Syria: Western experts give advice to the losers Russian
Syrian rebels. PHOTO: AP
In the West, they believe that the days of the Syrian "regime" are numbered. He is given no more than three months - well, a maximum until the end of March. Also, Western politicians, journalists and numerous ordinary people consuming their favorite press are confident that Moscow is about to stop supporting Bashar Assad. The reason for the "joyful" statements of the democratic media were the words of Mikhail Bogdanov, deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. A week ago, he declared that the Assad regime is losing control over the country, and the opposition is gaining strength.
Russian official сказал:
“As for preparations for the victory of the opposition, this, of course, cannot be ruled out. But we must face the facts: the trend is precisely in the direction that the government regime is losing more and more control over an ever larger territory of the country. ”
In addition, Comrade Bogdanov in his statement cited data from the Syrian opposition, which claimed that two key cities would soon be taken - Aleppo and Damascus.
That is why the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia has prepared a plan for the evacuation of Russian citizens from Syria.
The “convenient” for free interpretations of the statement by the Deputy Foreign Minister immediately responded to American officials.
The US State Department, where every word of Russian politicians is closely watching, immediately expressed satisfaction with the fact that Russia "returned to reality." The Kremlin even praised.
December 13 at a press briefing US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said:
“We want to praise the Russian government for finally returning to reality and recognizing that the days of the regime (Assad) are numbered. The question now is whether the Russian government will join us and the entire international community working with the opposition in order to try to ensure a smooth democratic transfer of power in accordance with the Geneva agreements and form a transitional government ... Therefore, we call on Russia to work with us. ”
According to Nuland, if now all external forces do not unite, Syria is waiting for further bloodshed and destruction of infrastructure, which will complicate the process of the subsequent reconstruction of the country.
What a touching concern. Almost like Yugoslavia in the nineties.
By the way, in an editorial in the British newspaper "Guardian" from December 13 run in the words of M. Bogdanov, however, to the credit of this publication, it is noted that a Russian official did not at all say that a rebel victory would be desirable for Russia. Moreover, in the Guardian, his words were interpreted in such a way that the victory of these same “rebels” is unlikely.
Parallel to the interpretation of the words of M. Bogdanov, the Western press with might and main is working on the scenario of a chemical threat from Assad. Recently, rumors (first of all, by the NBC channel, often boasting of their proximity to high-ranking military anonymous authors) that the Syrian chemists were already spreading got ready to the use of weapons of mass destruction: they completed the process of mixing the components of sarin. This was reportedly reported from "trusted sources at the Pentagon." The poisonous substance is not only prepared for use, but poured into canisters in bombs. Chemists are only waiting for the order of Assad. One of the sources of the channel explained:
“Even on Tuesday, we did not have clear evidence that the Syrians had begun mixing them. However, the worst fears were confirmed on Wednesday: the nerve gas was made and placed in aerial bombs. ”
The next factor for the "triumphant" sentiments of the West was information about the recent December "secret meeting" in London. They allegedly developed a plan of intervention in Syria. Moreover, the initiators of the plans and the military strategists do not see any particular difficulties in Syria: they even abandoned the ground operation. We decided that enough air strikes and support for the Navy. Correspondents "The Independent", which launched into the world news about a secret meeting, referred to "informed sources in the British manual."
According to the newspaper, the generals from France, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the United States attended the meeting in London. And following this meeting, they began to deliberate in other democratic countries, where the military also want to help the Syrian opposition - at least diplomatically or humanitarian.
After deliberation, the Western powers came to the conclusion that the long conflict had reached its climax, and therefore the insurgents needed help so that the authorities of the new democratic Syria would see the United States and Europe as their loyal allies. That is why the decisive attack on Damascus must take place with fire support from foreign powers.
Mindful of the fresh statement of comrade Bogdanov, the initiators of the military operation commended Moscow on the change in its attitude towards the Syrian conflict. At the meeting, opinions were expressed that Russian officials are already considering options for Syria without Assad. In addition to Bogdanov, in London they also spoke about the fact that the recent successful meeting in Istanbul of Putin and Erdogan demonstrates the changed position of Russia. It got to the point that the leadership of Western countries expressed hope for Moscow’s help in stabilizing the situation in Syria after the overthrow of the “regime” there.
The preparation for the intervention was allegedly begun: British and French officers meet with rebel commanders in Syrian territory, assessing their strategic and tactical capabilities, and the United States allegedly bothered to collect and store the goods taken out of Libya weapons: later it is supposed to be transferred to the Syrian fighters for "democracy".
The political course of US President Barack Obama was also logical. In order not to overburden the NBC channel, he spoke on the ABC channel. In an interview he said on recognizing the opposition Syrian National Coalition as the legitimate representative of the people of Syria.
