By Sharmine Narwani
Source: RT
On March 23, 2011, at the very start of what we now call the ‘Syrian conflict,’ two young men – Sa’er Yahya Merhej and Habeel Anis Dayoub – were gunned down in the southern Syrian city of Daraa.

Merhej and Dayoub were neither civilians, nor were they in opposition to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. They were two regular soldiers in the ranks of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

Shot by unknown gunmen, Merhej and Dayoub were the first of eighty-eight soldiers killed throughout Syria in the first month of this conflict– in Daraa, Latakia, Douma, Banyas, Homs, Moadamiyah, Idlib, Harasta, Suweida, Talkalakh and the suburbs of Damascus.

According to the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, the combined death toll for Syrian government forces was 2,569 by March 2012, the first year of the conflict. At that time, the UN’s total casualty count for all victims of political violence in Syria was 5,000.

These numbers paint an entirely different picture of events in Syria. This was decidedly not the conflict we were reading about in our headlines – if anything, the ‘parity’ in deaths on both sides even suggests that the government used ‘proportionate’ force in thwarting the violence.

But Merhej and Dayoub’s deaths were ignored. Not a single Western media headline told their story – or that of the other dead soldiers. These deaths simply didn’t line up with the Western ‘narrative’ of the Arab uprisings and did not conform to the policy objectives of Western governments.

For American policymakers, the “Arab Spring” provided a unique opportunity to unseat the governments of adversary states in the Middle East. Syria, the most important Arab member of the Iran-led ‘Resistance Axis,’ was target number one.

To create regime-change in Syria, the themes of the “Arab Spring” needed to be employed opportunistically – and so Syrians needed to die.

The “dictator” simply had to “kill his own people” – and the rest would follow.

How words kill

Four key narratives were spun ad nauseam in every mainstream Western media outlet, beginning in March 2011 and gaining steam in the coming months.

– The Dictator is killing his “own people.”

– The protests are “peaceful.”

– The opposition is “unarmed.”

– This is a “popular revolution.”

Pro-Western governments in Tunisia and Egypt had just been ousted in rapid succession in the previous two months – and so the ‘framework’ of Arab Spring-style, grass roots-powered regime-change existed in the regional psyche. These four carefully framed ‘narratives’ that had gained meaning in Tunisia and Egypt, were now prepped and loaded to delegitimize and undermine any government at which they were lobbed.

But to employ them to their full potential in Syria, Syrians had to take to the streets in significant numbers and civilians had to die at the hands of brutal security forces. The rest could be spun into a “revolution” via the vast array of foreign and regional media outlets committed to this “Arab Spring” discourse.

Protests, however, did not kick off in Syria the way they had in Tunisia and Egypt. In those first few months, we saw gatherings that mostly numbered in the hundreds – sometimes in the thousands – to express varies degrees of political discontent. Most of these gatherings followed a pattern of incitement from Wahhabi-influenced mosques during Friday’s prayers, or after local killings that would move angry crowds to congregate at public funerals.

A member of a prominent Daraa family explained to me that there was some confusion over who was killing people in his city – the government or “hidden parties.” He explains that, at the time, Daraa’s citizens were of two minds: “One was that the regime is shooting more people to stop them and warn them to finish their protests and stop gathering. The other opinion was that hidden militias want this to continue, because if there are no funerals, there is no reason for people to gather.”

With the benefit of hindsight, let’s look at these Syria narratives five years into the conflict:

We know now that several thousand Syrian security forces were killed in the first year, beginning March 23, 2011. We therefore also know that the opposition was “armed” from the start of the conflict. We have visual evidence of gunmen entering Syria across the Lebanese border in April and May 2011. We know from the testimonies of impartial observers that gunmen were targeting civilians in acts of terrorism and that “protests” were not all “peaceful”.

The Arab League mission conducted a month-long investigation inside Syria in late 2011 and reported:

“In Homs, Idlib and Hama, the observer mission witnessed acts of violence being committed against government forces and civilians that resulted in several deaths and injuries. Examples of those acts include the bombing of a civilian bus, killing eight persons and injuring others, including women and children, and the bombing of a train carrying diesel oil. In another incident in Homs, a police bus was blown up, killing two police officers. A fuel pipeline and some small bridges were also bombed.”

Longtime Syrian resident and Dutch priest Father Frans van der Lugt, who was killed in Homs in April 2014, wrote in January 2012:

“From the start the protest movements were not purely peaceful. From the start I saw armed demonstrators marching along in the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.”

A few months earlier, in September 2011, he had observed:

“From the start there has been the problem of the armed groups, which are also part of the opposition…The opposition on the street is much stronger than any other opposition. And this opposition is armed and frequently employs brutality and violence, only in order then to blame the government.”

Furthermore, we also now know that whatever Syria was, it was no “popular revolution.” The Syrian army has remained intact, even after blanket media coverage of mass defections. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians continued to march in unreported demonstrations in support of the president. The state’s institutions and government and business elite have largely remained loyal to Assad. Minority groups – Alawites, Christians, Kurds, Druze, Shia, and the Baath Party, which is majority Sunni – did not join the opposition against the government. And the major urban areas and population centers remain under the state’s umbrella, with few exceptions.

A genuine “revolution,” after all, does not have operation rooms in Jordan and Turkey. Nor is a “popular” revolution financed, armed and assisted by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the US, UK and France.

Sowing “Narratives” for geopolitical gain

The 2010 US military’s Special Forces Unconventional Warfare manual states:

“The intent of US [Unconventional Warfare] UW efforts is to exploit a hostile power’s political, military, economic, and psychological vulnerabilities by developing and sustaining resistance forces to accomplish US strategic objectives…For the foreseeable future, US forces will predominantly engage in irregular warfare (IW) operations.”

A secret 2006 US State Department cable reveals that Assad’s government was in a stronger position domestically and regionally than in recent years, and suggests ways to weaken it: “The following provides our summary of potential vulnerabilities and possible means to exploit them…” This is followed by a list of “vulnerabilities” – political, economic, ethnic, sectarian, military, psychological – and recommended “actions” on how to “exploit” them.

This is important. US unconventional warfare doctrine posits that populations of adversary states usually have active minorities that respectively oppose and support their government, but for a “resistance movement” to succeed, it must sway the perceptions of the large “uncommitted middle population” to turn on their leaders. Says the manual (and I borrow liberally here from a previous article of mine):

To turn the “uncommitted middle population” into supporting insurgency, UW recommends the “creation of atmosphere of wider discontent through propaganda and political and psychological efforts to discredit the government.”

As conflict escalates, so should the “intensification of propaganda; psychological preparation of the population for rebellion.”

First, there should be local and national “agitation” – the organization of boycotts, strikes, and other efforts to suggest public discontent. Then, the “infiltration of foreign organizers and advisors and foreign propaganda, material, money, weapons and equipment.”

The next level of operations would be to establish “national front organizations [i.e. the Syrian National Council] and liberation movements [i.e. the Free Syrian Army]” that would move larger segments of the population toward accepting “increased political violence and sabotage” – and encourage the mentoring of “individuals or groups that conduct acts of sabotage in urban centers.”

I wrote about foreign-backed irregular warfare strategies being employed in Syria one year into the crisis – when the overwhelming media narratives were still all about the “dictator killing his own people,” protests being “peaceful,” the opposition mostly “unarmed,” the “revolution wildly “popular,” and thousands of “civilians” being targeted exclusively by state security forces.

Were these narratives all manufactured? Were the images we saw all staged? Or was it only necessary to fabricate some things – because the “perception” of the vast middle population, once shaped, would create its own natural momentum toward regime change?

And what do we, in the region, do with this startling new information about how wars are conducted against us – using our own populations as foot soldiers for foreign agendas?

Create our own “game”

Two can play at this narratives game.

The first lesson learned is that ideas and objectives can be crafted, framed finessed and employed to great efficacy.

The second take-away is that we need to establish more independent media and information distribution channels to disseminate our own value propositions far and wide.

Western governments can rely on a ridiculously sycophantic army of Western and regional journalists to blast us with their propaganda day and night. We don’t need to match them in numbers or outlets – we can also employ strategies to deter their disinformation campaigns. Western journalists who repeatedly publish false, inaccurate and harmful information that endanger lives must be barred from the region.

These are not journalists – I prefer to call them media combatants – and they do not deserve the liberties accorded to actual media professionals. If these Western journalists had, in the first year of the Syrian conflict, questioned the premises of any of the four narratives listed above, would 250,000-plus Syrians be dead today? Would Syria be destroyed and 12 million Syrians made homeless? Would ISIS even exist?

