Bulgarian retired colonel and counter-terrorism expert Slavcho Velkov, who maintains extensive contacts with the military, told BIRN and the OCCRP that the Sofia-Amman flights "were transporting weapons to Saudi Arabia, mostly for the Syrian conflict." Additionally, one other flight operated by this airline is confirmed as having carried weapons during the same period by Serbia's Civil Aviation Directorate.
    
  • One flight was operated by a Belarussian cargo carrier TransAVIAexport Airlines, which has a long history of transporting weapons. In 2014, the airline was hired by Serbian arms dealer Slobodan Tesic to transport Serbian and Belarussian weapons and ammunition to air bases in Libya controlled by various militant groups. The United Nations, UN, Sanctions Committee investigated the case and found potential breaches of UN sanctions, according to a 2015 UN report. Additionally, five flights operated by this airline are confirmed as having carried weapons during the same period by Serbia's Civil Aviation Directorate.
    

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Many of these flights made an additional stop in Central and Eastern Europe meaning they were likely picking up more weapons and ammunition - before flying to their final destination.
EU flight statistics provide further evidence of the scale of the operation. They reveal that planes flying from Bulgaria and Slovakia have delivered 2,268 tons of cargo equal to 44 flights with the most commonly used aircraft - the Ilyushin II-76 since the summer of 2014 to the same military bases in Saudi Arabia and UAE pinpointed by BIRN and OCCRP.Distributing the weapons
Arms bought for Syria by the Saudis, Turks, Jordanians and the UAE are then routed through two secret command facilities called Military Operation Centers (MOC) in Jordan and Turkey, according to Ford, the former US ambassador to Syria.
These units staffed by security and military officials from the Gulf, Turkey, Jordan and the US coordinate the distribution of weapons to vetted Syrian opposition groups, according to information from the Atlanta-based Carter Center, a think tank that has a unit monitoring the conflict.
"Each of the countries involved in helping the armed opposition retained final decision-making authority about which groups in Syria received assistance," Ford said.
A cache of leaked cargo carrier documents provides further clues to how the Saudi military supplies Syrian rebels.
According to the documents obtained by BIRN and the OCCRP, the Moldovan company AeroTransCargo made six flights in the summer of 2015 carrying at least 250 tonnes of ammunition between military bases in Saudi Arabia and Esenboga International Airport in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, reportedly an arrival point for weapons and ammunition for Syrian rebels.
Pieter Wezeman, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a leading organisation in tracking arms exports, said he suspects the flights are part of the logistical operation to supply ammunition to Syrian rebels.
From the MOCs, weapons are then transported by road to the Syrian border or airdropped by military planes.
A Free Syrian Army commander from Aleppo, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his safety, told BIRN and OCCRP that weapons from Central and Eastern Europe were distributed from centrally controlled headquarters in Syria. "We don't care about the county of origin, we just know it is from Eastern Europe," he said.
The Saudis and Turks also provided weapons directly to Islamist groups not supported by the US and who have sometimes ended up fighting MOC-backed factions, Ford added.
The Saudis are also known to have airdropped arms and equipment, including what appeared to be Serbian-made assault rifles to its allies in Yemen.
Ford said that while he was not personally involved in negotiations with Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania over the supply of weapons to Syria, he believes that the CIA is likely to have played a role.
"For operations of this type it would be difficult for me to imagine that there wasn't some coordination between the intelligence services, but it may have been confined strictly to intelligence channels," he said.
The US may not have just played a role in the logistics behind delivering Gulf-sponsored weapons from Eastern Europe to the Syrian rebels. Through its Department of Defense's Special Operations Command (SOCOM), it has also bought and delivered vast quantities of military materiel from Eastern Europe for the Syrian opposition as part of a US$500 million train and equip programme.
Since December 2015, SOCOM has commissioned three cargo ships to transport 4,700 tons of arms and ammunition from ports of Constanta in Romania and Burgas in Bulgaria to the Middle East likely as part of the covert supply of weapons to Syria.
The shipments included heavy machine guns, rocket launchers and anti-tank weapons as well as bullets, mortars, grenades, rockets and explosives, according to US procurement documents.
