USA and the Syrian challenge

As this entry is being written for this blog, Russia is carrying out a series of bombing raids in what amounts to a major escalation of the war raging on inside Syria that started as an internal civil war and is quickly becoming worldwide.

The presence of Russian fighter jets in Syria, which may eventually be followed by the presence of Russian soldiers fighting alongside the regular army of Syria against all the rebel factions, has been called a game changer. Not since the days of the Cold War has there been such a direct involvement of Russia in the Middle East.

At first, the direct military involvement of Russia in the Syrian conflict may seem rather puzzling. After all, the disastrous Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in a war that was never won by the invader is considered today by historians to have been one of the key factors in the economic bankruptcy of the Soviet Union and the eventual collapse of the U.S.S.R. The Russian economy is still reeling from the economic sanctions imposed as punishment for its military support of Ukrainian separatists, and still has to come up with the money that will be required to pay for the 2017 FIFA World Cup championship. So we may ask: didn’t the Russians learn anything from their sore experience in Afghanistan? Have they gone crazy?

One of the contributing factors in the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was undoubtedly the support given by the USA to the rebel terrorist groups in Afghanistan who were fighting to expel from Afghanistan the Soviet invaders (at the time, they were not branded as terrorists, they were called “freedom fighters” since they were fighting the “bad guys” of the Soviet Union). It was the USA who provided these so-called “freedom fighters” groups with a lot of money and training and sophisticated weaponry such as Stinger missiles used to shoot down Russian aircraft. Were it not for this help, perhaps the Russians would still have a presence in Afghanistan even with the Soviet Union dismantled.

Among the rebel groups fighting against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan there was a man by the name of Osama Bin Laden, precisely the man who headed the now international terrorist organization called Al Qaeda. Yep, Osama Bin Laden himself. The followers of Bin Laden as well as Bin Laden were funded and trained from beginning to end by the CIA in order to ensure the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It is as simple as that. Thus, in the end it was the USA itself who provided the means and resources to the same ungrateful Muslims who a short time later launched a devastating attack upon US soil that brought down the Twin Towers, smashed the Pentagon, and probably would have erased Capitol Hill were it not for the true heroes of United Airlines Flight 93 who gave up their lives in trying to stop the fourth aircraft that was en route to smashing either the White House or Capitol Hill. The policy makers in Washington should have known better that making a deal with Osama Bin Laden and his cronies, which was the same as making a deal with the Devil, would have catastrophic consequences in the near future.

The crushing defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan followed by the pullback of all its military personnel from that country enabled the Taliban to take over Afghanistan turning it almost immediately into a safe haven and sanctuary for Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist network Al Qaeda. Shortly thereafter, with the Soviet Union gone, the USA was forced to fill the void left by the Soviet Union, spilling the blood of American servicemen in order to overthrow the Taliban regime (which was unapologetic in its harboring of the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks) and go after Osama Bin Laden, getting involved in a trillion-dollars war in Afghanistan which is still being waged at this very moment in what amounts to an enormous expenditure of blood and treasure on the US side (for the USA this has been its longest war lasting now 14 years, and it is far from over). Thus, the US government, ill-advised then by think-tanks thought to be the epitome of wisdom, and acting with the foresight of Doctor Frankenstein, ended up creating its own monster. And quite a monster it turned out to be! Perhaps these facts are not being taught in the USA as forcefully as they should in American History 101 at all levels all the way from elementary to college.

At the time, US support of the Muslim terrorist Osama Bin Laden and his crazed followers in their fight against the Soviet Union was considered by Washington policy-makers as “the right thing to do”, it was almost a patriotic duty to support all those who fought in Afghanistan for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That was the “best” advice given to the President. There was even a “Rambo” film (with Sylvester Stallone) portraying the Russians as evil murderers of Afghanistan civilians. The Russians were “the bad guys” and the Taliban, Osama Bin Laden and his entourage were “the good guys”. That is, until September 2001.