Free speech? No thank you – not if we have to die for someone else’s national security objectives.

Syria changed the world. It brought the Russians and Chinese (BRICS) into the fray and changed the global order from a unipolar one to a multilateral one – overnight. And it created common cause between a group of key states in the region that now form the backbone of a rising ‘Security Arc’ from the Levant to the Persian Gulf. We now have immense opportunities to re-craft the world and the Middle East in our own vision. New borders? We will draw them from inside the region. Terrorists? We will defeat them ourselves. NGOs? We will create our own, with our own nationals and our own agendas. Pipelines? We will decide where they are laid.

But let’s start building those new narratives before the ‘Other’ comes in to fill the void.

A word of caution. The worst thing we can do is to waste our time rejecting foreign narratives. That just makes us the ‘rejectionists’ in their game. And it gives their game life. What we need to do is create our own game – a rich vocabulary of homegrown narratives – one that defines ourselves, our history and aspirations, based on our own political, economic and social realities. Let the ‘Other’ reject our version, let them become the ‘rejectionists’ in our game… and give it life.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics. She is a former senior associate at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and has a master’s degree in International Relations from Columbia University. Sharmine has written commentary for a wide array of publications, including Al Akhbar English, the New York Times, the Guardian, Asia Times Online, Salon.com, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English, BRICS Post and others. You can follow her on Twitter at @snarwani

By Alexander Mercosuris
Source: Russian Insider
Russia’s partial withdrawal announcement is a logical step at this point in the Syrian conflict.

The Russians never promised an open-ended or unlimited commitment.

It is consistent with the policy of strengthening the Syrian army so it can fight jihadism in Syria by itself.

It will not undermine the struggle against the Islamic State or jihadism in Syria because the objective of preventing the collapse of the Syrian state has been achieved.

The Russian decision to withdraw part of their forces from Syria has come as a surprise.

It has triggered a huge amount of speculation as to the reason.

In reality the Russians – as they always do – have explained the reason carefully, though as always their explanations have gone unreported and are being ignored.

In fact a decision by the Russians to withdraw part of their forces now – when the regime change strategy has been defeated and the Syrian army is becoming increasingly strong and capable of fighting the Islamic State and the jihadis by itself – was pre-programmed from the start and was part of the original decision to intervene.

In this article, rather than engage in wild guesses about the intentions behind Russian actions, I shall set out what the Russians themselves say. At the end I will then offer my own opinion.

The Policy Framework – The Syrian Conflict

The starting point to any discussion both of the Russian decision to intervene in the Syrian conflict, and to the decision to undertake a partial withdrawal now, ought to be the overall approach the Russians have taken to the Syrian conflict since it began.

I first discussed this here back in 2012.

Russian policy has been to resolve Syria’s internal crisis through negotiations between the Syrian factions.

The objective is a comprehensive political settlement, with an agreement to set up a transitional government and a new constitution leading to fresh elections.

The Russians have consistently opposed, and have repeatedly warned against, any attempt to resolve the crisis by force.

Here is the policy in one sentence taken from Lavrov’s presentation during the meeting between him Shoigu and Putin which ended with Putin’s recent withdrawal announcement:

“We have consistently advocated establishing an intra-Syrian dialogue in accordance with the decisions made in 2012.”

The reference to 2012 refers to the Geneva Conference that was held that year, where an “intra-Syrian dialogue” was supposed to have agreed by all the parties

That dialogue never happened because – once more in Lavrov’s words, because “our suggestions were met with a lack of will on the part of all our partners working on this process.”

In fact what happened was that the attempt to set up an “intra-Syrian dialogue” was wrecked because the Syrian opposition backed by the US and its allies insisted on President Assad standing down as a precondition for that dialogue taking place.

When that did not happen the war began in earnest.

As to President Assad, the Russians have never at any time said that President Assad has their unqualified backing or that they will stick with him through thick and thin.

What the Russians have always said – and what they continue to say – is that it is not for them or for any other outside power to demand his removal, and that they will never make such a demand of him.

The Russians have also repeatedly rejected the Syrian opposition’s demand for President Assad’s removal as a precondition for negotiations.

They argue that that demand makes a possible outcome of the negotiations and of the internal Syrian political process that should follow them into a pre-condition, which given the strength of support for President Assad within Syria is not only unreasonable, but also guarantees that the war will continue.

The Russians have however also always rejected suggestions that they consider all of President Assad’s supporters “terrorists”. Claims they do so – which appear regularly in the Western media – are untrue. On the contrary, they have frequently used expressions such as the “legitimate Syrian opposition” and have on many occasions tried to engage President Assad’s opponents in dialogue.

In passing I should say that the repeated Western media claim that President Assad also says that all his opponents are “terrorists” is also untrue.

President Assad agreed to the Russian proposal for a dialogue between himself and his opponents back in 2011, and he renewed his agreement to the Russian proposal at the conference in Geneva in 2012. He has never gone back on that agreement.

The problem in the Syrian conflict is not that President Assad refuses to negotiate. It is that up to now his opponents – backed by the Western powers – have refused to negotiate with him.

The Policy Framework – Opposition to Regime Change

The Russians have also made repeatedly clear their fundamental disagreement and opposition to the regime change doctrine the West has assumed for itself even when or especially when it is decked out in humanitarian interventionist or neocon “democracy promotion” colours.

Again I discussed all this in detail in 2012 here.

The Russians have repeatedly said that the doctrine of regime change is an exceptionally dangerous departure from international law, which violates fundamental principles of international relations as set out in the UN Charter by privileging a small group of Western states over all the others in a way that creates a threat to peace.

They also say this doctrine has brought disaster wherever it has been applied, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere, and they blame it for destabilising the Middle East and for sowing the seeds of militant jihadist terrorism there.

Putin once again said all this in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly which included his now famous rhetorical question “Do they realise what they have done?” Here is what Putin said:

“We all know that after the end of the Cold War the world was left with one centre of dominance, and those who found themselves at the top of the pyramid were tempted to think that, since they are so powerful and exceptional, they know best what needs to be done and thus they don’t need to reckon with the UN, which, instead of rubber-stamping the decisions they need, often stands in their way.

It seems, however, that instead of learning from other people’s mistakes, some prefer to repeat them and continue to export revolutions, only now these are “democratic” revolutions.

Just look at the situation in the Middle East and Northern Africa already mentioned by the previous speaker.

Of course, political and social problems have been piling up for a long time in this region, and people there wanted change.

But what was the actual outcome?

Instead of bringing about reforms, aggressive intervention rashly destroyed government institutions and the local way of life. Instead of democracy and progress, there is now violence, poverty, social disasters and total disregard for human rights, including even the right to life.”

Regime Change and Syria

Since the Russians totally disagree with the doctrine of regime change, they have consistently opposed every attempt by the US and the West to impose it on Syria.

They have repeatedly blocked Western attempts to obtain UN Security Council Resolutions that would have allowed the Western powers to intervene in Syria to overthrow its government.

Again I discussed all this in 2012 here, and I also discussed in detail in October 2011 the diplomacy which preceded a Russian and Chinese veto of a Western proposed Resolution to the UN Security Council that was intended to pave the way for Western military intervention to achieve regime change in Syria here.

In August 2013 – consistent with their strong opposition to Western military intervention in Syria intended to effect regime change there – they rallied international opinion against a plan by the US to bomb Syria without the authorisation of the UN Security Council when it seemed that following the Ghouta chemical attack the US was about to do it.

This together with strong opposition to military intervention by the US and British public and President Obama’s own recently revealed doubts about the wisdom of the proposed bombing, succeeding in preventing it from taking place.

Russian Military Doctrine and Intervention in “the Far Abroad”

The Russians before last summer however never showed the slightest inclination to intervene militarily in the Syria.

Since their entire policy was not to help any side win the war but to promote negotiations leading to a peaceful settlement, there would have been no logic in their wanting to do so.

Beyond that there is the fact that the Russians as a general principle are strongly averse to intervening militarily in other countries.

Since Russia rejects the whole doctrine of regime change and in principle rejects the self-designated role of world policeman both for the US and for itself, there would be no logic in the Russians configuring their military to intervene beyond their borders.

They have not in fact done so and their military doctrine defines the role of their armed forces in the traditional way as a force to protect Russia and its people and Russia’s vital national and security interests, which are located in the territory of the former USSR, which the Russians still sometimes call “the near abroad”.