The origin of arms shipped by SOCOM is unknown and the material listed in transport documents is available from stockpiles across Central and Eastern Europe.
Not long after one of the deliveries, SOCOM supported Kurdish groups published an image on Twitter and Facebook showing a warehouse piled with US-brokered ammunition boxes in northern Syria SOCOM would not confirm or deny that the shipments were bound for Syria.
US procurement records also reveal that SOCOM secured from 2014 to 2016 at least 25 million euros (27 million dollars) worth of Bulgarian and 11 million euros (12 million dollars) in Serbian weapons and ammunition for covert operations and Syrian rebels..
A Booming Business
Arms control researcher Wilcken said Central and Eastern Europe had been well positioned to cash in on the huge surge in demand for weapons following the Arab Spring.
"Geographical proximity and lax export controls have put some Balkan states in pole position to profit from this trade, in some instances with covert US assistance," he added. "Eastern Europe is rehabilitating Cold War arms industries which are expanding and becoming profitable again."
Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic boasted recently that his country could produce five times the amount of arms it currently makes and still not meet the demand.
"Unfortunately in some parts of the world they are at war more than ever and everything you produce, on any side of the world you can sell it," he said.
Arms manufacturers from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are running at full capacity with some adding extra shifts and others not taking new orders.
Saudi Arabia's top officials more used to negotiating multi-billion-dollar fighter-jet deals with Western defence giants have been forced to deal with a handful of small-time arms brokers operating in Eastern Europe who have access to weapons such as AK-47s and rocket launchers
Middlemen such as Serbia's CPR Impex and Slovakia's Eldon have played a critical role in supplying weapons and ammunition to the Middle East
The inventory of each delivery is usually unknown due to the secrecy surrounding arms deals but two end-user certificates and one export licence, obtained by BIRN and the OCCRP, reveal the extraordinary scope of the buy-up for Syrian beneficiaries.
For example, the Saudi Ministry of Defence expressed its interest in buying from Serbian arms dealer CPR Impex a number of weapons including hundreds of aging T-55 and T-72 tanks, millions of rounds of ammunition, multi-launch missile systems and rocket launchers. Weapons and ammunition listed were produced in the former Yugoslavia, Belarus, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic.
An export licence issued to a little-known Slovakian company called Eldon in January 2015 granted the firm the right to transport thousands of Eastern European rocket-propelled grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and almost a million bullets worth nearly 32 million euros to Saudi Arabia.
BIRN and OCCRP's analysis of social media shows weapons that originated from the former states of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria are now present on the battlefields of Syria and Yemen.
While experts believe the countries continue to shirk their responsibility, the weapons pipeline adds more and more fuel to a white hot conflict that leads to more and more misery.
"Proliferation of arms to the region has caused untold human suffering; huge numbers of people have been displaced and parties to the conflict have committed serious human rights violations including abductions, executions, enforced disappearances, torture and rape," said Amnesty's Wilcken.
Additional reporting by Atanas Tchobanov, Dusica Tomovic, Jelena Cosic, Jelena Svircic, Lindita Cela, RISE Moldova and Pavla Holcova.
This investigation is produced by BIRN as a part of Paper Trail to Better Governance project.

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[David Guyatt]

An excellent report. I am somewhat reminded of the recent BBC drama The Night Manager, which is all about the arms trade. And, of course, war always is about the arms trade.

Wouldn't it be a pleasant change if the bulk of the western media decided to return to proper journalistic work and produced investigative reports like this again.

[David Guyatt]

A really quite important article on US foreign policy under Hillary and the US Establishment position by Brit, Alastaar Crooke, a former spook and Foreign Office diplomat.

"Does he (Trump) not understand, (these "ancien regime" figures seem to say,) that rapprochement and entente with Putin now, could bring the whole structure tumbling down? It could collapse America's entire foreign policy? Without a clear Russian "threat" (the "threat" being now a constant refrain in the U.S. Beltway), what meaning has NATO? And without NATO, why should Europe stay "on side, and [do] the right thing?" And if Damascus, Moscow and Tehran succeed in emerging with political credit and esteem from the Syria conflict, what price then for the U.S,-led "rules-based" global order?"