Looking back, the American involvement in the expulsion of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan soil that ended up installing the Taliban in power and fostered in that country the protection and expansion of one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in that part of the world is considered by many historians not merely as a major display in the lack of foresight and intelligence, but indeed a major and inexcusable blunder.

It might be argued that the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was well justified on the basis that the Taliban were refusing to hand over the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. This refusal could be taken as an act of war considering that the Taliban regime was giving safe haven to the Al Qaeda terrorists, and thus the Taliban regime could be considered to be in defiance and in a virtual state of war against the USA. The intelligence community and the military in the USA seem to have forgotten that the triumph in Afghanistan with the removal of the Taliban from power, in contrast with the Iraq fiasco, was due to a major push carried out by the Northern Alliance forging ahead in spite of being advised at the time by US military advisers to hold back. Were it not for the help of the Northern Alliance made up of all those tribes in the country who were fed up with the Taliban, the Afghanistan experience could have been much worse than it was. In contrast, the USA had no help in Iraq because there was no Northern Alliance, Iraq being instead an artificial nation carved up since the end of World War I with three different portions of territory inhabited by Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims and Kurds. These rivaling factions were being held together as a single country by just one man, a ruthless dictator by the name of Saddam Hussein, without whom the plunging of Iraq into a bloody civil war was more than predictable. Like it or not, that’s what it took to hold Iraq together.

But going back to the Russian involvement in Syria, the question persists: Have the Russians gone mad, considering the prolonged quagmire they had to endure in Afghanistan which ended up in their defeat during the times of the Soviet Union?

Currently, Syria is the only ally of Russia left in the Middle East, since the days of the Cold War alliances. If Bashar Al Assad falls, Russia will have no influence left in the Middle East. Very obviously, the intention of Russia is not to remove Bashar Al Assad from power but rather to prop him up and avoid his collapse, a position contrary to the US objective which is precisely the removal of Bashar Al Assad, reflecting the position of the prominent figures inside the US government that the ruthless dictator Bashar Al Assad must be removed from power. Just like Russia, these so-called experts seem to have learned absolutely nothing from the American fiasco in Iraq, where the removal of Saddam Hussein from power was the main objective of the war against Iraq,

Let us assume for a moment that the Devil grants the US government its wish and Bashar Al Assad ends up dead at the hands of those seeking to overthrow him. Then what? Who is going to replace Bashar Al Assad? Who is going to take his place? It is exactly the same thorny issue that President Bush did not care to address when he sent US troops to invade Iraq. After proclaiming his war on terror President Bush once said “we are going to win this war”. Fourteen years have gone by, and there seems to be no end in sight to the chaos in the Middle East. Is this “war” really winnable? Who said so?

Just like with the involvement of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan where the Russians didn’t get anything in return except the shame of defeat, the USA has gotten nothing in return for its involvement in Iraq except grief, worldwide shame and condemnation, widows, orphans, blood, and an economic loss upwards of one trillion dollars.

Another story with some similarities to the events unfolding in Iraq has to do with Libya, once ruled by the ruthless dictator Muammar Gaddafi. At one time considered by US policy-makers as a despicable ruler that had to be removed one way or the other, Gaddafi was actually the target of an assassination attempt by the US government using cruise missiles in the now famous Operation El Dorado Canyon where the home of Gaddafi was one of the military targets (although Gaddafi escaped this assassination attempt, two of his sons were reported as injured). Thus, the attempt against Gaddafi carried out by the US military in 1986 failed, but the will to remove Gaddafi remained. Then one good day, as a result of the Arab Spring, Libyans revolted against Gaddafi and finished him once and for all. And what happened shortly thereafter? That Libya ended up a thousand times worse than before, embroiled in an internal strife that has crippled Libya bringing it down to its knees, thus becoming a failed state. The murdering of US officials at the US Embassy in Benghazi was a direct consequence of Gaddafi no longer ruling Libya. And to date, there is no one in Libya capable of bringing that country back to the calm it had before the downfall of Gaddafi. Gaddafi was indeed a demon cloaked in human skin, but in that part of the world he was precisely the kind of demon required to keep things from falling apart as they are now.