All this is thoroughly discussed by the Saker here.

The relevant Russian legal provision defining the role of the Russian armed forces isThe Federal Law N61-F3 “On Defense”, Section IV, Article 10, Para 2. It states that the mission of the Russian Armed Forces is

“to repel aggression against the Russian Federation, the armed defense of the integrity and inviolability of the territory of the Russian Federation, and to carry out tasks in accordance with international treaties of the Russian Federation“.

Russian actions have been fully unlike with this conservative traditional approach to the use of force. Until they intervened militarily in Syria in September the Russians had never acted militarily outside the territory of the former USSR.

On the rare occasions when they did act militarily beyond their borders, it was always done within the territory of the former USSR and the force used was used sparingly and with great circumspection.

For example, the Russians did not march on and occupy the Georgian capital Tbilisi – as they could easily have done – during the short South Ossetia war in 2008, and they rejected Yanukovych’s request to intervene militarily in Ukraine to restore him to power as the country’s President.

Since Russia does not give itself the right to intervene in other countries, and rejects the self-appointed role of world or even regional policeman, it lacks the army of armchair warriors and geopolitical strategists who populate the media, NGOs and think-tanks in the West, and who can be relied on to demand war at every opportunity.

Russian Military Doctrine and Intervention in Syria

This explains why the Russians never considered the option of intervening military intervention in Syria before last summer. On the rare occasions when the possibility was brought up it was invariably and immediately rejected.

I remember a Russian official saying back in 2012 that Russia would not intervene to defend Syria if the West attacked it, but would prevent such an attack from receiving a mandate from the UN Security Council, which would legalise the attack under international law.

The real surprise in the Syrian conflict is not therefore the Russians’ recent withdrawal announcement. It was the decision the Russians took last summer to intervene in the conflict.

When initial reports of the intervention began to circulate they seemed so entirely out of character that I discounted them.

Many Russians remain skeptical about the intervention. Whilst Russian military action in Chechnya in 1999, in South Ossetia in 2008 and in Crimea in 2014 was overwhelming supported by the Russian public since it was obviously done in defence of Russia and its national interests, there has been notably less enthusiasm for the intervention in distant Syria.

A classic statement of the objections to the intervention, which accurately reflects the feelings of may Russians, is to be found in the two articles Russia Insider has published by Jacob Draizen here and here.

So Why did Russia Intervene in Syria?

Russia nonetheless intervened in Syria because the Russian leadership decided that it was necessary to do so in order to protect Russia’s national security.

The reason was that the Syrian civil war had created a vacuum which was being filled by violent jihadi terrorists – above all by the Islamic State – which a dangerous security threat to Russia.

Given Syria’s proximity to Russia’s southern borders, the fact that may of the violent jihadis operating in Syria had originally come from Russia, and that the Russians have themselves had to fight a violent jihadi insurgency in the northern Caucasus within their own territory, that concern is understandable.

The intervention in Syria was therefore in line with the Russians’ political philosophy and their military doctrine.

The Russians have explained all this in great detail.

In his recent UN General Assembly Speech delivered shortly before the Russian bombing campaign started in September Putin explained how the chaos caused by the wars in Iraq and Syria – which he said were the result of the West’s regime change policy – had led to the rise of jihadi terrorism and of the Islamic State, and that this was a threat to everyone, including Russia.

Here is what Putin said in his own words:

“Power vacuum in some countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa obviously resulted in the emergence of areas of anarchy, which were quickly filled with extremists and terrorists.

The so-called Islamic State has tens of thousands of militants fighting for it, including former Iraqi soldiers who were left on the street after the 2003 invasion. Many recruits come from Libya whose statehood was destroyed as a result of a gross violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1973.

And now radical groups are joined by members of the so-called “moderate” Syrian opposition backed by the West. They get weapons and training, and then they defect and join the so-called Islamic State.

In fact, the Islamic State itself did not come out of nowhere. It was initially developed as a weapon against undesirable secular regimes.

Having established control over parts of Syria and Iraq, Islamic State now aggressively expands into other regions. It seeks dominance in the Muslim world and beyond.

We consider that any attempts to flirt with terrorists, let alone arm them, are short-sighted and extremely dangerous. This may make the global terrorist threat much worse, spreading it to new regions around the globe, especially since there are fighters from many different countries, including European ones, gaining combat experience with Islamic State.

Unfortunately, Russia is no exception.”

The Decision to Intervene – Threat of Collapse of the Syria State

In his speech to the UN General Assembly Putin said that for the war against the jihadi terrorists and the Islamic State in Syria to be conducted successfully the Syrian state would have to be preserved so that the Syrian army – the organisation which is actually fighting the jihadi terrorists and the Islamic State in Syria – could continue to do so.

Here again is what Putin said:

“Russia has consistently opposed terrorism in all its forms. Today, we provide military-technical assistance to Iraq, Syria and other regional countries fighting terrorist groups.

We think it’s a big mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian authorities and government forces who valiantly fight terrorists on the ground.

We should finally admit that President Assad’s government forces and the Kurdish militia are the only forces really fighting terrorists in Syria.

Yes, we are aware of all the problems and conflicts in the region, but we definitely have to consider the actual situation on the ground.”

At no point however has Putin or any other Russian official gone back on their original policy that the conflict in Syria must be solved through negotiations held without preconditions by the Syrian parties.

On the contrary the Russians have always said that a political settlement is essential so that the country can unite all its forces and combine all its energies to fight the jihadi terrorists and the Islamic State on its territory.

Putin explained this clearly in answer to journalists’ questions whilst still for the UN General Assembly session

“We are considering what kind of additional support we could give to the Syrian army in fighting terrorism.

I would like to stress that we believe that these anti-terrorist efforts should be made alongside political processes within Syria.

No land operations or participation of Russian army units has ever been considered or ever could be.

This is a deep conflict, and a bloody one, unfortunately, which is why I said that alongside support to the official authorities in their struggle against terrorism we would insist on political reform and a political process to be conducted at the same time.

As far as I know, President al-Assad agrees with this.”

Putin said this again in a public discussion he held with Defence Minister Shoigu on 7th October 2015, shortly after Russia’s military intervention in Syria began, where he actually discussed the possibility of President Assad’s opponents uniting with the Syrian army to fight the Islamic State and the jihadis together. Here is what he said:

“At the same time, we realise that conflicts of this kind must end in a political settlement.

I discussed this matter just this morning with the Russian Foreign Minister.

During my recent visit to Paris, the President of France, Mr Hollande, voiced an interesting idea that he thought is worth a try, namely, to have President Assad’s government troops join forces with the Free Syrian Army.

True, we do not know yet where this army is and who heads it, but if we take the view that these people are part of the healthy opposition, if it were possible to have them join in the fight against terrorist organisations such as ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and others, this would help pave the way to a future political settlement in Syria.”

Since these comments were made we have learnt much more.

As Russia Insider has previously discussed, the event that triggered the Russian decision to intervene was confirmation from the US during the summer that the US was on the brink of declaring a no-fly zone over Syria.

That the US was on the brink of declaring a “no-fly zone” over Syria was not a secret and was confirmed by US officials and has been openly discussed by the Western media.

As we have previously discussed “no-fly zone” is today simply a euphemism for a US bombing campaign. The result of this bombing campaign would have been the overthrow of the Syrian government.

That this would have been the expected outcome of the “no-fly zone” has been confirmed – as we have reported – by Russia’s ambassador to Britain, who says that the Western powers told the Russians during the summer that the Syrian government would fall and that the Islamic State would be in occupation of Damascus by October.

Given the threat Russia perceives to itself from the violent jihadis in Syria, that was a catastrophe the Russians were not prepared to contemplate, which is why they intervened to prevent it.

Russia’s Objectives
The Russians have not only explained carefully why they intervened, but they have been painstaking in explaining what their intervention was intended to achieve.

Their objective was to do the things Putin said in his UN Speech: stop the Syrian government from collapsing and the Islamic State from reaching Damascus by October and gaining for the Syrian army the time and space it needed to recover from the losses it had suffered during the civil war so that it could prosecute the war against the jihadi terrorists and the Islamic State more effectively.

At no point however did the Russians commit themselves either to defeating the Islamic State and the jihadis by themselves, or to winning the civil war for President Assad.

Such a thing would have been contrary to their policy of seeking to end the Syrian conflict through negotiations by the parties, and of persuading Syria’s opposing parties to unite their forces and energies to fight the jihadi terrorists and the Islamic State.

