Trump's "Safe Zones"

It looks like a Trump administration is melting down even sooner than anticipated.

Iran test fired a missile. Such missile launches, the Israelis insist, are banned under the 2015 nuclear agreement. Trump talked tough on the campaign trail about how he would crack down on Iran. Things are heating up in Yemen as well. So Trump is at a point where he can't freely tack back and forth on foreign policy. He is going to have to commit to a course of action.

There is no course more momentous than Trump's apparent commitment to "safe zones," a sloppy repackaging of Hillary's long-sought-after "no-fly zones."

According to Nahal Toosi's story in Politico, "Trump chats with Saudi, Abu Dhabi leaders about 'safe zones'":

In his call with Saudi King Salman, the president “requested, and the king agreed to support, safe zones in Syria and Yemen, as well as supporting other ideas to help the many refugees who are displaced by the ongoing conflicts,” the White House said.

It was not immediately clear what Trump meant by “requested” safe zones in those two war-struck countries or what the Saudis are willing to do. Past talk of creating such havens has run into the reality that U.S. lawmakers are cool to any move that could lead to the deployment of American troops in the Middle East.

Trump and Salman also “agreed on the importance of rigorously enforcing the [nuclear deal] with Iran and of addressing Iran’s destabilizing regional activities.”

Trump garnered quite a bit of intellectual support from the left because of his reluctance to embrace the neocon jihadi war to oust the Baathists in Syria. Now that reluctance appears to have been a campaign ploy.

Obama's reboot of the Cold War likely cost the Democrats the White House in 2016. When Trump dons the mantle of the perpetual warrior, whether saber-rattling against Tehran or fiddling about with the sheikhs golden ticket of a Syrian no-fly zone, most of his popular intellectual support will evaporate. He'll be left with the know-nothings out there in opioid-induced-constipation TVland.

Russian Military Campaign in Syria Exposes U.S. Lies

Two things already accomplished by Russia's military campaign in Syria are 1) Turkish fantasies of a no-fly/no-go zone maintained by NATO have been dashed; and 2) the U.S-air-war-against-ISIS kabuki has been exposed as an Obama administration ploy to support the Army of Conquest, an Islamist coalition, the main components of which are Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra.

Turkey, the GCC and the West have been trying to copy the no-fly/no-go model applied to Saddam Hussein's Iraq at least since the false flag sarin attack in Ghouta the summer of 2013. This past summer Erdogan moved forcefully to get his wish when he broke the ceasefire with the Kurdistan Workers Party and opened Incirlik Air Base to U.S. air power. But Russia's sorties into Turkish air space are a loud and clear signal that there will no such repeat of Iraq in Syria. According to a story by Tim Arango, "Russia Military’s Actions in Syria Cause Rift With Turkey," yesterday,

Mr. Erdogan, in Brussels this week for talks with European leaders over the migrant crisis convulsing Europe, continued to push for a safe zone in northern Syria as the only acceptable way to create stability in Syria and discourage refugees who are increasingly leaving Turkey on perilous sea journeys for Europe. 

“The polite reply here was that this is U.N. business and not for the E.U. to entertain,” Mr. Pierini said. “The idea is dead in the water.”

Underscoring the degree of Turkish concern about Russia’s military involvement in Syria, which seemed to expand this week when Russian officials in Moscow suggested Russian “volunteer” fighters would be sent to Syria, officials in Ankara, the Turkish capital, predicted a new influx of refugees. Speaking to the Turkish daily Hurriyet, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that up to one million more Syrians could arrive in Turkey, which is already straining under the weight of nearly two million Syrian refugees. 

At first Russia suggested that its priority was fighting the Sunni militants of the Islamic State, an aim shared by the United States, which is leading an international coalition that for more than a year has waged an air campaign against the group in Iraq and Syria. But Russia has deployed military equipment, such as ground-to-air missiles and interceptor jets, that has no use against militant groups that do not have an air force. This made clear that Russia’s priority is to buck up Mr. Assad, and it has raised concerns that if a no-fly zone or safe zone were established, as Turkey has pushed for, it could be challenged by Russia.

“The Russian presence has changed the entire parameters in Syria, including a safe zone,” said Mensur Akgun, director of the Global Political Trends Center, a research organization in Turkey. “No one will dare confront Russia.”

But even more worrisome for the Obama administration is the sunshine the Russian military campaign brings to bear on the dark, dank ruse which is the raison d'être of the U.S. warfare state: the United States is allied with the forces the country is officially at war with; in this case, Al Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front.