So, the war in Syria is also the war against Russia and both are absolute requirements by the US to keep Europe inside the American NATO camp - and if Europe leaves NATO the entire US financial franchise is finished.

That's why Wall Street is financing Hillary in order to load her gun against Russia.

Start digging shelters I say, because if Crooke suggests a hot war with Russia is coming, then you can be pretty damn sure that really is the option chosen.

Stalling Obama's Overtures to Russia

August 6, 2016

Washington's foreign policy mavens are thwarting President Obama's moves to work with Russia to resolve the Syrian war and reduce other tensions, so the new Cold War can proceed under Hillary Clinton, says ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.
By Alastair Crooke
"Yes, as we are all too aware, Hillary Clinton was officially anointed this week as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee for the upcoming election. She was chosen by the party to be its nominee long before the race ever began, and it used every means at its disposal, both in plain sight and behind closed doors, to ensure that nothing least of all the will of the people would prevent that from happening."
So wrote an American commentator in respect to the U.S. Establishment's determination that the political status quo shall be preserved, come what may. What has this to do with the Middle East? Well, in a similar vein, and again avoiding public debate, two establishment "heavy-hitters" have just pulled the plug on President Obama's (and Kerry's) crab-like, sideways scuffle towards winding down the "new" Cold War through, ostensibly, teasing out some sort of co-operation with Russia in Syria.

President Barack Obama meets with President Vladimir Putin of Russia on the sidelines of the G20 Summit at Regnum Carya Resort in Antalya, Turkey, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015. National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice listens at left. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Co-operation with Russia in Syria, the establishment fears, should not be allowed to become some pilot project for subsequent co-operation that could ease tensions with Russia in other areas such as Ukraine and the Baltic Republics.
At the Aspen Security Forum last Friday, CIA Chief John Brennan said: "we need to have some sense that Assad is on the way out. There can be a transition; but it needs to be clear that he is not part of Syria's future. Until that happens until that begins; until there is acknowledgement of that transition we are going to have Syrians dying: continuing to die."
And last Monday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, speaking about the outcome of Kerry's marathon discussions with President Putin in Moscow that reportedly had tentatively agreed to set up a joint operational control room in Jordan, staffed by both Russian and American officers for the purpose of combating ISIS commented:
"We had hoped that [Kerry's talks in Moscow] would promote a political solution and transition to put an end to the civil war, which is the beginning of all this violence in Syria, and then combat extremists rather than moderate opposition, which has to be part of that transition," Carter said at a Pentagon news conference with Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "So they're a long way from doing that."
When a reporter told Carter that he sounded unenthusiastic about the Kerry effort, Carter said, "No, I'm very enthusiastic about the idea of the Russians getting on side and doing the right thing. And I think that would be a good thing if they did. I think we're a ways from getting that frame of mind in Russia. But that's what Secretary Kerry is working toward."
Saying No' to Kerry/Obama
This latter response led John Batchelor of The Nation to conclude: "What kind of no' does Kerry not understand? That's a complete slamming of the door in his face."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry chats with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov outside a room in the Russian Foreign Ministry's Osobnyak Guesthouse in Moscow, Russia, on July 15, 2016. [State Department Photo]

