World Must Unite Against US-Saudi-Israeli Proxy War in Syria

Since 2007, the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel have been documented as conspiring to overthrow the Syrian government by way of sectarian extremists, including groups “sympathetic to Al Qaeda,” and in particular, the militant, sectarian Muslim Brotherhood. While the West has attempted to portray the full-scale conflict beginning in Syria in 2011 as first, a “pro-democracy uprising,” to now a “sectarian conflict,” recent atrocities carried out by US-Saudi-Israeli proxies have shifted the assault to include Sunni Muslims unable or unwilling to participate in the destruction of the Syrian state.

Such attacks included a mortar bombardment of Damascus University, killing 15 and injuring dozens more, as well as the brutal slaying of two prominent Sunni Muslim clerics – the latest of which was beheaded, his body paraded through the streets of Aleppo, and his head hung from the mosque he preached in. While the West attempts to mitigate these events by labeling the victims as “pro-government,” the reality is that the forces fighting inside Syria are funded, armed, directed, and politically supported from abroad – and therefore do not represent any of the Syrian people’s interests, including those Syrians who do not support the government.  

It is abundantly clear that the West’s goal is neither to institute “democracy,” nor even take sides in a “sectarian conflict,” but rather carry out the complete and permanent destruction of Syria as a nation-state, sparing no one, not even Sunnis.

Such a proxy war exists contra to any conceivable interpretation of “international law.” The world is left with a moral imperative to not only denounce this insidious conflict brought upon the Syrian people, compounded and perpetuated entirely by external interests, but demands that concrete action is taken to ensure that this act of aggression is brought to an end.

The US, UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have admitted to colluding together, flooding Syria with thousands of tons of weapons via Jordan to Syria’s south, and NATO-member Turkey to Syria’s north. And in an otherwise inexplicable conundrum, while the likes of US Secretary of State John Kerry insist this torrent of weapons is being directed to “moderates,” neither the US nor its allies are able to explain why Al Qaeda terror front Jabhat al-Nusra has emerged as the most heavily armed, best equipped militant organization in the conflict.

Associated Press reported specifically in their article, “Officials: Arms shipments rise to Syrian rebels,” that:

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on the sidelines of a Syrian opposition meeting in Italy last month that the weapons are ending up in the hands of secular groups. “I will tell you this: There is a very clear ability now in the Syrian opposition to make certain that what goes to the moderate, legitimate opposition is in fact getting to them, and the indication is that they are increasing their pressure as a result of that,” he said, without elaborating.

But even AP admits that: 

Syrian opposition activists estimate there are 15-20 different brigades fighting in and around Damascus now, each with up to 150 fighters. Many of them have Islamic tendencies and bear black-and-white Islamic flags or al-Qaeda-style flags on their Facebook pages. There is also a presence of Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the strongest Islamic terrorist groups fighting alongside the rebels.

The US State Department’s own statement regarding the designation of al-Nusra as a listed Al Qaeda terror organization states:

Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks – ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations – in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr.

According to the US State Department, al-Nusra is carrying out hundreds of attacks with a wide array of weaponry, across the entire nation of Syria, indicating a massive front and implying an equally massive network of logistical support, including foreign sponsorship. What’s more, is that the US State Department acknowledges al-Nusra’s presence even in cities close to Syria’s borders where the CIA is admittedly overseeing the distribution of weapons and cash. The New York Times, in their June 2012 article, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition,” reported that:

A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.  

And in New York Times’ more recent March 2013 article, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.,” it is admitted that weapons are being funneled into Syria across both its borders with Turkey and Jordan: 

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.

 The article would also state: 

Although rebel commanders and the data indicate that Qatar and Saudi Arabia had been shipping military materials via Turkey to the opposition since early and late 2012, respectively, a major hurdle was removed late last fall after the Turkish government agreed to allow the pace of air shipments to accelerate, officials said.  

Simultaneously, arms and equipment were being purchased by Saudi Arabia in Croatia and flown to Jordan on Jordanian cargo planes for rebels working in southern Syria and for retransfer to Turkey for rebels groups operating from there, several officials said.

The US State Department acknowledges that the well armed, prominent terror front al-Nusra is operating in the very areas the CIA is feeding weapons and cash into. 

Image: (Left) West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center’s 2007 report, “Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq” indicated which areas in Syria Al Qaeda fighters filtering into Iraq came from. The overwhelming majority of them came from Dayr Al-Zawr in Syria’s southeast, Idlib in the north near the Turkish-Syrian border, and Dar’a in the south near the Jordanian-Syrian border. (Right) A map indicating the epicenters of violence in Syria indicate that the exact same hotbeds for Al Qaeda in 2007, now serve as the epicenters of so-called “pro-democracy fighters” and also happen to be areas the US CIA is admittedly distributing weapons and other aid in. 