Russia, working with ground forces of the Syrian Arab Army, went on the offensive yesterday. Anne Barnard and Andrew Kramer report ("Russian Cruise Missiles Help Syrians Go on the Offensive") that

Russia has focused its earliest operations on the insurgent coalition known as the Army of Conquest, or Jaish al-Fatah, rather than on the Islamic State, according to the official from the pro-government alliance, because it is the Army of Conquest’s positions that most urgently threaten the crucial government-held coastal province of Latakia, while Islamic State forces are farther to the east and can later be isolated and hit. Latakia is Mr. Assad’s family’s ancestral home and the heartland of his fellow Alawites, who provide a critical bloc of support.

Wednesday was the first time since the spring that the government’s forces had moved “from defense to offense,” the official said. 

The assault seemed to focus on an area straddling northern Hama Province and southern Idlib Province, where insurgent command of high ground threatens the coast. The initial ground attacks took place around three villages that insurgents consider the first line of defense of the strategic Jebel al-Zawiyah area.

The bombardment appeared to reach new levels of intensity in some places. One video showed white smoke rising far above a village’s minarets, while another appeared to show at least a dozen explosions — the person filming described the weapons as rockets — in less than five minutes.

A number of times in Wednesday’s fighting, insurgents fired advanced TOW antitank missiles, supplied covertly by the C.I.A., at Syria’s Russian-made tanks, leaving the impression of a proxy war between Russia and the United States. Rebel groups, including two that have received American aid, Division 13 and Suqour al-Ghab, posted videos that showed the guided missiles sailing toward approaching tanks and destroying them.

The main thrust of the offensive was aimed at areas held by insurgent groups that oppose both Mr. Assad and the Islamic State, including the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate. But there were airstrikes elsewhere in Syria, according to SANA, the state news agency, which said that Syrian and Russian warplanes had worked together to attack targets in Al Bab, a city in eastern Aleppo Province long held by the Islamic State.

Now we are regularly treated to sickening bleats from U.S. SecDef Ash Carter complaining about Russia's attack on the foreign jihadis of Jabhat al-Nusra as Assad's ruthless attacks on his own people:

When asked at a news conference in Rome about the ground offensive, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter lamented “the Assad regime’s use of violence against its own people.” 

Mr. Carter added, “To the extent that Russia enables that, that’s the fundamental reason we believe Russia is making a mistake in their actions in Syria.”

To which Russia has a deft reply: If there is indeed a secular, non-jihadi opposition, let us know who they are and we won't target them. According to Helene Cooper, "A Semantic Downgrade for U.S.-Russian Talks About Operations in Syria,"

On Wednesday, the Pentagon dropped deconfliction from its lexicon after Russian officials said they had received no answer when they asked the United States to identify armed groups other than units of the Syrian Army that were fighting the Islamic State — so as to avoid them in airstrikes.

“If there are some forces — that also have weapons in their hands and are on the ground fighting, as the coalition says — with the Islamic State and they should not be touched, then wonderful,” said Maria Zakharova, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. “Give the list, give the call signs of these people, tell us where are they located, explain why they shouldn’t be touched. Indeed, this information is not provided.”

Lies might be contained and managed if your steady state is solid and you are just resorting to an occasional lie to maintain a tactical advantage. But when your entire strategy is built on a ruse, once that ruse is exposed you are in deep trouble. And that is where the United States is today. Lies are everywhere, discarded here and there and picked back up willy-nilly like a drunk searching empty bottles for more to drink the morning after the big party.

Turkey Finally Gets Its No-Fly Zone in Syria

A good argument can be made that the Ghouta sarin gas attack of two years ago was a false-flag job launched by Turkey with the goal of establishing a no-fly zone over Syria which would then lead to the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's government. Sy Hersh made such an argument last year in "The Red Line and the Rat Line."

Now, with this morning's announcement, "Turkey and U.S. Agree on Plan to Clear ISIS From Strip of Syria’s North," despite official U.S. denials, it looks like Turkey is finally getting its wish. The story is written by trusted USG mouthpieces Anne Barnard, Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt:

BAGHDAD — Turkey and the United States have agreed in general terms on a plan that envisions American warplanes, Syrian insurgents and Turkish forces working together to sweep Islamic State militants from a 60-mile-long strip of northern Syria along the Turkish border, American and Turkish officials say. 

The plan would create what officials from both countries are calling an Islamic State-free zone controlled by relatively moderate Syrian insurgents, which the Turks say could also be a “safe zone” for displaced Syrians.

***

In another complication, gains for such insurgents would come at the expense of Syrian Kurdish militias that are already fighting the Islamic State farther east with American air support and that have been eyeing the same territory.

Turkish officials and Syrian opposition leaders are describing the agreement as something just short of a prize they have long sought as a tool against Mr. Assad: a no-fly zone in Syria near the Turkish border. They want such a zone in order to curb devastating Syrian government airstrikes on opposition areas, to allow refugees in Turkey to go home and to insulate Turkey from the war, and they call the new plan a “safe zone” that could achieve some of those goals.