Well, of course it was. But it was also an intentional slamming of the door in the face of Obama. The entire basis of Kerry's (and Obama's) understandings with Sergey Lavrov and President Putin hinged on the agreement to lay aside the issue of President Assad's future, whilst focussing on combating (the now re-branded) al-Nusra and ISIS forces.This has been the nature of discussions since the beginning of the year: nothing new here to suddenly fan Brennan and Carter's embers into flame. To condition co-operation on the Russians "getting on side, and doing the right thing": i.e. to demand that the U.S. calls all the shots (including in respect to President Assad's ouster from power), of course torpedoes any understanding with Moscow that Kerry might be working towards.
On the other hand and contrary to what John Batchelor suggests perhaps Kerry precisely understands Carter's and Brennan's game: Kerry's plan, it seems, has been all along to engage Moscow on the diplomatic track, and to keep the focus on ceasefires thus buying time whilst Carter and Brennan used the respite gained to give space for the re-arming and reenergising their insurgent forces fighting the Syrian government.
Kerry knew full well that the U.S. had pushed some 3,000 tons of weapons to the insurgent forces after the February ceasefire had begun. Kerry had tried to explain it subsequently to the Russians as an awkward administrative difficulty, ensuing from a terminating support program…
One respected commentator on Syria's military events (blogger Moon of Alabama) has written: "the Russian General Staff has warned since April that al-Qaeda in Syria (aka Jabhat al-Nusra aka Fateh al Sham) and the various attached Jihadi groups were planning a large scale attack on Aleppo. An al-Qaeda commander confirmed such long term planning in a pep-talk to his fighters before the current attack."
"This shines a new light on the protracted talks Secretary of State Kerry has had for months with his Russian colleague. The U.S. tried to exempt al-Qaeda from Russian and Syrian attacks, even as UN Security Council Resolutions demanded that al-Qaeda and ISIS areas be eradicated. Then the U.S. tried to make an offer' to Russia to collectively fight al-Qaeda should Russia put its own and Syrian forces under U.S. control.
"We called this offer deceptive nonsense. All this, it now seems, was delaying talk to allow al-Qaeda to prepare for the now launched attack [i.e. on Syrian and allied forces acting to lift the insurgent siege on that part of Aleppo, which has been under jihadist control]", notes Moon of Alabama.
Stalling Russia
In any event, Kerry's long protracted negotiations with the Russians whether or not motivated mainly from a desire to win respite for American proxies, in the wake of Russian military intervention has served to lift pressure on Obama from those U.S. "hawks" pressing for direct U.S. attacks on the Syrian State, and its President in order to weaken the state, or bring about its implosion.

Hillary Clinton speaking at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, March 21, 2016. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)

And here is the point: the Russians consciously went along with this American dual tactic (at some cost to their relations with allies), whilst continuously wearing down American (and European) objections to a major military operation, intended to relieve Aleppo from the jihadists and to secure the city.
The reincorporation of Aleppo fully into the Syrian State will represent a major strategic shift. It seems that the government is succeeding with substantial air support from Russia. Jihadists losses are heavy.
So what is this "hue and cry" from Brennan and Carter reviving the earlier "Assad must go" meme (together with a tear-jerking, "we are going to have Syrians dying … continuing to die, because he, Assad, hasn't gone"), just at the moment when the demand for Assad's removal has never seemed less credible if it ever was?
That last question (what's it all about), takes us back to the start-point: the determination by the Establishment (both Democratic and Republican) to preserve the status quo "by all means at its disposal." It clearly intends, too, by all means at its disposal, to maintain the foreign policy status quo, as well. Some of the Republican leaders endorse this proposition, even to the extent of being willing to put partisan politics aside, and support a Democratic candidate.
The outburst about Syria from the CIA and DOD leaders quoted above is in fact about more than just Syria. It is all part with the attempt to brand Trump as "Putin's Puppet," as the "Kremlin's candidate," and as a "de facto agent" (amongst other jibes).
Saving the New Cold War
Some powerful figures clearly want any winding down of this "new" Cold War dead in its tracks. Trump's questioning of the hostilities with Russia, of the purpose of NATO, and of the costs to the U.S. of it being a global hegemon have turned them cold.
Does he (Trump) not understand, (these "ancien regime" figures seem to say,) that rapprochement and entente with Putin now, could bring the whole structure tumbling down? It could collapse America's entire foreign policy? Without a clear Russian "threat" (the "threat" being now a constant refrain in the U.S. Beltway), what meaning has NATO? And without NATO, why should Europe stay "on side, and [do] the right thing?" And if Damascus, Moscow and Tehran succeed in emerging with political credit and esteem from the Syria conflict, what price then for the U.S,-led "rules-based" global order?
Especially, if those who reject it, and who opt to stay out of the globalized order, find that they can so do and emerge empowered and with their influence enhanced? If the political "rules-based order" does erode, what then will be the future for the inter-connected, and presently shaky, U.S.-led, global financial order and governance?
More Syrians are going to have to die, not because President Assad has not been ousted, but because the U.S. Establishment wants to keep the Syria war going until (they hope) Hillary takes office and they will do whatever they can, precisely to make sure she does and that the options to maintain America's traditional foreign policy the way it is are not foreclosed to her on taking office.
The unsubstantiated attempt coming from the top to suggest that Putin's aim is to undermine the West, and that Trump is to be Putin's "tool" in this endeavour, is not some whimsical campaign gig it is deadly serious. And it is very dangerous. There are few willing to say so, for fear of being labelled Putin's "useful idiots," too.
Russia will be making its own calculations, but it would not be a surprise, were we to hear that they are battening down the hatches, and readying for a more severe Cold War or even a hot one.
Alastair Crooke is a former British diplomat who was a senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy. He is the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, which advocates for engagement between political Islam and the West.