Seeking to win the civil war for President Assad would also have gone against Russia’s political and military doctrines and philosophy of not intervening in other countries and of not seeking to shape their political destinies.

The intervention in Syria was carried out to protect Russian security and Russian national interests. It was not a grand US style geopolitical play, and it was never intended to be.

Back in November I discussed the limited nature of the Russians’ objectives in Syria based both on their actions in the country and on what they were doing diplomatically and on the things they had repeatedly said here.

Putin again explained it all clearly in a television interview he gave on 11th October 2015 to the journalist Vladimir Solovyov. Here is what he said:

“Vladimir Solovyov: The Syrian army has now gone on the offensive. What is their likelihood of success?

Vladimir Putin: This depends above all on the Syrian army itself and on the Syrian authorities.

We cannot commit ourselves to more than is reasonable and never have done so. I said from the start that our active operations on Syrian soil will be limited in time to the Syrian army’s offensive.

Coming back to your earlier question, our task is to stabilise the legitimate government and establish conditions that will make it possible to look for political compromise.

Vladimir Solovyov: Stabilisation through military means?

Vladimir Putin: Yes, through military means, of course. When you have ISIS and other such groups of international terrorists right next to the capital, who is going to want to look for a settlement with the Syrian authorities, sitting practically under siege right in their own capital?

On the contrary, if the Syrian army demonstrates its viability and, most important, its readiness to fight terrorism, and if it shows that the authorities can achieve this, this opens up much greater possibilities for reaching political compromises.”

Putin made it clear that the operation would be “limited in time to the Syrian army’s offensive” and that Russia was not making an open ended commitment and would not “commit (itself) to more than is reasonable and has never done so”.

Given the limited nature of the objective – to save the Syrian government, provide political space for the negotiations the Russians have called for since the start of the conflict in 2011, and to strengthen the Syrian army so that it could fight its jihadi enemies more effectively – it could not have been otherwise.

Putin himself never said how long the intervention was expected to last. However other Russian officials did that for him.

Back in October Alexey Pushkov, the head of the foreign affairs committee of the State Duma – Russia’s parliament – estimated that it would last 3 to 4 months,

Given Russia’s military doctrine and philosophy, it is in fact a certainty the Russian military were promised the intervention would be limited in extent and duration.

The decision to start a partial withdrawal now when he objectives have in part been achieved (see below) and in rough accordance with the original timetable honours that promise.

Objective Achieved?

Have the Russians however achieved the objectives they set themselves in Syria?

If set against the limited objectives they actually set themselves – rather than the more grandiose objectives often attributed to them – the answer is – yes.

The US has been forced to abandon its plan for a no-fly zone. The Syrian government has been preserved. The Islamic State does not control Damascus. On the contrary it has been steadily losing territory, most of its routes to Turkey have been cut, its oil trade has been severely disrupted and its flow of volunteers has started to dry up.

More importantly the Syrian army has been considerably strengthened and has been able to go on the offensive. In his presentation to Putin where the withdrawal announcement was made Defence Minister Shoigu set out the results:

“The terrorists have been driven out of Latakia, communication has been restored with Aleppo, Palmyra is under siege and combat actions are being continued to liberate it from unlawful armed groups. We have cleared most of the provinces of Hama and Homs, unblocked the Kweires airbase, which was blocked for more than three years, established control over oil and gas fields near Palmyra: three large fields that, as of now, have begun to operate steadily.

In total, with support from our air force, the Syrian troops liberated 400 towns and over 10,000 square kilometres of territory. We have had a significant turning point in the fight against terrorism.”

The result – exactly as anticipated by Putin in his interview with Vladimir Solovyov in October – is that the Syrian opposition and its Western backers have finally agreed to sit down and talk to the Syrian government without imposing preconditions – something they had consistently refused to do up to now.

Here is how Foreign Minister Lavrov explained it all in his presentation to Putin at the same meeting.

“Our Aerospace Forces operation helped create conditions for the political process.

We have consistently advocated establishing an intra-Syrian dialogue in accordance with the decisions made in 2012. Our suggestions were met with a lack of will on the part of all our partners working on this process. But since the start of the operations by our Aerospace Forces, the situation began to change.

The initial steps were gradually taken, first based on your talks with US President Barack Obama: the Russian-American group began to prepare a broader process for external support for intra-Syrian talks.

An international Syria support group was created, which included all the key players without exception, including regional powers.

Agreements on the parameters for the Syrian political process achieved in this group were approved by two UN Security Council resolutions, which confirmed the three-way process of ceasing hostilities, broadening access to humanitarian supplies in previously besieged areas and starting intra-Syrian talks.

Thanks to these decisions, including your latest agreement with President Obama, today intra-Syrian talks between the Government delegation and delegations of multiple opposition groups have finally been launched in Geneva.

The work is difficult and we have yet to see how all these groups can gather at one table. For now, UN representatives are working individually with each of them, but the process has begun, and it is in our common interest to make it sustainable and irreversible.”

Given that what both Shoigu and Lavrov said to Putin is incontestably true, it was a forgone conclusion given the policy framework and the promises almost certainly given to the military, that Putin would order a partial withdrawal.

To have done otherwise would have breached the timetable and gone far beyond the policy, inviting criticism from the military and the foreign policy establishment and eventually from the Russian public.

A Partial Withdrawal from a Limited Commitment

The withdrawal is however far from total. The Russians are not abandoning Syria to its fate.

They will retain possession of the Tartus and Khmeimim naval and air bases. The naval and air defence forces – including the S400 anti aircraft missile system – will remain in place, preventing the resurrection of Western ideas for a no-fly zone, a fact grudgingly admitted in this bitter editorial in The Guardian.

Some supporters of the intervention – who assumed it was intended to be more extensive and open-ended than the Russians ever said it would be – are saying that the Russians lost their nerve and got cold feet and are being overly trusting and naive by pulling out prematurely before the jihadi forces in Syria have been completely destroyed, allowing the West to resume its regime change strategy.

What I would say about that is that people who say these things have clearly not familiarised themselves with the situation on the ground in Syria or with the things the Russians have said. Besides nothing has happened over the course of the intervention to make the Russians lose their nerve, and Russia’s leaders do not come across as trusting or naive people.

The continued presence of a significant Russian force in Syria – one far stronger than anyone would have imagined possible before last summer – anyway disproves this criticism.

It seems moreover that a reduced force of aircraft will – at least for the time being – continue to operate from Khmeimim air base.

In his presentation to Putin Defence Minister Shoigu spoke of “combat actions being undertaken to liberate (Palmyra)”. Reports from the Iranian Fars news agency have in fact confirmed Russian aircraft carried out bombing raids on Tuesday after the withdrawal announcement in support of the Syrian army as it fights to liberate the city.

Fars is also reporting further heavy Russian air strikes in Homs province, possibly in support of the Syrian army as it advances on the Islamic State’s capital of Raqqa.

A senior Russian military official at Khmeimim air base has in fact been reported as confirming that Russian bombing raids on jihadi terrorists would continue despite the partial withdrawal, though obviously at a reduced tempo.

What is perhaps being overlooked is that following the recent declaration of the truce the tempo of Russian bombing in Syria had already declined markedly even before the announcement of the partial withdrawal was made.

The reason for that almost certainly is that because of the truce the Russians now have fewer targets to bomb.

What this has means is that at the time of the partial withdrawal announcement the greater part of the Russian strike force at Khmeimim air base was actually standing idle.

The choice was whether to leave the aircraft standing idle at Khmeimim air base or to bring them back to Russian.

Not surprisingly, in light of everything previously said, the decision was taken to bring them back to Russia.

The Way Forward
What happens now?

It has been suggested that with the greater part of their objectives achieved the Russians are now going to switch emphasis from the military to the diplomatic approach and will concentrate on the diplomatic process in Geneva.

That is an exaggeration. As I have explained previously, the Russians do not separate diplomatic from military action in the way the Western powers do.

Not only is there no general ceasefire in Syria, but as Lavrov’s comments in his presentation to Putin show, the Russians are only too well aware of the fragility of the peace process. They are not therefore investing all their hopes in it.

The option of returning the strike force to Syria and resuming the bombing has not been ruled out, which is why the Russians are retaining the air base at Khmeimim.

Whilst the Russians would no doubt be very loathe to do that, if the situation ever becomes as critical as it did last summer no-one should doubt that they will.

More importantly the influx of Russian advisers and weapons – which has played a key role in transforming the Syrian military over the last few months – is going to continue.