And what about Egypt? When President Hosni Mubarak, in office since 1981 (a period of relative calm and tranquility) was toppled in February 2011 as a result of the Arab Spring and elections were held in Egypt for the very first time among the cheers of a jubilant people, the new Egyptian ruler Mohamed Morsi, the first democratically elected president in the history of Egypt, was quickly hailed by Washington and even by the US media as one of the “good guys”, thought to be the democratic president who would bring about prosperity and happiness to the country. Hurrah for democracy! But alas, in a matter of months he took off his mask, the mask of a moderate, and showed the true hidden intentions of the Muslim Brotherhood he represented: turn Egypt into an intolerant Islamic state ruled with an iron fist under the Sharia law. Things went from bad to worse until the Egyptian military was forced to intervene by ousting the Muslim radicals from power, with many Egyptians more than fed up with their failed experiment in democracy, at least for the time being in time frames measured in millennia as they do in those places. So, in the end, the “good guys” of Egypt were not that “good” after all. So far Egypt seems to be holding together precariously under a tense Mexican standoff. Mubarak may have been corrupt, but at least he kept things under control and even managed to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel keeping alive the peace deal forged by Anwar El Sadat, which is more than can be said for most Arab neighbors of Israel. And with him gone, who can fill his shoes? Certainly not the Muslim Brotherhood. Democracy may be good for Western-style nations, but in that part of the world and with rare exceptions such as Israel and Turkey, it is non-functional, democracy is not an option.

It has been forgotten by many that the US invasion of Iraq was justified on what amounts to clumsy (to say the least) intelligence, the claim of an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, a claim that in the end proved to be false. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq, and indeed by now that claim can be safely branded as a lie. How does a country that claims to have the best minds in the world in its military and intelligence communities end up waging an extremely costly war basing its most important decision, the decision to go to war and invade, upon a lie? Go figure.

The war in Iraq, a war that ended up costing upwards of a trillion dollars and a lot of American blood (the Britons had to pay their fair share as accomplices of the warmongering blood-thirsty President George Bush), was waged on what finally amounted to a lie. Yet, to date, no one in the CIA, the NSA and the military was ever held accountable for such a major blunder, no one was ever fired or relieved from duty or asked to resign, no one was even reprimanded. Likewise, not a single US politician, including former members of the US presidential cabinet and the US military, and not even former President George Bush (the culprit number one of the fiasco, the man who on final analysis took the final decision to invade Iraq), has stepped up front offering an apology to the American people by saying something like “I accept my part of the responsibility I will have to bear for the rest of my life and even beyond for a stupid war that should have never been carried out” (incidentally, just a few hours before the deadline given by President Bush in its ultimatum to the Iraqi dictator, Pope John Paul II asked Bush not to go ahead with his ultimatum, warning him that if he did so he would be held accountable for his decision and his actions to the Lord himself). When a country commits a lot of blood and treasure to accomplish a military objective, its leadership is obliged to ensure beyond a reasonable doubt that the motive for waging such a war is well justified, its leadership must ensure that it is acting on reliable intelligence and not clumsy opinions presented as dogmas whose credibility is beyond questioning by the rest of the mere mortals who do not belong to the elites in charge of concocting such fantasies upon which major decisions are made.

The problem with the current situation in Syria is that the US government is resorting to the same agencies and organizations that propelled the USA into what is now an ugly quagmire in Iraq, and we can also safely assume that many of the analysts and so-called “intelligence experts” who practically pushed the Iraq invasion agenda through the Washington corridors are still in their office desks. If those agencies, organizations and individuals failed so miserably then, what assurances can there be that they will not make the same mistakes in their evaluations and assessments with regards to the current situation in Syria, especially if nobody will ever get fired or even reprimanded for a job poorly done (not poorly paid, just poorly done)? Already an investment of half a billion dollars used to train and equip so-called “moderate opposition” fighters against Bashar Al Asad was suspended after being called a “friggin’ mess”. Again, it must be asked, are those who were given the task of spending wisely those 500 million bucks of taxpayers money in order to fund a “friggin’ mess” going to be the same “wise guys” who will keep on deciding in the future who are the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys” worthy of US support in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East? Where is their crystal ball, if they have any? Is it the one they carry to the bowling alley?