ConsortiumNews

[Cliff Varnell]

My comments in red

A really quite important article on US foreign policy under Hillary and the US Establishment position by Brit, Alastaar Crooke, a former spook and Foreign Office diplomat.

"Does he (Trump) not understand, (these "ancien regime" figures seem to say,) that rapprochement and entente with Putin now, could bring the whole structure tumbling down?

Ya'all don't get it.

Trump doesn't do strategic thinking.

He doesn't do any real thinking at all -- and has admitted to such.

He's a pure reactionary -- politically and personally.

It could collapse America's entire foreign policy? Without a clear Russian "threat" (the "threat" being now a constant refrain in the U.S. Beltway), what meaning has NATO? And without NATO, why should Europe stay "on side, and [do] the right thing?" And if Damascus, Moscow and Tehran succeed in emerging with political credit and esteem from the Syria conflict, what price then for the U.S,-led "rules-based" global order?"

So, the war in Syria is also the war against Russia and both are absolute requirements by the US to keep Europe inside the American NATO camp - and if Europe leaves NATO the entire US financial franchise is finished.

This is absurd.

War with Russia over what?

Obama and Putin negotiated the removal of chemical weapons from Syria, eliminating the rationale for military enforced regime change.

They negotiated the removal of Iran's nuke capability, eliminating the rationale for a joint US/Israeli attack on Iran.

The US-Russia conflict is overblown.

The US go to war over eastern Ukraine? Syria?

Spare me...

That's why Wall Street is financing Hillary in order to load her gun against Russia.

To fight over what? Syria ain't a player in either the oil or heroin markets -- ergo, American elites don't really care.

Start digging shelters I say, because if Crooke suggests a hot war with Russia is coming, then you can be pretty damn sure that really is the option chosen.

Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

If it doesn't involve oil or smack America ain't going to war with Russia.

What was the war in Vietnam over? Control of the Golden Triangle opium production.

2 wars in Iraq? Oil.

The bombing of Kosovo? Smack.

The invasion of Afghanistan? Smack.

The removal of Manuel Noriega wasn't about smack -- cocaine, instead.

Why fight ISIS? Oil.

In 2016 the US is the world's #1 oil producer (or at least has that capability) and #1 synthetic opioid producer.

What else do Americans fight over?

[David Guyatt]

From Gulf News:

The fight for Aleppo and the Syrian end game

Russian-backed Syrian army is closest its ever been to retaking Aleppo which it has struggled to do for two years

Image Credit: AFP

Collapsed buildings line a street in the neighbourhood of Bani Zeid, on Aleppo's northern outskirts on Friday as residents come back to the previously rebel-held district.
Published: 15:53 July 31, 2016 Sami Moubayed, Correspondent