Barack Obama called the decision a "big step" and stressed that from now on Washington considers SNK
"The legal representative of the Syrian people, unlike the regime of Bashar al-Assad."
The Syrian national coalition, of course, was also recognized by the “Friends of Syria” - a few hours later after Obama’s solemn declaration. As if they knew about it beforehand ...
December 12 Western and Arab countries at a meeting in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh not only recognized the legality of the united Syrian opposition, but also called for Bashar al-Assad to leave his post. They also, remembering Obama's warnings, warned Assad against the use of chemical weapons.
“The participants recognize the National Coalition as a legitimate representative of the Syrian people and a single organization that unites the entire Syrian opposition,” the declaration adopted after the meeting in Marrakesh said. “... Bashar Asad lost his legitimacy, and he should leave to allow him to make a steady political transition.”
As noted by US Under Secretary of State William Burns, who also participated in the meeting,
"The sooner the Syrian president resigns, the better it will be for the Syrian people."
And Saudi Arabia immediately announced the submission of a hundred million dollars to Syrian opposition fighters.
Thus, these “Friends of Syria” continue to develop a line in which they would be correctly called “Friends of America”.
Last week, Kadri Jamil, the leader of the Syrian Popular Front for Change and Liberation, an organization belonging to the so-called internal opposition, flew in to visit Comrade Lavrov. Jameel led a meeting on the Coalition of Forces for Peaceful Changes. By the way, this coalition считает members of the "Group of Friends of Syria" enemies of their country.
“The so-called“ friends of Syria ”are not friends, but enemies who are interested in external interference in the affairs of the country, said Jamil. “How can anyone who does not allow the Syrian people to solve problems on their own, who does not want a peaceful settlement of the crisis and contributes to the bloodshed and destruction of Syria, can be a friend?”
According to him, the main task now is to remove the extremists from the opposition and the government:
"It is necessary to isolate them, and then the path to national consensus will open."
Commenting on the rumors about the readiness to use Damascus chemical weapons, Jamil said that this creates an information background for the intervention, and
"It looks like a replay of the Iraqi legend of the existence of weapons of mass destruction."
The next episode of the Syrian theme was a statement by Knud Bartels, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, who spoke with the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov. This gentleman saidthat NATO does not plan military intervention in the Syrian conflict. Commenting on the meeting, the head of the Main Directorate of International Military Cooperation of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Sergei Koshelev, noted that the Russian side took Bartels’s statement with satisfaction. It means that the “Libyan scenario” will not be repeated in Syria.
It's right. The West intends to implement the Yugoslav scenario in Syria. Multi-confessional Syria, where al-Qaeda militants also operate, is very convenient for the Yugoslav military option. The country can be split on the territory of Druze, Shiite, Sunni, Christian, Wahhabi, Kurds. It does not matter how many peaceful people there are at the same time. It is important to split first a strong secular country, and even better - set fire to the entire Middle East at once, by playing the Kurdish card as well. Typically, the American scenario, capable of strengthening both the hard positions of the “indecisive” Obama, and providing the US military with large orders. Well, oil, of course. And taming the disobedient Iraq. And the key to Iran. And in the future satisfaction of Israel.
The other day, Syria’s vice-president Faruk al-Shara’a doubted the victory of Assad. However, he doubted the victory of the "rebels".
Al-Shara saidthat none of the parties to the Syrian conflict is able to win the war. According to the vice-president, the opposition “cannot claim the role of the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people” and will not be able to resolve the conflict militarily.
At the same time, he acknowledged that the ruling Baath party “cannot achieve change without new partners,” and the government armed forces will not end the confrontation. In his opinion, the situation is worsening every day, and we are already talking about the existence of Syria as a whole.
In Europe, too, they do not believe that Assad can win the war. For example, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius считаетthat the rule of Bashar Assad is coming to an end.
“I believe that the end for Bashar Assad is near,” said the French minister, noting that such an assessment seems “obvious”, based on current events in Syria. “Even the Russians understand that this will happen soon,” noted Fabius.
So, here again, the words of Comrade Bogdanov responded.
If we put aside the rumors and the "yellow" texts in the Western media, what will we get in the bottom line? What prepare the West and the Arab enemies for Damascus?
After all, in principle, it does not matter here what will serve as a pretext for intervention - chemical weapons or even 30.000 refugees who have found shelter in Turkey. Even the veto in the UN Security Council of Russia or China loses its value against the background of the recognition of SNK as the world's leading players. They simply do without the permission of Russia and China. The same chemical weapons will serve as a suitable reason for the invasion.
