Thursday 25th of April 2024
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the change of ideas...

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The Future of the Levant

by Thierry Meyssan

We can’t resist publishing Thierry Meyssan’s editorial in al-Watan, Syria’s leading daily newspaper. He describes the United States/Russia agreement for the Levant.

Over the past century, the United Kingdom and then the United States have successively courted all states and faith groups in the Middle East. They have fuelled confessional conflicts in such a way as to make themselves indispensable, according to the old principle of "Divide and conquer".


President Trump was elected three years ago with the plan to end the US Empire and bring his country’s forces back to the service of his fellow citizens. According to the analysis of his ephemeral security adviser, General Michael Flynn, withdrawing his troops from the wider Middle East while bringing peace to it means ending religious conflicts and therefore giving priority to sectarian states. In other words, Saudi Arabia must be de-wahhabited, Israel must be de-jewed, Iran must be de-chiited and Gaza de-sunnised, and the sectarian constitutions of Lebanon and Iraq must be changed.


That is exactly what we are witnessing today.


Prince Mohamad Ben Salmane and King Salmane himself, although they derive their legitimacy from the Wahhabi Brotherhood, are constantly pushing it back in their country.


Avigdor Lieberman, president of the Russian-speaking Israel Beitenu party, has brought about the fall of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and has been calling for a government without religious parties for a year. Two legislative elections later, General Benny Gantz may form a secular government of national unity, including Lieberman and Netanyahu, but without the religious parties. Otherwise, third parliamentary elections will have to be held.


Iran has imprisoned the main collaborators of former secular President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The country is under financial pressure from the United States and Israel’s military. At some point, it will be preferable for it to change its own system of government and return to a nationalist policy.


While one half of the Palestinian Territories is secular, the other half is governed by Hamas. But the State of Palestine only exists because the rest of Palestine is a Jewish State. If Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to be a simple minister, he would quickly be caught by his country’s judiciary. His fall would not be that of the Likud, but that of the few supporters of the Greater Israel conqueror from the Nile to the Euphrates.


In Lebanon, despite massive demonstrations, it is impossible to reform the sectarian constitution that has plagued the country for three quarters of a century and a civil war. Indeed, a constituent commission can only be formed by respecting the sectarian balances and cannot therefore abolish them. And if a constituent assembly were to be elected, the sectarian parties would once again buy voters to maintain themselves. The only solution is the creation of a secular military government that reforms the Constitution itself before withdrawing for the benefit of elected civilians.


In Iraq, the situation is the same, although less caricatured. As in Lebanon, the protest is now led by the Shia majority. Despite the apparent contradictions, Moqtada el-Sadr is first a nationalist before being a Shiite. Just as in Lebanon, sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is first a nationalist before being a Shiite. It has always been said that Hezbollah would cease to exist in its current form when Israel was no longer a Jewish state.


This White House project meets that of the Russian Federation, which has always protected Christians, but has always opposed denominational states.


Thierry Meyssan

Translation 

Roger Lagassé

Source 

Al-Watan (Syria)

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article208196.html

minimising conflicts...

Turkey and Russia to Begin Joint Patrols in 7 Km Wide Area South of Border With Syria – Erdogan


The presidents of the two countries previously agreed upon the terms of the withdrawal of Syrian Kurds from the northern part of the Arab Republic and on mechanisms to ensure they won't return.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that Russia and Turkey will start joint patrols of a 7 km-wide area around a safe-zone in northern Syria on 1 November. He also added that the safe-zone, previously negotiated with the US, could be widened, if Kurdish attacks on Turkey continue.

The Turkish president noted his country sees that the withdrawal of the Kurdish militia from the Syrian border under the agreement with Russia has not been completed and warned that a new military operation against the YPG forces could be launched by Ankara if the situation doesn't change.

 

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201910301077180603-turkey-and-russia-...

endless wars coming to an endless continuum...

The New York Times reports on the growing dissatisfaction with endless wars among U.S. veterans that fought in them. Unfortunately, their initial framing for the article is wildly misleading:

The shifting attitudes of so many who served in the wars help explain why Mr. Trump has support among veterans as he brings troops home and has resisted military action against other nations [bold mine-DL]. 

The problem with this framing is that it isn’t true. Trump isn’t bringing troops home, and saying that he has “resisted military action” is a strange way to describe someone who has twice ordered the illegal bombing of Syria and has driven the U.S. to the brink of war with Iran. The headline refers to Trump’s “opposition to endless wars,” but the article eventually acknowledges that the president’s “opposition” has proven to be entirely rhetorical. The record shows that Trump has sent more troops to other countries, and that has included escalating the U.S. role in ongoing wars. Trump can be said to have “resisted” military action only in the sense that he was moments away from launching an unnecessary attack on Iran that he then just as suddenly canceled. The president has repeatedly threatened to start new wars, he has greatly intensified U.S. drone strikes around the world, and to date he has not brought home any troops deployed abroad. Relaxed rules of engagement in the wars he has escalated have also meant a spike in civilian casualties.

The NYT article cites polling data that shows that most veterans see past and current U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as mistakes, and most of them think we should get out of Syria:

Among veterans, 64 percent say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting, according to a study by the Pew Research Center, slightly higher than the 62 percent of civilians who feel the same way. Disagreement with the conflict in Afghanistan is lower — 58 percent of veterans and 59 percent of the general public believe that was not a worthy war. While some veterans support continued military engagement in Syria, more than half — 55 percent — oppose it. 

Given all this, it is puzzling that veterans would support someone who has done nothing to end the wars that they increasingly oppose. Trump’s record doesn’texplain why Trump has their support, but the evidence shows that veterans are significantly more likely to approve of the job he is doing than the country as a whole. 56% of veterans approve of Trump’s performance, but they can’t be approving of Trump’s moves to end endless wars because he has not made any such moves. The phony Syria withdrawal reminds us that there are still more U.S. troops in Syria now than when Trump took office, and he has just committed hundreds of them to a dubious, illegal mission that they don’t understand. One would think that this sort of careless misuse of the military would anger the veterans of other wars that were so bungled and mismanaged.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/trump-isnt-ending-any-wars/

 

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first the PKK, then the turks...

The Russian army has deployed to Tal Tamr, in northern Syria, to protect the population from abuses at the hands of the Turkish army and the PKK/YPG Kurdish militias.

The city of Tal Tamr was annexed by the PKK/YPG to "Rojava", the state devised by the Pentagon in 2013 as part of the plan for redrawing the Middle East. At that point, the PKK-YPF proceeded to push out many Assyrian Christians, who constituted the majority, replacing them with Kurds.

For its part, the Turkish army is destroying all non-Muslim monuments in its path, and consequently the traces of a Christian presence.

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article208378.html

 

 

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