It is this influx of advisers and weapons – almost as much as the bombing campaign itself – which has caused the situation in Syria to change so dramatically over the course of the last 5 months.

The Russians will also continue their peace-building effort on the ground in Syria to consolidate the truce and to win over local fighters to the anti-jihadi cause. Shoigu in his presentation to Putin gave the details:

“Organisations involved in this work as a result of the negotiation process have begun taking active steps to ensure the ceasefire (there are currently 42 such organisations); plus, an additional 40 towns that joined the ceasefire.

There is monitoring over observance of the ceasefire; a fairly large number of unmanned aerial vehicles – over 70 – are being used for this purpose, as are all means of gathering intelligence, including electronic intelligence and our satellite constellation.”

Critically, it is in conjunction with this effort, and with the continuing bombing to help Syrian troops in places like Palmyra, that the diplomatic effort and the peace process in Geneva are being pursued.

Will it Work?

The main criticism of the Russian withdrawal decision is that it has left the work half-done.

There is no guarantee the peace process in Geneva will come to fruition.

The jihadi opposition, though badly battered, is still standing and its morale is going to increase now that it thinks the Russians are withdrawing.

The Syrian opposition factions have not given up on their obsession to see President Assad removed, and have consistently shown throughout the conflict that they are far more motivated to remove him than they are to make peace with him or to make common cause with his army to fight the jihadis and the Islamic State.

The Turks, the Saudis and the hardliners in the US remain completely unreconciled and will undoubtedly try to exploit the opportunities created by the truce and the partial Russian withdrawal to put their regime change strategy back on track.

As for counting on the UN Security Council Resolutions that the Russians through painstaking diplomacy have secured (see here and here), previous experience shows that the US and its allies pay no heed to them.

There is force to all these arguments and the discussion between Putin, Lavrov and Shoigu at the meeting where the partial withdrawal was announced shows that the Russians are aware of them.

Against that the Russians have over the last 6 months demonstrated in the clearest possible way that the violent overthrow of the Syrian government – whether through outside action or internal insurgency – is for them a red line, and that they will act decisively to prevent it.

They have also shown in the clearest possible way that there is nothing anyone can do to stop them doing so.

What that means is that everyone except the most fanatical neocons or jihadis now must realise that President Assad cannot be removed by force, and that any attempt to do so will merely prolong the war and will end in defeat.

That provides a powerful incentive to compromise which did not exist before.

President Assad’s opponents both inside Syria and outside must also now reckon with the steady increase in strength of Syrian army, which over the last few days has shown that it is capable of continuing offensive operations on its own.

A refusal to compromise now risks eventual defeat, and that too is a powerful reason to compromise.

The truce and the US-Russian agreement which brought it about show that more and more people are coming round to accepting these facts. Whilst the announcement of Russia’s partial withdrawal might briefly stir hopes amongst some of them of a reversal, it will not take long before reality sinks in again, which is that none of the facts the Russians have created over the last 6 months have really been changed.

Since the Russians objective all along has been to look for ways to end the conflict through negotiations, it is understandable if for the moment they seem broadly satisfied with what has been achieved and seem more optimistic than they have been at any previous time in the conflict.

As for the Islamic State and the jihadis, I repeat what I said recently on Crosstalk, that if the Syrian government succeeds through its military efforts and through compromise with its opponents in consolidating its control of Syria’s cities it will find itself in a position of overwhelming strength.

At that point the jihadi movement and the Islamic State, left controlling what will be little more than empty desert and with their supply lines to Turkey largely cut, will find themselves in an untenable position and will quickly collapse.

I repeat what I have previously said here, that I think that the widely mooted option of partitioning Syria is simply unworkable and that it will not take long for those states that might be considering it to come to the same view (for an intelligently argued opposing view see here).

Conclusion

On balance I think therefore that the prospects for a degree of political stabilisation in Syria along the lines the Russians want are reasonably good.

It is probably expecting too much that there will be a complete end to the conflict. President Assad’s opponents – or at least those who claim to represent President Assad’s opponents and who are turning up to negotiate on their behalf in Geneva – are simply too intransigent for that.

However the politicians negotiating in Geneva are not necessarily representative of the opposition on the ground.

The fact the truce – against most expectations – has generally held suggests there has indeed been a shift in attitudes on the ground and that the realisation is spreading that because of Russian backing President Assad cannot be overthrown by force.

If so then it is possible that the bulk of the people who have been fighting him and who are not jihadis now understand that they have no alternative but to do a deal and compromise.

If that is correct then the politicians in Geneva may find that if they remain intransigent they risk losing their political base.

The elections President Assad has called for next month – almost certainly after consulting the Russians – may be intended to consolidate this process.

Certainly the prospects of a political stabilisation in Syria look to me better than they have ever been at any point since the conflict began.

If the political stabilisation takes place, then the Syrian army will finally be free to focus all its energies on fighting the Islamic State and the jihadis – as the Russians intend that it should.

In that case – with the Syrian government’s control restored over Syria’s cities – victory over the Islamic State and the jihadis would be only a matter of time.

The alternative would have been for the Russians to make an unlimited and qualified commitment to the Syrian government until final victory was achieved through military means against all of President Assad’s opponents and until all the armed jihadis in Syria had been crushed.

Whilst that might have delivered victory, it would have run greater risks of provoking a hostile international reaction – and possibly even a clash with the US and the Turks – and would have involved making a commitment to Syria that was far greater than the one the Russians promised or were prepared or were able to make.

It would also have run the risk of entrenching the Syrian regime in its pre-2011 form, which might have stored up more trouble for the future.

It is anyway ultimately unrealistic to expect the Russians to behave in ways that are contrary to the fundamental principles that govern their behaviour or to expect them to change those principles for Syria’s sake.

Contrary to what is often said pre-2011 Syria was not an ally of Russia. Its relations were much closer to the US and western Europe (especially France) than they were to Russia. The importance of the Tartus dockyard facility (it is not really a base) to Russia has been wildly overstated and Syria is not an important political or economic partner or even a close friend of Russia’s.

It is not therefore surprising that the Russians are not prepared to go beyond the traditional constraints on their policy on behalf of a government that was not especially friendly to them to start with.

Indeed the wonder is that they have gone as far as they have.

That they have been prepared to do so is because – as the Russians themselves say – doing so has been in Russia’s national interests.

Russia’s actions have however been shaped by the traditional framework within which the Russians carry out their policies.

It could not realistically have been otherwise, and that explains both why the Russians intervened when they did, why they did not intervene before and why they are partially withdrawing now.

A different country in the same situation might have acted differently and perhaps the outcome would have been better. It should not however cause surprise that Russia has instead acted like itself.

It is unrealistic to expect otherwise and given that the prospects of peace in Syria and the defeat of jihadism have never looked better one should be grateful for what has been given rather than regret what has never in fact been offered and which was never in reality possible.

By Wayne Sonter
Source: The Guardian – The Workers’ Weekly
The war on Syria is a covert CIA-managed war the USA and its allies have initiated to overthrow the Syrian government. The Syrian adventure was to be a relatively brief regime change exercise, camouflaged by the social unrest of the Arab Spring and a step in re-ordering the Middle East in the interest of the US and its allies.

This accorded with the US global strategic objective of remaining the world’s ‘first, last and only’ truly global empire, despite a declining economic base relative to rest of the world.

Five years later the US-led War on Syria is showing itself to be one more brutal, costly and disastrous venture into which the US state has dragged much of the world.

The plan was to trigger the collapse of the Syrian government, through inciting sectarian war, mainly used foreign gangs paid, armed, trained and logistically supported by US and its allies, as the CIA itself disclosed to a US congressional budget committee in 2015.

Not only did the CIA train and equip nearly 10,000 fighters out of its own budget in the previous few years, as part of a broader, multi-billion dollar effort involving Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, it also managed a sprawling logistics network to move fighters, ammunition and weapons into the country.

The process of grinding Syrian society into subjugation, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Syrian lives, creation of millions of refugees and destruction of the country’s heritage and civil infrastructure, was suddenly interrupted by Russia’s intervention last October, at the invitation of Syria’s government.

Russia’s serious concern with jihadi terrorism and its joint efforts with the Syrian army have rapidly collapsed the anti-Syrian, fundamentalist militias. It has disrupted ISIS’s multi-million dollar oil trade with Turkey, previously untouched by the US-led “war on ISIS”. The joint forces are set to lift the siege on Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and cut the ISIS/Al-Qaeda supply lines between Syria and Turkey. They are preparing to take Raqqa, the ISIS “capital”.