But American officials say that this plan is not directed against Mr. Assad. They also say that while a de facto safe zone could indeed be a byproduct of the plan, a formal no-fly zone is not part of the deal. They said it was not included in the surprise agreement reached last week to let American warplanes take off from Turkish air bases to attack Islamic State fighters in Syria, even though Turkey had long said it would give that permission only in exchange for a no-fly zone.

Instead, United States officials said Turks and Americans were working toward an agreement on the details of an operation to clear Islamic State militants from a heavily contested area roughly between the eastern outskirts of the city of Aleppo and the Euphrates River.

That is an ambitious military goal, because it appears to include areas of great strategic and symbolic importance to the Islamic State, and it could encompass areas that Syrian helicopters regularly bomb. If the zone goes 25 miles deep into Syria, as Turkish news outlets have reported, it could encompass the town of Dabiq, a significant place in the group’s apocalyptic theology, and Manbij, another stronghold. It could also include the Islamic State-held town of Al Bab, where barrel bombs dropped by Syrian aircraft have killed scores, including civilians, in recent weeks.

American officials emphasized that the depth of the buffer zone to be established was one of the important operational details that had yet to be decided. But one senior official said, “You can be assured many of the principal population centers will be covered.”

The plan does not envision Turkish ground troops entering Syria, although long-range artillery could be used across the border. Turkish ground forces would work on their side of the border to stem the Islamic State’s ability to infiltrate foreign fighters and supplies into Syria.

Inside Syria, the plan calls for relatively moderate Syrian insurgents to take the territory, with the help of American and possibly Turkish air support.

That would entail a far higher degree of coordination with Syrian insurgents than the United States has yet undertaken. American officials said they would need to arrange the same kind of system for calling in airstrikes that American Special Operations forces have worked out successfully with Kurdish fighters to the east in Syria.

Insurgents, as well as their supporters in the Syrian opposition and the Turkish government, are already envisioning the plan as a step toward establishing an area where alternative governance could be set up without fear of attack by Islamic State or government forces.

Once the plan is put in place, “safe zones will be formed naturally,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a recent news conference, adding that displaced Syrians could return there.

American officials in recent months have argued to Turkish counterparts that a formal no-fly zone is not necessary, noting that during hundreds of American-led strike missions against Islamic State in Syria, forces loyal to Mr. Assad have steered clear of areas under concerted allied attack.

But until now, those missions been mostly farther east, in areas that are not seen as priorities for Mr. Assad, and where there are few non-Islamic State insurgents to benefit, except for Kurdish militias that the government views as less of a threat.

By contrast, the new plan directly benefits Syrian Arab insurgents. Islamic State attacks on them east of Aleppo have complicated their efforts to take the half of that city, Syria’s largest, that remains in government hands.

“Any weakening of ISIS will be a privilege for us on the battlefield,” Ahmad Qara Ali, a spokesman for Ahrar al-Sham, an insurgent group that often allies with the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syria affiliate. “As for our role, we are already in an open battle against I.S.”

Such Syrian Arab insurgents would gain at the expense of the People’s Protection Units, a Kurdish militia known by the initials Y.P.G. that is seeking to take the same territory from the east. While the United States views the group as one of its best partners on the ground, Turkey sees it as a threat; it is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a militant group whose longstanding conflict with Turkey has flared anew in recent days.

The area has become more crucial to the Islamic State since the Kurds recently drove the group from a border crossing farther east at Tal Abyad, denying it supply routes and revenues. The operation seeks to stop the Islamic State from establishing new routes anywhere between the Kilis border crossing and Jarabulus on the Euphrates.

Make no mistake, this new agreement is all about Turkey keeping the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) at bay; in particular, the militia of the Syrian affiliate of the PKK, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which as Barnard et al. note above was making gains against ISIS from the east. Moon of Alabama reported in a post yesterday, "Turkey's War On Kurds Realigns Syrian Kurds With Their Government," that Syrian Kurds were ready to cut a deal with Assad and join the Syrian Arab Army:

The Kurds in Syria and their leader Salih Muslim are under attack from the Islamic State and now also from Turkey. They have now offered to reconcile with their only reliable partner, the Syrian government. Salih Muslim said that the Kurds would join the Syrian army if that army would show a "new mentality". He spoke favorably of the father of Bashar al Assad and his relations with the Kurds and discussed various forms of federalism.

THIS IS HUGE!

Should the Syrian government take up this offer for talks (likely!) and guarantee some kind of Kurdish autonomy within some federal Syrian structure the Syrian army would regain the manpower to again go on the offense. Supported by Iran and Russia and united with the Kurds the Syrian army would again be dominant power in the country and likely be able to retake the insurgency and islamist occupied areas.