Such a reality directly contradicts the US State Department’s official position, and no explanation is given as to how “moderates” can be provided with such extensive support, and still be eclipsed militarily and logistically by terror-front al-Nusra. That is, unless of course, the US, British, Saudi, and Qatari weapons aren’t simply just handing the weapons directly to terrorists, precisely as planned as early as 2007. 

The Destruction of Syria Began in 2007, Not 2011

While the West has attempted to reclaim Syria as part of its sphere of influence for decades, concrete plans for the latest proxy war were laid at least as early as 2007. It was admitted in 2007 that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel conspired together to fund, arm, and direct sectarian extremists including militants “sympathetic” to Al Qaeda, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, against the governments of Iran and Syria. In Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s 2007 New Yorker article,  “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” the conspiracy was described as follows:

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Hersh also cited US, Saudi, and Lebanese officials who indicated that, “in the past year, the Saudis, the Israelis, and the Bush Administration have developed a series of informal understandings about their new strategic direction,” and that, “the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The report would also state: 

Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said.

Mention of the Muslim Brotherhood already receiving aid even in 2007 was also made:

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a branch of a radical Sunni movement founded in Egypt in 1928, engaged in more than a decade of violent opposition to the regime of Hafez Assad, Bashir’s father. In 1982, the Brotherhood took control of the city of Hama; Assad bombarded the city for a week, killing between six thousand and twenty thousand people. Membership in the Brotherhood is punishable by death in Syria. The Brotherhood is also an avowed enemy of the U.S. and of Israel. Nevertheless, Jumblatt said, “We told Cheney that the basic link between Iran and Lebanon is Syria—and to weaken Iran you need to open the door to effective Syrian opposition.”

There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.

The Wall Street Journal in 2007 would also implicate the Muslim Brotherhood and more specifically, the so-called “National Salvation Front,” in its article, “To Check Syria, U.S. Explores Bond With Muslim Brothers.”

It is clear that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel planned to use sectarian extremists against the nation of Syria starting at least as early as 2007, and it is clear that now these sectarian extremists are carrying out the destruction of Syria with a massive torrent of weapons and cash provided by the US and its regional allies, just as was described by Hersh’s report.

A Moral Imperative to Save Syria 

Syria is under attack by an insidious, premeditated foreign assault, intentionally using terrorist proxies in direct and complete violation of any conceivable interpretation of both national and international law. The world has a moral imperative to support the Syrian people and their government as they fight this assault – both politically and logistically. While US Secretary John Kerry is unable to account for how his nation’s support for moderates has left Al Qaeda’s al-Nusra front the premier militant faction in Syria, he has demanded that Iraq help stem the flow of alleged aid Iran is providing the Syrian government as it fights these terrorists.

Does US Secretary of State John Kerry deny that Syria is fighting a significant (and continuously growing) Al Qaeda presence within their borders, which according to the US State Department’s own statement, is operating in every major city in the country? What conceivable explanation or excuse could be made to justify the blockading of aid sent to Syria to fight Al Qaeda terrorists? In fact, why isn’t the US aiding the Syrian government itself in its fight against Al Qaeda – a terrorist organization the US has used as an excuse to wage unending global war since 2001 when Al Qaeda allegedly killed some 3,000 American civilians?

Does Secretary Kerry believe that further arming “moderates” is a legitimate strategy to counter Al Qaeda’s growing presence in Syria when these “moderates” openly defend Al Qaeda’s al-Nusra?

The US’ own hand-picked “Syrian opposition leader,”  Mouaz al Khatib, demanded the US reconsider its designation of al Nusra as a terrorist organization. Retuers reported in their article, “Syrian opposition urges U.S. review of al-Nusra blacklisting,” that:

The leader of Syria’s opposition coalition urged the United States on Wednesday to review its decision to designate the militant Islamist Jabhat al-Nusra as a terrorist group, saying religion was a legitimate motive for Syrian rebels.

“The decision to consider a party that is fighting the regime as a terrorist party needs to be reviewed,” Mouaz Alkhatib told a “Friends of Syria” meeting in Morocco, where Western and Arab states granted full recognition to the coalition seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

The US is directly responsible for the emergence and perpetuation of Al Qaeda and other extremist groups in Syria. The statements of Secretary John Kerry are made merely to maintain an increasingly tenuous “plausible deniability.” The precedent being set by the US and its allies is one of using full-scale proxy invasions, that if successful in Syria, will be directed into Iran, up through the Caucasus Mountains in Russia, and even onto China’s doorstep via extremists the West is cultivating amongst the Uighurs. It is also clear that the West is directly responsible for the extremists within their own borders, and that these extremists are being used as a political tool against the people of the West, just as they are being used as a mercenary force abroad.  

A united front between nations against this wanton state sponsorship of terrorism is needed – with nations pledging political and logistical support to the Syrian people to defeat this open conspiracy. Individually, we can identify, boycott, and permanently replace the corporate-financier interests who conceived of and are driving this agenda. Failure to stop such wide-scale criminality against the Syrian people now, will only invite greater criminality against us all in the near future.