The US government position is to foster the downfall of Bashar Al Assad arguing that the “good guys” are those who are fighting to depose him and who are not Islamic radicals, whereas the position of the Russian government is to prop up Bashar Al Assad by bombing and fighting against all those who want him out including the so-called “moderate opposition fighters” supported by the US government. But who can be absolutely sure that the “good guys” who now have the sympathy and the blessings of the US government will not end up as the “bad guys”? Wasn’t the lesson learned in Afghanistan with Osama Bin Laden not enough? How many more lessons are needed in order to assimilate what should have already been assimilated a long time ago?

Finding “good guys” in the Muslim regions of the Middle East is something nigh onto impossible. Let us assume for a moment, just for a moment, that some dumb US Congressman escorts a would-be ally to the White House arguing that those he represents in Syria are in dire need of US support (money!) in their fight against Bashar Al Assad, with the guest repeating: “we the fighters of Al Nusra hate Bashar Al Assad, we consider ourselves his worst enemies, and we have absolutely nothing to do with ISIS”. These magic words could have the presidential cabinet jumping with joy, filling their faces with glee, until some nosy security guard at the White House who has done his homework whispers to their ears that al Nusra is really the Al Qaeda branch in Syria. Does the USA really want Al Nusra to replace Bashar Al Assad in Syria? Still, other as yet unidentified organizations with picturesque names such as Sons of Mustapha, Sworn Enemies of Bashar Al Assad and Holy Warriors of Syria might also come knocking on the door asking for US support, until some really smart guy in Washington (in the unlikely case there happens to be one near the powers that be) asks the pivotal question: “who the hell are these guys anyway, really?”, forcing the Washington decision-makers to shove these wolves in sheep’s clothing off the back door.

The Russians are obviously worried at the possibility that Bashar Al Assad may end up dead with Syria not only following in the footsteps of Iraq and Lybia, but being turned into a country from where the Islamic State ISIS (aka ISIL) will launch a major offensive against its neighbors, gathering enough sympathizers in neighboring countries to help ISIS expand into the Middle East equivalent of what was once the Soviet Union, except much more savage, much more brutal, much more radical.

The Russians have correctly concluded that, without outside help and with Bashar Al Assad fighting not only against ISIS but also against the “good guys” whom the US government wants to support, in the long run he doesn’t stand a chance, he is doomed. ISIS and “the good guys” (those with the blessings of Washington) have a common goal, the removal of Bashar Al Assad from power, but once that goal is achieved ISIS will surely turn against “the good guys” now favored by the USA and will end up assimilating many of them into its ranks while butchering those who oppose them. In the end, the “good guys” in Syria, if there are any left and if there is anybody left who can tell them apart, are no match for ISIS with all of the resources ISIS now has at its disposal, and the flood of refugees currently seeking asylum in Europe attests to the fact that a lot of Syrians don’t believe the situation is going to get any better. Indeed, with Bashar Al Assad gone, ISIS can take full control of Syria in a matter of months if not weeks, and it is unlikely the Russians will be in the mood to salvage the remains. Is the USA willing then to put “boots on the ground” to engage in direct war against an ISIS-ruled Syria. Is the USA ready and willing to open up a new chapter that will require an expenditure of trillions of dollars and thousands of American servicemen either killed or maimed? Wasn’t the Vietnam experience enough? What then have the so-called pundits in Washington learned from all those previous experiences of the past?