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Beirut: On Thursday government troops, with strong Russian air support, overran the Ban Zeid suburb of Aleppo, linking the war-torn city to its massive countryside, marking a strategic victory for Damascus and Moscow.
They are now closer than ever before to retaking Aleppo, the former "industrial capital" of Syria, whose eastern part has been held by Turkish-backed rebels since 2012. If they succeed, it might be the endgame of the savage five-year conflict in Syria.
The ancient city of Aleppo, once earmarked as capital of opposition-held Syria, is on the verge of falling in the hands of the Syrian Army.
If it does, it would mean the collapse of the northern front and possible, an end to the war in Syria, currently, approaching its sixth year.
The mood in Damascus is jubilant and morale is high in government-held parts of the country, where state run media is coining Aleppo as "the final battle" or the "mother of all battles."
The Riyadh-backed opposition is furious, accusing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of abandoning them in metropolitan Aleppo and its countryside, while activists on the ground are firing accusations at the Syrian National Coalition, claiming that if its top leaders relocated to eastern Aleppo, which has been rebel-held since the summer of 2012, then a proper administration could have been established, with de facto recognition from the international community.

Meanwhile, while the Syrians are trading accusations, top US and Russian diplomats discussed Aleppo at a summit in Laos on 26 July and the besieged city is expected to be a top item on the Turkish-Russian summit, scheduled for August 9 in St Petersburg.
Having sidelined Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from the Aleppo battle, the Russians are taking full-control of the large operation in the Syrian north, both militarily and politically.
Locked down in a witch-hunt against his opponents, Erdogan has neither the time nor the energy for Aleppo, and after patching up his relationship with his Russian counterpart, is seemingly willing to sacrifice his earlier ambitions of taking Aleppo for the sake of aborting the prospects of a Kurdish state on his borders with Syria.
To please him, the Russians have refused to criticise the Turkish leader over the massive arrests that took place after the aborted coup attempt in mid-July, unlike the EU and US, both of whom have been very critical of their Turkish ally. The more they harangue him on human rights, the closer he inches towards Vladimir Putin.
The encirclement of Aleppo, being Syria's largest city and the third largest in the Middle East, was an extremely difficult task that began in mid-May and was only completed in late July.
It couldn't have happened had the Turks insisted on fighting for their proxies in Aleppo.
For two years the Syrian Army had been trying to retake Aleppo but suffered from logistic difficulties, due to the non-stop flow of arms and fighters from Turkey, and lack of manpower.
Thousands were conscripted into the Syrian Army for the task, and entire units were moved to the Syrian north to take part in the massive operation.
Re-taking Aleppo by force would have involved guerrilla warfare and a street war, which would have triggered a massive death toll among government troops and Hezbollah fighters. It would have also damaged what remains of the ancient city, whose old quarters have already been destroyed, in addition to most of its eastern quarters. It was easier to encircle Aleppo and force its fighters to surrender or die. This has been a common tactic in the Syria War, carried out in the town of Zabadani in the Damascus countryside in 2015, and earlier, in the city of Homs in central Syria.
In both cases, the rebels were allowed to leave with their arms and be escorted to the safety of rebel-held cities like Idlib in northwestern Syria and Deir Al Zor on the Euphrates River. The current encirclement only applies to rebel-held eastern Aleppo, which links the city to its war-torn countryside.
The full encirclement of eastern Aleppo was only made possible through a series of operations that diverted rebel fire to Deir Al Zor and consecutive Russian-mandated ceasefires that enabled government forces to march on the city from all four corners.
The war strategy for Aleppo was laid out by the Russian, Iranian, and Syrian defence ministers at a high profile meeting in Moscow on 10 June.
Bashar Al Assad pledged to restore "every inch" of Syrian territory while his ally, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said that Aleppo was the "strategic" battle of Syria, possibly its endgame as well.
Last Thursday, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu announced the opening of three humanitarian corridors from besieged eastern Aleppo, where approximately 300,000 civilians reside. A fourth corridor was opened for the insurgents, he added, also under the watchful eye of the Russian Army.
The statement was made by Moscow rather than Damascus, to give guarantees to the armed groups and assurances that they won't be hunted down by Syrian authorities when they leave Aleppo.
Minutes later, while Syrian and Russian television were broadcasting live the recapture of Bani Zaid, Al Assad issued a surprising amnesty, pardoning fighters who carried arms and wish to surrender in Aleppo.
The two coordinated events were testimony to how closely Damascus and Moscow were working on Aleppo Operation.
According to Lieutenant General Sergey Chvarkov, head of the Russian reconciliation centre in Syria, 169 civilians have used the corridors to get out, as well as 69 militants who surrendered their arms.
Over the weekend, 52 civilians were evacuated from eastern Aleppo, along with 24 fighters.
Russia also said that it has prepared 14 tonnes of humanitarian aid for the civilians, with 2.5 tonnes of food dropped on the besieged parts of the city by Mi-8 Russian helicopters
Apart from lip service from the State Department, the United States did nothing to prevent the Russian scheme for Aleppo.
State Department spokesman John Kirby simply announced, "It would appear to be a demand for surrender of opposition groups."
For his part, UN special envoy Staffan De Mistura said that he had not been informed of the Russian Defence Ministry plan for Aleppo.
"We were not consulted" he said bluntly to journalists in Geneva on July 28.
Regardless, Di Mistura hopes to jump-start Syrian peace-talks in Geneva on August 12.
If the opposition loses Aleppo, they will probably boycott the talks, given that their negotiating position will be extremely weakened by battlefield setbacks.