With regard to the plan of the Syrian "events", it was approved yet 6 December in Doha - at the very meeting where the Syrian National Coalition was created. The points of the plan were lit up in the Algerian newspaper "L'Espresion". By the way, the author of the note, Nureddin Merdahi, has a negative attitude towards the so-called “opposition”: he indignantly informs readers that on her side are jihadist hired men from Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan, al-Qaeda militants and other terrorists who kill civilians, acting together with a handful of Syrian deserters. The journalist attributes the union of the opposition itself to the decision of the United States and its satellites - France and Qatar, and at the same time Turkey. This was done in order to create "the appearance of consistency and the appearance of the opposition."
So, the points of the plan. The “Protocol”, signed in Doha, includes a damn dozen of articles:
1. Reduce the number of troops of the Syrian army to 50.000 people.
2. New Syria will defend its right to sovereignty over the Golan Heights by political means. This means that Israel and Syria will sign a peace agreement under the auspices of the United States and Qatar.
3. Syria must get rid, again under the authority of the United States, of all types of its chemical and biological weapons and all missiles. This operation should be carried out in Jordan.
4. The country should completely abandon claims for the return of the territories occupied by Turkey (Liwa Iskenderun) and hand over to Turkey several border villages in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib.
5. Expulsion from the new Syria of all members of the Workers' Party of Kurdistan. At the same time Turkey should be given those whom it has included in the list of terrorists.
6. Cancel all agreements and contracts signed with Russia and China in the field of subsoil drilling and arms supplies.
7. Carrying through the Syrian territory of the Qatari gas pipeline to Turkey and further to Europe.
8. Permission to carry water pipes through Syrian territory from Ataturk Dam to Israel.
9. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are committed to rebuilding what was destroyed by the war in Syria - but on the condition that their companies have the exclusive right to reconstruct and exploit Syrian oil and gas fields.
10. Freezing relations with Iran, Russia and China.
11. Breaking relations with Hezbollah and the Palestinian resistance movement.
12. The Syrian regime should be Islamic, but not Salafi.
13. This agreement will enter into force with the advent of the Syrian National Coalition to power.
As we can see, everything is spelled out in these points - and the end of relations with Russia, and oil and gas, for which the White House has always tirelessly promoted (especially in the person of Hillary Clinton), and infringement of Russian interests in the energy sector (through Qatari strategy), and dying Syria as a secular state.
And where, you ask, is speech about democracy, human rights, freedom of speech? At the worst, about American values?
However, this plan is unlikely to be true. Most likely, this is another "disinformation", thrown into the press to test the public reaction. Whose? American probably. And European - because if Europe gets something, it is Qatari gas.
But Europe and the United States did not respond to this. After all, the fate of Syria is not decided in Qatar.
Today they are trying to decide the fate of Syria in Turkey. On Monday, and there they published a plan - in the newspaper "Radical" (on the channel "Al-Arabiya" available English text). Turkey, with its plan, by the way, turned directly to Russia. We are talking about streamlining the peaceful transition in the "post-mode" period. That is the fall of Assad - almost a fact.
The Turkish proposal calls for the resignation of President Bashar Assad during the first three months of 2013. Then the transition process will be carried out by SNK, now recognized by Arab and Western countries as the sole representative of the Syrians.
So everything is cultural and in order.
It is also reported that it was this plan that was discussed during the meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on December 3, and Putin even called it "a creative approach."
Although Erdogan and Putin did not agree on the issue of Syria, Erdogan nonetheless noted that the Russian leader did not demonstrate the position of the “avid defender” of the current regime in Syria.
Also during 7’s December visit to Turkey, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that he “took note of” the Istanbul summit, where Putin and Erdogan discussed “new ideas” on how to respond to the Syrian crisis.
Erdinch Akkoyunlu from Turkish Star Gazette пишетthat in Istanbul "Russia recognized Syria without Assad." The journalist refers to the opinion of Improve Ozulker, a person who, during 41, carried out professional activities in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, served as ambassador to Tripoli, Bonn, Paris, Permanent Representative of Turkey to the EU, OECD. This expert on the Middle East explicitly noted that behind the transformations of Russia's position from the policy of absolute support for Assad to the wording “He loses to the opposition, his departure is gaining momentum”, there are Erdogan and Putin talks in Istanbul. The analyst says:
“It is obvious that the solution to the Syrian issue is impossible without Russia. The West has also recognized this. Russia has lost all its advantages in the Mediterranean, and Syria is the only one left. And Moscow wants to keep it. Assad is the most important factor in this dependence. Initially, the policy pursued by Russia is as follows: "A leader who is loyal as Assad will not allow Syria to be alienated from us" ... Russia is looking for such a leader. The question is to find it. Erdogan convinced Putin of Syria without Assad. <...> Ultimately, the main decision for Syria and Turkey will be the resignation of Assad. However, this required that Russia also saw the need for the departure of the Syrian leader. Putin saw this in Istanbul. However, they have not yet been able to find a new name. "
So the picture is clear. Both Turkey and the West need to understand how Russia will survive its geopolitical defeat in Syria.