That Bashar Al Assad is a cruel and bloody dictator, very much like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, goes without saying. He has used barrel bombs and chemical weapons against his own people. He may be no saint, indeed he can be classified as a villain guilty of major war crimes. And perhaps the Russians themselves even hate him. Yet, if he is overthrown just as the US government now wants, the alternative scenarios appear infinitely worse. The most likely scenario, with Bashar Al Assad dead or gone, is that ISIS will quickly overrun everyone else in Syria and will take full control of Syria, where it will establish a terrorist state with the capability of launching a major Muslim crusade against all its neighbors like Jordan, Egypt, and Lybia, with the aim of extending its control over the entire Middle East and eventually to the rest of the world, including of course Russia. Indeed, the threat posed by ISIS is comparable to or perhaps even greater than the threat posed by the N.S.A.D.P. seven decades ago; and in this respect some frightening comparisons can be established. Unlike Bashar Al Assad who is just one man who simply wants to keep ruling Syria as his father did, ISIS is a movement that is doing its best to extend its tentacles far outside Syria by resorting to heavy indoctrination and brainwashing, exploiting the Internet to recruit new sympathizers from around the world. It is brutal, showing no mercy whatsoever.

Drawing from the American experience in Iraq where the aftermath of the hanging of Saddam Hussein proved to be a disaster in the long run, the Russians have no intention whatsoever of removing Bashar Al Assad, knowing damn well that if they do so the long term consequence of his absence will be a disaster. The Russians already have a Muslim powder keg in their own territory, in Chechnya, with a heavy Muslim population, precisely the birthplace of the two Muslim terrorists who carried out the Boston Marathon bombing. The only thing the Russian Muslims need is a source of “inspiration” either from inside Russia or from the outside telling them that a war with a Muslim banner is winnable. A triumph of ISIS overtaking Syria with the ouster (or killing) of Bashar Al Assad could very well be that source of inspiration. And the Russians perhaps have also concluded that if Russia is suddenly shaken by a wave of unbridled terrorism carried out by Muslim extremists, NATO will not come in to rescue Russia. For the time being, they are on their own in their support of Bashar Al Assad, whom they consider to be a “good guy” (considering the alternatives), and they know it.

Everywhere we look at, the overwhelming evidence is that all the “good guys” on whom the US government relied upon to bring stability to the Middle East either ended up as the “worst guys” we can find on planet Earth, or turned out to be abysmal failures as leaders and political negotiators. If the “good guys in Afghanistan” are really that “good”, why then after 14 years they still require the presence of US troops in Afghanistan in order to keep their country from falling again into the hands of the Taliban? If the “good guys” in Iraq are really that “good”, why then did their soldiers ran like scared rabbits refusing to fight against the approaching ISIS forces, surrendering and leaving behind their weapons and armored vehicles provided to them at enormous expenditures by the US taxpayer, requiring not only the aid of a massive US bombing campaign against the ISIS militants but also the presence of the Iranian military on the ground? Do the “good guys” of Iraq really expect the USA to save them again and again and again to compensate their lack of leadership and courage and their inability to unify their country? If the “good guys” who deposed Muammar Gaddafi in Libya are so “good”, why then does Libya remain as a failed state? As for Syria, any true moderates who might have lived in Syria have already left and are now in Europe with their families starting new lives, and are in no mood to return to a country whose only option to Bashar Al Assad seems to be ISIS.

So what should the USA do with regards to Syria?

For starters, it should give up any attempt to remove Bashar Al Assad from power. Not only could this lead to a direct confrontation with the Russians, the removal of Bashar Al Assad is precisely what ISIS wants now as its primary objective in order to take over Syria completely.

Without putting troops in the ground, the USA should maintain its aerial campaign against ISIS in Syria, giving the Russians a helping hand. For once, the USA should join forces with the Russians at least in this objective. In the neutralization of a worldwide threat such as ISIS the Russians will need all the help they can get, and they need that help now, tomorrow it may be too late.

Likewise, the aerial targeting against ISIS inside Iraq must also be maintained. With ISIS being bombed out of Iraq by the USA and being bombed inside Syria by both the Russians and the USA, this should suffice to keep them in check for the time being. With ISIS being renewed almost daily with the arrival of hundreds of newly brain-washed recruits coming from around the world after being dazzled by the ISIS propaganda, merely bombing ISIS with one hundred daily aerial warfare missions will simply not be enough, considering that ISIS has displayed an amazing adaptability in its response to the means used against ISIS. President Obama himself has warned several times that this is something that will not have a quick solution.