At this rate peace could be restored in Syria within a few months and the Syrian people could start to rebuild their lives. The destruction of ISIS and Al-Qaeda related terrorist forces and the end of this cruel war should be welcome.

However, the US and its allies are portraying the Syrian and Russian gains as a disaster, a narrative a compliant media unrelentingly transmit to Western audiences.

The “disaster” is that those military assets the US-led coalition created to directly subjugate or dismember Syria are being destroyed “in the field” before they can be used to enforce a regime “transition” “at the table”.

Instead, the US is warning it will create a “quagmire” for Russia in Syria if it does not disengage, and Turkey and Saudi Arabia are openly preparing to invade Syria if Assad is not promptly despatched at peace talks.

Russia has warned that the US and its allies risk “a new world war” if they send troops into Syria. If the outside powers seeking regime change in Syria do not back off, but instead escalate the war, then Syria could suck the world’s two main nuclear powers into direct conflict.

At this stage it is only a matter of whether this is what the US wants – a war with Russia to permanently relegate it to economic colony status – or whether the US has already lost control of what it has set in train, and is being dragged towards disaster.

US society itself is under tremendous duress, and both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are riven by internal tensions. These are regimes whose policies are driven by desperation, as well as imperialist ambitions.

Ultimately the war on Syria will need a political solution – not the one of imposed regime change, but the one where the democratic and progressive forces within the countries aiding the US to prosecute this war demonstrate that they know what their governments are up to and act forcefully to rein them in.

This includes Australia – whose government has moved in lockstep with the US in all its imperialist ventures, obligingly breaking diplomatic relations with Syria, participating in a US-initiated sanctions regime against Syria and deploying military forces to the Middle East to participate in the US pseudo-war against ISIS.

By Sharmine Narwani
Source: RT
Syrian peace talks have already stalled. The opposition refused to be in the same room as the government delegation, while the latter blamed opposition ‘preconditions’ and the organizers’ inability to produce a ‘list of designated terrorists’.

The UN’s special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has now promised talks will reconvene on February 25, but how will he achieve this?

So much has shifted on the global political stage and in the Syrian military theater since this negotiation process first began gaining steam.

In just the past few weeks, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have recaptured key areas in Latakia, Idlib, Daraa, Homs and Aleppo, and are making their way up to the Turkish border, cutting off supply lines and exits for opposition militants along the way.

While analysts and politicians on both sides of the fence have warned that a ‘military solution’ to the Syrian crisis is not feasible, the SAA’s gains are starting to look very much like one. And with each subsequent victory, the ability for the opposition to raise demands looks to be diminished.

Already, western sponsors of the talks have as much as conceded that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will continue to play a role in any future government – a slap in the face to the foreign-backed Syrian opposition that have demanded his exit.

And the long list of deliverables in peace talks yet to come – transitional governance, ceasefires, constitutional reform, and elections – are broad concepts, vague enough to be shaped to advantage by the dominant military power on the ground.

The shaping of post-conflict political landscapes invariably falls to the victor – not the vanquished. And right now, Geneva looks to be the place where this may happen, under the watch of many of the states that once threw their weight – weapons, money, training, support – behind the Syrian ‘opposition.’

So here’s a question: As the military landscape inside Syria continues to move in the government’s favor, will a final deal look very much different than the 2011 reforms package offered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad?
Assad’s 2011 reforms

In early 2011, the Syrian government launched a series of potentially far-reaching reforms, some of these unprecedented since the ascendance of the Baath party to power in 1963.

Arriving in Damascus in early January 2012 – my third trip to Syria, and my first since the crisis began – I was surprised to find restrictions on Twitter and Facebook already lifted, and a space for more open political discourse underway.

That January, less than ten months into the crisis, around 5,000 Syrians were dead, checkpoints and security crackdowns abounded, while themes such as “the dictator is killing his own people” and “the protests are peaceful” still dominated western headlines.

Four years later, with the benefit of hindsight, many of these things can be contextualized. The ‘protests’ were not all ‘peaceful’ – and casualties were racking up equally on both sides. We see this armed opposition more clearly now that they are named Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and ISIS. But back in early 2012, these faces were obfuscated – they were all called “peaceful protestors forced to take up arms against a repressive government.”

Nevertheless, in early 2011, the Syrian government began launching its reforms – some say only to placate restive populations; others saw it as an opportunity for Assad to shrug off the anti-reform elements in his government and finish what he intended to start in 2000’s ‘Damascus Spring.’

Either way, the reforms came hard and fast – some big, some small: decrees suspending almost five decades of emergency law that prohibited public gatherings, the establishment of a multi-party political system and terms limits for the presidency, the removal of Article 8 of the constitution that assigned the Baath party as “the leader of state and society,” citizenship approval for tens of thousands of Kurds, the suspension of state security courts, the removal of laws prohibiting the niquab, the release of prisoners, the granting of general amnesty for criminals, the granting of financial autonomy to local authorities, the removal of controversial governors and cabinet members, new media laws that prohibited the arrest of journalists and provided for more freedom of expression, dissolution of the cabinet, reducing the price of diesel, increasing pension funds, allocating housing, investment in infrastructure, opening up direct citizen access to provincial leaders and cabinet members, the establishment of a presidential committee for dialogue with the opposition – and so forth.

But almost immediately, push back came from many quarters, usually accompanied by the ‘Arab Spring’ refrain: “it’s too late.”

But was it?

Western governments complained about reforms not being implemented. But where was the time – and according to whose time-frame? When the Assad government forged ahead with constitutional reforms and called for a nationally-held referendum to gain citizen buy-in, oppositionists sought a boycott and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the referendum “phony” and “a cynical ploy.”

Instead, just two days earlier, at a meeting in Tunis, Clinton threw her significant weight behind the unelected, unrepresentative, Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council (SNC): “We do view the Syrian National Council as a leading legitimate representative of Syrians seeking peaceful democratic change.”

And when, in May 2012, Syria held parliamentary elections – the first since the constitution revamp – the US State Department called the polls: “bordering on ludicrous.”

But most insidious of all the catch-phrases and slogans employed to undermine the Syrian state, was the insistence that reforms were “too late” and “Assad must go.” When, in the evolution of a political system, is it too late to try to reform it? When, in the evolution of a political system, do external voices, from foreign capitals, get to weigh in on a head of state more loudly than its own citizens?

According to statements made by two former US policymakers to McClatchy News: “The goal had been to ‘ratchet up’ the Syria response incrementally, starting with U.S. condemnation of the violence and eventually suggesting that Assad had lost legitimacy.”

“The White House and the State Department both – and I include myself in this – were guilty of high-faluting rhetoric without any kind of hard policy tools to make the rhetoric stick,” confessed Robert Ford, former US Ambassador to Syria.

An analysis penned by veteran Middle East correspondent Michael Jansen at the onset of the talks in Geneva last week ponders the point: “The Syrian crisis might have been resolved in 2011 if US president Barack Obama had not declared on August 18th that year that his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad had to ‘step aside.’”

Were the additional 250,000 Syrian deaths worth those empty slogans? Or might reforms, in Syrian hands, have been worth a try?
Domestic dissent, Assad and reforms

The story inside Syria, within the dissident community, still varied greatly during my January 2012 trip. But with the exception of one, Fayez Sara, who went on to eventually leave the country and join the SNC, Syrian dissidents with whom I met unanimously opposed sanctions, foreign intervention and the militarization of the conflict.

Did they embrace the reforms offered up in 2011? Mostly not – the majority thought reforms would be “cosmetic” and meaningless without further fundamental changes, much of this halted by the growing political violence. When Assad invited them to participate in his constitutional reform deliberations, did these dissidents step up? No – many refused to engage directly with the government, probably calculating that “Assad would go” and reluctant to shoulder the stigma of association.

But were these reforms not a valuable starting point, at least? Political systems don’t evolve overnight – they require give-and-take and years of uphill struggle.

Aref Dalila, one of the leaders of the ‘Damascus Spring’ who spent eight years in prison, told me: “The regime consulted with me and others between March and May and asked our opinion. I told them there has to be very serious reforms immediately and not just for show, but they preferred to go by other solutions.”

Bassam al-Kadi, who was imprisoned for seven years in the 1990s, managed to find one upside to reforms:

Speaking about the abolishment of the state security courts in early 2011, Kadi said: “Since 1973 until last May, it was actually a court outside of any laws and it was the strong arm of the regime. All trials held after abolishing this court have taken place in civilian courts. Sometimes the intelligence apparatus intervenes but in most cases the judge behaves according to his or her opinion. Hundreds of my friends who were arrested in the past few months, most were released within one or two weeks.”

