27 July 2015
US F-16 bomber being refuelled after a bombing run, supposedly against ISIS, in Syria.
RAF pilots have taken part in NATO bombing missions in Syria. This is in breach of the August 2013 Parliamentary vote against any British military involvement in Syria. Cameron said then that “the government will act accordingly.” But it hasn’t.
A spokeswoman for Cameron admitted that British warplanes have been bombing Syria since September. She also said, “The PM was aware that UK personnel were involved in US operations and what they were doing.”
The British state has a longstanding embed programme with its allies. The Ministry of Defence tried to deny this British involvement by claiming, “When embedded, UK personnel are effectively operating as foreign troops.”
US diktat
The Cameron government is acting in obedience to US government diktat. A recent report from the Brookings Institution (the leading US corporate think-tank) by Michael O’Hanlon, Deconstructing Syria: towards a regionalized strategy for a confederal country (June 2015), urges the invasion and destruction of Syria, its “outright partition” and its occupation by the USA. It seems to be setting the tone for US-led intervention.
The Brookings report admits that ISIS is “the major element of the opposition to the Bahar al-Assad regime”; that much international aid money goes into supporting US and British programmes of training and equipping those going to fight in Syria; and that much “humanitarian relief” serves imperial ends.
‘Hundreds of trucks enter Syria every day from Turkey carrying fresh fighters and arms to ISIS.’
ISIS, which the report accepts is tied directly to al-Qaeda, controls territory which is right next to US operational zones in Turkey and Jordan. Hundreds of trucks enter Syria every day from Turkey carrying fresh fighters and arms to ISIS. If NATO really wanted to defeat ISIS, it would attack this vital flow of supplies but NATO forces have made no attempts to stop it. US forces may be bombing and killing ISIS members, but they do just enough to make it plausible that this is a “war against ISIS”, but not enough to actually defeat ISIS.
The US government has already given $1 billion to this opposition in Syria and trained and equipped 10,000 fighters. Last year, President Obama promised to give another $500 million a year to the opposition and to train 5,000 fighters a year.
‘Safe zones’
The USA is using airpower and special forces units to set up “safe zones” in Syria. The USA would appoint “governing councils” composed of opposition forces. O’Hanlon writes of these, “Requiring that they were untainted by past associations with extremists would no longer be a central element of the vetting process.” This, it is thought, would help international agencies to make decisions.
Then the air forces and Special Forces of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Britain, Jordan and other US allies would join in to expand these areas. If President Assad did anything that the US government did not like, it would use this as an excuse to impose a nationwide “no-fly-zone”, as in Iraq and Libya.
Ousting Assad
There would be no place for President Assad in the US scheme. The report threatens “direct dangers to his rule and even his person”. The aim is to oust Assad, to the benefit of the US government and of “ISIL (the presumed main winner in such a defeat of Assad).”
This “regional, ink-spot strategy” was tried and failed in Vietnam. President Assad’s forces are not fighting a civil war, it is not a “war against his own people”, as NATO’s propaganda lies, but a war against ISIS. The war in Syria is in more like the war in Spain in the 1930s, when the Republic defended itself against foreign-led fascists.