[David Guyatt]

So, the war in Syria is also the war against Russia and both are absolute requirements by the US to keep Europe inside the American NATO camp - and if Europe leaves NATO the entire US financial franchise is finished.

This is absurd.

War with Russia over what?

Obama and Putin negotiated the removal of chemical weapons from Syria, eliminating the rationale for military enforced regime change.

They negotiated the removal of Iran's nuke capability, eliminating the rationale for a joint US/Israeli attack on Iran.

The US-Russia conflict is overblown.

The US go to war over eastern Ukraine? Syria?

Spare me...

That's why Wall Street is financing Hillary in order to load her gun against Russia.

To fight over what? Syria ain't a player in either the oil or heroin markets -- ergo, American elites don't really care.

Yes, it's absurd.

But madness percolates through the veins of the elites in Washington - and has done for the last two decades, since the end of the cold war.

The US will would threaten and quite possibly engage in a world war against Russia and China to keep their financial franchise -- because if that franchise is dissolves - given the immense and unserviceable US debt - the US will sooner rather than later fracture and crumble.

***

PS, this is not about oil, or drugs... it's far bigger than either of those.

[David Guyatt]

Speaking of Iran, see Pepe Escobar's latest HERE. See also HERE & HERE or preferably the whole uncensored version of Defense Planning Guidance for the 199499 fiscal years -- if you can find it (I no longer can)

[Cliff Varnell]

more red

Yes, it's absurd.

But madness percolates through the veins of the elites in Washington - and has done for the last two decades, since the end of the cold war.

So The Madness started at the end of 1991?

News to me.

I've been actively protesting The Madness since 1972, so I dare say you're late to the party.

The US will would threaten and quite possibly engage in a world war against Russia and China to keep their financial franchise -- because if that franchise is dissolves - given the immense and unserviceable US debt - the US will sooner rather than later fracture and crumble.

Your comments betray a fundamental mis-appraisal of the American economy.

But don't feel bad -- its something no one over here gets either.

There is a huge black market economy in the US which doesn't show up in statistics.

For one instance among many: Any idea how much unclaimed drug money sits in US financial institutions -- drug money put there by narco-bosses who are either dead or incarcerated -- and will never be withdrawn?

It's likely in the trillions. It's why the banks didn't collapse in Sept. of 2008.

The underground economy employs hundreds of thousands and generates hundreds of billions of dollars and there is no accounting for it.

The above-ground economies of the US-China are deeply intertwined, btw.

A few might profit on this apocalyptic world war you imagine -- but it's a loser for the elites.

Why would the US go to nuke-war with the Russians and give up Caucasian dominance world-wide?

With the exception of the "Irish troubles", the break-up of Yugoslavia, and in the eastern Ukraine --since the end of WW2 white folks don't war on white folks.

***

PS, this is not about oil, or drugs... it's far bigger than either of those.

It's G.O.D.

Guns-Oil-Drugs.

What is "far bigger," exactly?