This reform, by the way, took place a mere few months before Jordan’s constitutional reforms added another security layer – the state military courts – for which it was promptly lauded.

Hassan Abdel Azim, head of the National Coordination Committee (NCC) which included 15 opposition parties, took a different view: “Our point of view is that such reforms can only take place when violence stops against protestors…But since the regime tries to enforce its reforms, the result will only be partial reforms that enhances its image but not lead to real change.”

The NCC went on to have a short-lived alliance with the foreign-based SNC which fell apart over disagreements on “non-Arab foreign intervention.”

Louay Hussein who headed the Tayyar movement and spent seven years in prison when he was 22 (and recently as well), told me that January: “We consider Assad responsible for everything that’s happened but we are not prepared to put the country in trouble…In March, we wanted what the regime is giving now (reforms). But when the system started using live bullets we wanted to change it and change it quickly. But after all this time we have to reconsider our strategy.”

And the list goes on. The views ranged from dissidents who “like Assad, but hate the system” to those who wanted a wholesale change that was arrived at through a consultative process – but definitely not foreign intervention. Eighteen months later when I revisited some of these people, their views had transformed quite dramatically in light of the escalation of political violence. Even the ones who blamed the government for this escalation seemed to put their arms around the state, as nationalists first and foremost.

Had the conflict not taken on this stark foreign-backed dimension and become so heavily militarized, they may have expended their energies on pushing at the limits of reforms already on the table.
How can Geneva transform Syria?

First on the table in Geneva is the establishment of a transitional process that gets the two sides working on common governance. On a parallel track, demilitarization is on the menu – which basically consists of organizing ceasefires throughout Syria. The transitional team will then work on hammering out a new constitution, with elections to be held within 18 months.

That sounds a bit like the process already underway in Syria in 2011 and 2012.

Certainly, the opposition believes it has a stronger hand today than back in 2011, supported as it is by the UN-sponsored Geneva process. But the difficulties will start the moment decisions need to be made about which opposition participates in the transitional body, if they can even manage to convince the Syrian government – now racking up military victories every week – that it needs to relinquish a chunk of its authority to this new entity.

It is the kind of ‘opposition’ that eventually enters the transitional process that will help ultimately determine its outcome. Look for some Riyadh- and Turkish-backed opponents to be tossed by the wayside during this process.

With the introduction of Russian air power and qualitative military hardware last autumn, the Syrian army and its allies have gained critical momentum in the field.

So why would the Syrian state backtrack on that momentum to give up authority in Geneva? Even the expectation of this is illogical.

There is a growing consensus among Syria analysts that the Americans have ceded the Syrian theater to the Russians and Moscow’s allies. Washington has barely registered any meaningful objections to Russian airstrikes over the past months, apart from some sound bites about hitting ‘moderate rebels’ and not focusing enough on ISIS.

Part of the US problem is that, without any clear cut Syria strategy, it has found itself neck-deep in this crisis without any means to extricate itself from the uncomfortable dependencies of thousands of rebel militants, and the demands of increasingly belligerent allies like Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

They Russians offer that opportunity – like they did in 2013 by taking the Syrian chemical weapons program off the table – and it looks like Washington is grabbing it with both hands right now. It is likely that Moscow waited to intervene in the Syrian quagmire only when it was absolutely sure the US needed an exit – any earlier, and the Americans were still playing both sides and all cards.

For Geneva to move forward, the participants are going to have to make some awkward commitments. Firstly, the batch of Islamists-for-hire that currently makes up the opposition will need to be finessed – or torn apart – to include a broad swathe of Syrian ethnic groups, sects, political viewpoints and… women.

Secondly, all parties to the talks need to agree on which militants in the Syrian theater are going to make that “terrorist list.” This was a clear deliverable outlined in Vienna, and it hasn’t been done. This all-important list will make clear which militants are to be part of a future ceasefire, and which ones will be ‘fair game.’

After all, there can be NO ceasefires until we know who is a designated terrorist and who can be a party to ground negotiations.

I suspect, however, that this terrorist list has been neglected for good reason. It has spared western rebel-sponsors the discomfort of having to face the wrath of their militants, while allowing time for the Russians and Syrians to mow these groups into the ground. Hence the stream of recent victories – and the accompanying timid reaction from Washington.

As the balance of power shifts further on the ground, we may see a much-altered ‘Geneva.’ Will it genuinely beget a political process, will the players at the table change, will the ‘political solution’ be entirely manufactured behind the curtains… only to be offered up to an unsuspecting public as a victory wrenched from a ‘bad regime?’

Because, right now, Syria would be fortunate to have those 2011 reforms on that table, the rapt attention of the global community encouraging them forward, weapons at rest. A quarter million Syrians could have been spared, hundreds of towns, cities and villages still intact, millions of displaced families in their own homes.

Perhaps Geneva can bring those reforms back, wrapped in a prettier package this time, so we can clap our hands and declare ourselves satisfied.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics. She is a former senior associate at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and has a master’s degree in International Relations from Columbia University. Sharmine has written commentary for a wide array of publications, including Al Akhbar English, the New York Times, the Guardian, Asia Times Online, Salon.com, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English, BRICS Post and others. You can follow her on Twitter at @snarwani

Source: New Eastern Outlook
By Maram Susli
The discovery of the Leviathan gas field within Israeli and Cypriot waters has made Israel a potential energy exporting nation. However the means to transport the gas to the large energy markets of Europe continues to elude Israel. Recent talks between Turkey and Israel about plans to build a gas pipeline, through Turkey and into Europe, have been extensively reported.

Many of the reports claim the discussions are the results of the thaw in relations between Turkey and Israel. The rift was supposedly caused by Israel’s attack on the MV MarMara, the aid ship attempting to break Israel’s siege on Gaza in 2010, and the execution of 8 Turkish citizens on board the ship. But even during this period of “tense” relations, discussions about the gas pipeline were still being held between Turkey and Israel. Trade between the two states went up by 25%.

The tense relations were a facade, a face saving measure that allowed Turkish President Erdogan to portray an image of a patriotic defender of Turkish citizens, and a champion of Islam and the Palestinian cause. During the initial uproar of the flotilla incident, Erdogan promised the next flotilla would be escorted by the Turkish navy. Instead Erdogan blocked the Mavi MarMara from heading to Gaza. Far from defending the Palestinian cause, Turkey continued to produce Israel’s Military combat boots which are used in the occupation of the West bank. Relations with Turkey improved even though Israel’s treatment of Palestinians did not improve. This reveals the extent of which Turkey’s foreign policy is drenched in hypocrisy.

For both Israel and Turkey, business comes first. Israel is also juggling a foreign policy inconsistent with its portrayed image of being at the forefront of the war on terrorism. The fact that Turkey is one of Al-Qaeda’s and ISIS’s main benefactors , has not been an issue for Israel. Even when ISIS beheaded Israeli journalist Steven Sotloff while Turkey was allowing ISIS to use its border as a smuggling route, Israeli-Turkish relations were not harmed.

Israel and Turkey have a shared agenda in Syria, which has stood in the many business plans between the respective states. Long Gas pipelines can only be built economically in shallow waters hugging coastlines, or future repairs would be difficult. The planned Turkey-Israel pipeline could potentially have to go through Syria’s exclusive economic zone which extends 370 km off the Syrian coastline. Israel illegally occupies Syrian land and has been in a state of cold war with Syria for decades. Both Israel and Turkey would economically benefit from the dismantlement of the Syrian State through the support of terrorist groups operating in the country. Several American think tanks have been promoting the balkanization of Syria and separating its coastal region from the rest of the country. Armed Forces Journal published plans to balkanise Syria in 2006, preliminary talks on the gas pipeline between Turkey-Israel were also held that year. Such a breakdown of the Syrian state would clear the path for Israel and Turkey to build a pipeline across Syria’s coastal region, and ISIS is the tool by which this can be achieved.

In recent years, Syria has also stood in the way of Turkey’s goal of becoming a pipeline hub. While Turkey doesn’t have much oil and gas resources of its own, it can still profit from the resources of surrounding nations by forcing all gas pipelines through its borders and then onto Europe. But in 2009, Syrian president Assad refused to sign the proposed agreement that would allow a pipeline through Syria connecting Qatari gas to Turkey and onto European markets. Assad said this was to protect the interests of his Russian allies who are the main suppliers of gas to Europe. Russia was negotiating its own gas pipeline deal with Turkey which was shelved after Turkey shot down a Russian jet. The new Leviathan pipeline deal with Israel would resurrect Turkey’s hope of becoming a pipeline hub again. But once again Syria stands in the way, which is why Turkey has chosen a policy of sending ISIS terrorists across the border to destabilise Syria. This policy has already allowed Turkey to supply Syrian oil to Europe, via ISIS oil trucks.