In the West, and it is already predicted.
Richard Gowan, Assistant Director of the Center for International Cooperation at New York University, Senior Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, in World Politics Review пишет:
“Surviving a defeat and dealing with it is one of the greatest skills a diplomat can possess. Historians admire those statesmen who managed to bring their countries out of lost wars. Among such heroes of diplomacy is Talleyrand, who brilliantly defended the interests of France after the defeat of Napoleon, as well as Henry Kissinger, who developed a plan for America’s withdrawal from Vietnam. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, thinking about the challenges of 2013 of the year, may also think about whether he will be able to cope with the consequences of a lost war. ”
Here is how. An American analyst suggests that Lavrov be like Talleyrand. Or even the great Kissinger.
As for the position of the “defense” of Syria, it is losing, the analyst believes.
"... Despite Lavrov's skillful maneuvers, he and Putin will have to face the prospect of diplomatic defeat."
What does an American prove to be right? And again, in the words of Comrade Bogdanov, apparently, in the absence of others:
"... A senior Russian official warned last week that the Syrian government was" increasingly losing control "over the country."
Therefore, the expert believes that it is no longer an issue to be resolved with Assad, but with what will happen after Assad.
“Moscow insists that the only possible solution to resolve the conflict is negotiations involving the defeated government in Damascus. Undoubtedly, Lavrov is clever and skillful enough to interpret this demand in a new way or to abandon it as the final phase of the struggle approaches. But now it is very likely that Russia will be on the sidelines when the rebels take over. "
And this is a catastrophe for Russia, the expert believes.
“It will be a disaster for her in many ways. Approximately 30000 of Russian citizens live in Syria, including an unknown number of military advisers whose lives will be in danger. Putin and his assistants are worried about the ties that exist between the radical Islamist groups in Syria and the Russian Caucasus. If Russia fails to defend President Bashar al-Assad, it will weaken the remnants of its influence in the Middle East, and above all in Iran. China, who supported Russia in the UN, will also be unhappy. "
According to Richard Gowan, Russia needs a strategy to minimize the damage after Assad leaves. How to do it? A very simple.
We must seek appropriate assistance from foreign supporters of the opposition - to France, Britain, Turkey. This country will help divert Russian citizens from the rebels. The Kremlin is afraid that the Syrian Islamists can assist their allies in Russia? And this is solved: it is necessary to secretly negotiate with the United States in order to eliminate this threat.
In short, we note in brackets, the Russian philosopher Solovyov was wrong when he argued that beauty would save the world. The world will save the West.
And further.
After Assad’s fall, comrade Putin will need geopolitical excuses. Gowen mockingly remarks that he will
“It is necessary to think more broadly and on a large scale how to protect the battered Russian claims for the status of a great power after their Syrian clients are defeated.”
And there is
"The danger that Putin will explain the fall of Assad by a Western conspiracy to weaken Russia and take a more confrontational position."
By the way, the Western plot here is not such an invention. Rather, the Middle Eastern expert blurts out.
It is better for President Putin, Gowen believes, to take "a more optimal course of action." Russia can strengthen its position as a weighty diplomatic player on many fronts, he says. For example, Moscow can deal with final planning to ensure stability in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of NATO troops, negotiate with the Obama administration on the second stage of the nuclear arms reduction agreement (based on the 3 START-2010 Treaty), support efforts on “nuclear diplomacy "Regarding Iran. Yes, and the US will offer something - for example, “a package of ideas for cooperation with Moscow”. This is to "remove the bitterness of defeat in Syria."
“But it’s not clear whether Putin will agree to play such a game. It is possible that it will be easier and easier for him to get into an anti-Western posture. If this is so, then the upcoming defeat of Russia in Syria could end up as bad for her as the war itself. ”
American analyst is echoed by Gerhard Mangott, a professor at Innsbruck University, an expert in Russia who is recognized in Germany. is he says:
“... Russia has long turned away from Assad personally. But she lacks the influence to force the ruling elites in Damascus, too, to abandon Assad. In Russia, they have long understood that with Assad in Syria it is already impossible to win anything, but you can lose everything. Again, Moscow turned away from Assad a long time ago, but she cannot get rid of him. And this is an indicator of the weakness of Russian foreign policy. ”
So, the West starts and wins. He always wins. Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, now here is Syria. Who's next? Hey, beware, comrade Putin! Make friends with the West, or he will eat you. And do not eat the West, so they will eat Qatar. And Comrade Churkin will not help.
Observed and translated by Oleg Chuvakin
- especially for topwar.ru
- especially for topwar.ru
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