In the long run, the only way ISIS can be defeated is with its total annihilation, and it will be a prolonged effort with no easy solution. The Russians cannot win this war fighting it alone. As a matter of fact, it is likely that ISIS will be able to hold out even with the combined efforts of the USA and Russia working together against ISIS, and some sort of international coalition may be needed.

The Arab neighbors of Syria such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait must be convinced to provide troops in the ground by convincing them that if Syria falls in the hands of ISIS all of them will be the next objective,

If somebody needs to put “boots in the ground” fighting against ISIS it should be Syria’s neighbors such as Saudi Arabia who, by the way, and according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), in 2014 (last year) had the world’s third-largest military budget at around $80.8 billion, smaller than only those of China and the United States. The US economy has already gone bankrupt (the soaring deficit of the federal government is unpayable, and the US government is in no position to pay off all its accumulated debt reducing the budget deficit to zero and starting anew), a situation brought about by the US military involvement in its foreign wars especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why should Saudi Arabia expect the USA to enter and fight a brutal war against brutal enemies in Syria without putting its share of blood and treasure, considering the proximity of Syria to Saudia Arabia and the uncomfortable fact that ISIS has Saudi Arabia in its eye? And even though no country likes to fight while receiving some kind of payment for its involvement in the sending of soldiers who will really act as mercenaries fighting foreign wars on foreign soil in return for money and goods, the US federal government has not even had the brains (or the guts) to do this, either by asking all interested parties to foot the bill in the sending of US troops to fight against ISIS in Syria, or at the very least by paying someone else to do the job (disgusting as it may sound, perhaps the USA should pay Russia to take on ISIS with Russian troops in Syria, thus sparing the USA from sending its own troops to Syria for the time being).

Another possibility that has not even been exploited or even suggested by the so-called intelligence experts in Washington is the fact that another country threatened by ISIS is Turkey which, by the way, happens to be a member of NATO. Why not involve NATO by letting NATO provide direct military assistance, troops and equipment to Turkey under the premise that the attack against any member of NATO is an attack against all those who make up NATO? If NATO is of no help in such a predicament against the threat posed against Turkey by ISIS, it if doubtful NATO will be willing or able to fulfill any obligations under other scenarios, or to put it bluntly, the member nations of NATO would not be able to count on NATO when facing a military threat, rendering NATO useless for all practical purposes. And it might be added here that the butcher of Syria Bashar Al Assad has never been a threat to any of the members of NATO, the danger coming from Syria against Turkey is being posed by ISIS, not Bashar Al Assad. Yet another reason to forget about the usefulness of removing him from power.

Finally, a copy of the Bible should be given to each of the so-called “intelligence experts and advisors” who serve Washington, making them read the entire book again and again and again. Not for the purpose of religious indoctrination, but simply to make them realize that, at least in that part of the world, conflicts and wars have been waged non-stop for a long long time, and seldom has there been an epoch of peace in what we now call the Middle East. The Romans thought they could change the pattern, and they finally had to pack and leave just in time to see their own empire crumble.

Muhammad wrote the Quran perhaps truly believing everlasting peace could be achieved, and things are almost as bad today if not worse than during his time. The best that can be hoped for is to try to keep things from spiraling out of control as is the case with ISIS. No government including the USA should consider itself to be in the business of deciding who are the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys”. Likewise, by no means should there be any attempt to intervene in local civil wars by taking sides putting “boots in the ground”, the Vietnam experience alone should have proven how unrewarding it can be to do so. Let the people who live in those regions handle their own problems and fight their own wars. If they cannot agree at least in a truce, nobody from the outside will be able to force them into something they really don’t want. Let them fight it out until they are worn out, and only then come in with humanitarian help (food, medicines, shelters) without taking sides just as Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross do.