Israel itself has been supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS inside Syria, providing a safe zone and medical treatment in the Israeli occupied Syrian Golan heights. This has gone hand in hand with the discovery of oil in the Golan Heights. The Golan is internationally recognised as Syrian land that was occupied by Israel in 1967. The selling of Syrian oil by Israel would constitute a war crime under the fourth geneva convention. In spite of this, Israel granted a ‘drilling licence’ to a company whose shareholders include Dick Cheney, Rupert Murdoch and Jacob Rothschild in 2013. Israel has been attempting to circumvent international law and annex the Golan Heights for decades. But the Syrian Druze population who inhabit the Golan remain steadfastly loyal to Syria and supportive of the Syrian government and military. Israel is backing Al Qaeda and ISIS in the hope that destabilising the Golan Heights will legitimise Israel’s annexation claims. Israeli President Netanyahu asked Obama to support Israel’s bid to annex to Golan, under the guise of protecting the Syrian Druze population from the very terrorists Israel is supporting. Israel would only be able to sell illegally obtained Syrian oil to Europe through their Turkish route. Talks between Turkey and Israel as far back as 2006 included not only gas, but oil pipelines as well.

Turkey and Israel have allied themselves with terrorist groups, ISIS and Al Qeada, to dismantle the Syrian state and allow for the theft of Syrian energy resources. Israel’s facade of being opposed to terrorism and Turkey’s attempt to portray an image of being champion of Palestinian rights takes second place to that objective. The death of hundreds of thousands of people, the destruction of an entire nation, and the spread of terror throughout the world, are all sacrifices Israel and Turkey are willing to make if it means future oil and gas revenue.

Maram Susli also known as “Syrian Girl,” is an activist-journalist and social commentator covering Syria and the wider topic of geopolitics. especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook.”

Source: nsnbc
By Finian Cunningham (SCF) : As Syrians gather in their capital Damascus to celebrate, there is a sense that the New Year will bring a measure of peace – the first time such hope has been felt over the past five years of war in the country.

Russia’s military intervention to help its Arab ally at the end of September has been the seminal event of the year. After three months of sustained Russian aerial operations in support of the Syrian Arab Army against an array of foreign-backed mercenaries, there is an unmistakable sense that the «terrorist backbone has been broken», as Russian President Vladimir Putin recently put it.

This past week sees several local truces being implemented across Syria with evacuation of militants from towns which they have held under armed siege. The civilian populations in these locations have been effectively held hostage as human shields by the militants, thus preventing Syrian army advances up to now. The Western media, such as US government-owned Voice of America, invert reality by claiming that it is the mercenaries themselves who have been under siege from the Syrian army instead of the fact that the mercenaries have been holding civilians in their midst as hostages, as was the case earlier in the siege of Homs, which was eventually also broken.

What has changed dramatically is the advent of Russian air power – over 5,000 sorties in three months – which has enabled the Syrian army to wipe out militant bases, oil smuggling and weapons supply routes in northern Syria along the Turkish border. This has left militants further inland to wither from the severance of supply lifelines. Hence the readiness now to accept truces and evacuation deals – under the auspices of the United Nations and International Committee for the Red Cross.

Thousands of anti-government insurgents are being bussed out of locations around Damascus, including Zabadani, al Qadam, Hajar al Aswad and Yarmouk.

An air strike reportedly by Russia forces killing the commander of the Jaish al-Islam militant group, Zahran Alloush, in the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta, dealt a devastating blow to morale among the self-styled jihadists. Alloush was reportedly killed along with several other commanders. That strike translates into «the game is up».

What is interesting is how the Western news media are reporting all this. Their reportage of the truces and evacuations are straining to minimize the context of these developments. This BBC report is typical, headlined: «Syria fighters’ evacuation from Zabadani ‘under way’».

The British state-owned broadcaster tells of hundreds of «fighters» being relocated from the town of Zabadani as if the development just magically materialized like a present donated by Santa Claus. What the BBC fails to inform is that that truce, as with several others around Damascus, has come about because of Russia’s strategic military intervention in Syria dealing crushing blows against the militant networks. The Western media have preoccupied themselves instead with claims from the US State Department that Russia’s military operations have either been propping up the «Assad regime» or allegedly targeting «moderate rebels» and civilians.

The disingenuous Western narrative, or more prosaically «propaganda», then, in turn, creates a conundrum when widespread truces and evacuations are being implemented. That obviously positive development signaling an end to conflict thanks to Russia’s military intervention has to be left unexplained or unacknowledged by the Western media because it negates all their previous pejorative narrative towards Russia and the Assad government.

Furthermore, the Western media are obliged to be coy about the exact identity of the «fighters» being evacuated. As noted already, the militants are variously described by the Western media in sanitized terms as «fighters» or «rebels». But more informative regional and local sources, such as Lebanon’s Al Manar, identify the brigades as belonging to the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State group and al-Nusra Front. These are terror groups, as even defined by Washington and the European Union. So, the Western media has to, by necessity, censor itself from telling the truth by peddling half-truths and sly omissions.

The Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), whose commander was killed, is also integrated with the al-Qaeda terror network. Jaish al-Islam is funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and serves as a conduit for American CIA weapons to the more known terrorist outlets. Notably, Voice of America referred to the terror commander Zahran Alloush with the euphemistic cleansing term as a «rebel leader».

What the Russian-precipitated truces and termination of sieges is demonstrating is that the western side of Syria, from Daraa in the south, through Damascus and up to the northern Mediterranean Sea coast around Aleppo and Latakia, are infested with the terror brigades of IS and Al-Nusra and their myriad offshoots.

Western media have repeatedly accused Russia of conducting air strikes against «moderate rebels» and not the IS brigades, which they claim, were concentrated in the east of Syria. It is true that the IS is strongly based in eastern cities of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, from where its oil smuggling operations are mounted.

Russia has stepped up its air strikes on IS smuggling routes in eastern Syria with devastating results. But also integral to the air operations is the cutting off of weapons routes in the northwest to fuel the insurgents along the entire western flank, including around Damascus.

The surrender of the various mercenary brigades and the breaking of sieges around Damascus is vindication of Russia’s military tactics; and also its narrative about the nature of the whole conflict in Syria.

The Western notion of «moderate rebels» and «extremists» is being exposed as the nonsense that it is. And so Western media are compelled to evacuate any meaningful context from their coverage of recent events in Syria.

Riad Haddad, Syria’s ambassador to Russia, spoke the plain truth in recent days when he said: «We are at a turning point in the Syrian army operations against terrorists – namely the transition from defense to attack… [because of] the effective work of the Russian air force in Syria». But the ambassador’s comments were scarcely, if at all, reported in the Western media. Simply because those words vindicate Russia’s military intervention and its general policy towards Syria.

Also missing or downplayed in the Western media coverage of the truces across Syria is the question of where the surrendering mercenaries are being evacuated to. They are not being bussed to other places inside Syria. That shows that there is no popular support for these insurgents. Despite copious Western media coverage contriving that the Syrian conflict is some kind of «civil war» between a despotic regime and a popular pro-democracy uprising, the fact that surrendering militants have no where to go inside Syria patently shows that these insurgents have no popular base.

In other words, this is a foreign-backed war on Syria; a covert war of aggression on a sovereign country utilizing terrorist proxy armies.

So where are the terrorist remnants being shipped to? According to several reports, the extremists are being given safe passage into Turkey, where they will receive repair and sanctuary from the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – and no doubt subsidized by the European Union with its $3.5 billion in aid to Ankara to «take care of refugees».

Again, this is another indictment of the state-terrorist links of NATO-member Turkey, which the EU is recently giving special attention to for accession to the bloc.

Russia is not only vindicated in Syria. The Western governments, their media and their regional client regimes are being flushed out like the bandits on the ground in Syria.

If the UN-sponsored peace process due to start in the New Year succeeds to end the conflict in Syria, it will be largely down to Russia’s military campaign that has wiped out the terrorist proxies working on behalf of the Western criminal enterprise for regime change in that country.

Finian Cunningham, Strategic Culture Foundation