Clearly, the U.S.-Turkey buffer zone announcement is designed to prevent this from happening.

An excellent story by Ceylan Yeginsu, "Strikes on Kurd Militias Elevate Tensions in Turkey," lends credence to the notion that the lightning rapprochement between Turkey and the United States over joint operations targeting Islamic State, a rapprochement that was spurred by a suicide bombing targeting pro-Kurdish activists in the Turkish town of Suruc which was then used by Erdogan's government to attack PKK camps, was likely a false-flag operation:

Although Turkish officials said that large-scale counterterrorism operations had been planned for some time, the measures put into place last week were prompted by a suicide bombing at a cultural center in the border town of Suruc last Monday that killed 32 people and wounded more than 100. 

The attack, which targeted a group of pro-Kurdish activists and was carried out by a Turkish citizen with suspected ties to the Islamic State, laid bare a sociopolitical fault line in Turkey, as Kurds accused the government of allowing the Islamic State to operate in the country.

“The conflict in Syria has spilled across the border into Turkey, and the Turkish state has a big part to play in that reality,” said Fatma Edemen, a journalism student at Ankara University who survived the attack. “The government has let ISIS roam freely in Turkey for years.”

Ms. Edemen, 22, is a member of a pro-Kurdish socialist youth group that had gathered at the Amara Culture Center on Monday to discuss rebuilding the war-ravaged Syrian border town of Kobani, which was besieged by Islamic State militants last year in a battle that drew crucial support from the American-led coalition.

The Turkish government’s reluctance to take part in the Kobani campaign inspired violent protests across Turkey, with Kurdish nationalists accusing Ankara of aiding the Islamic State. At least 30 people died in the demonstrations.

Turkey’s lack of response over Kobani also bolstered the Kurdish election campaign in June, after conservative nationalist Kurds, who had previously voted for Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party, defected to the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, or H.D.P., which won representation in Parliament for the first time by passing a 10 percent threshold in the June 7 election.

The success of the pro-Kurdish party stripped Mr. Erdogan’s party of its majority in Parliament, opening the possibility of a coalition government for the first time in more than a decade.

Earlier this month, Mr. Erdogan gave Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu amandate to form a government. If the prime minister fails to establish a coalition within 45 days, Mr. Erdogan is likely to call for another election in November.

Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chairman of the H.D.P., has accused the government of supporting the attack in Suruc as part of a larger strategy to drag the country into a war — and improve the Justice and Development Party’s election prospects.

Analysts say that Turkey’s campaign to bundle the crackdown on the Islamic State with the P.K.K. could help Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Davutoglu regain the disaffected nationalist voters that they lost in the last election (though probably not the conservative Kurdish voters).

“Erdogan’s strongman image is being restored with the strikes,” said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute. 

“His persona of someone that gets things done at home and abroad has been shattered by Turkey’s failure in Syria and against the rise of the P.K.K.,” he added. “These strikes have revived that image.” 

The greatest risk of Turkey’s new counterterrorism policy, according to analysts, is that it could reignite unrest in the Kurdish southeast.

Time and again we see this neocon logic at work with large state powers, principally the United States: "If first you don't succeed, if things aren't going your way, try again -- by making things worse." That is why there are so many failed states and war is on the rise.

No-Fly/Buffer Zone for Syria Still in the Works

The Gray Lady is not just the paper of record, it is also a vital propaganda organ for the United States government. Take, for instance, today's story by Michael R. Gordon, "Touring Refugee Camp, Kerry Sees Mounting Syrian Suffering." There is nothing newsworthy here. The massive size of the Zaatari refugee camp on the Jordanian border with Syria has been subject of previous reports. We know that its population is over 100,000, the majority of which are children, and that it is costly to operate and that the United Nations has struggled with its administration. The point of the story is not about refugees and the audience that six of them had with Secretary of State John Kerry. The point of the story is to keep the bad idea of a no-fly zone in the news. Refugees are quoted plaintively demanding military succour:

But as frustrated Syrian refugees appealed for Western military intervention to halt the attacks by the Syrian government’s forces, Mr. Kerry’s visit soon became a graphic illustration of the limits of the Obama administration’s policy. 

“We are not satisfied with the American answers,” said Jamalat Abdulraouf al-Hariri, 43, after her meeting with Mr. Kerry. 

“We just need an action,” she added, noting that the refugees wanted the United States to establish a no-fly zone or a protected area for civilians inside Syria. “We always hear words.”

Kerry's response is quoted at the end of the story:

“We are trying to help in various ways, including helping Syrian opposition fighters have weapons,” Mr. Kerry added. “We are doing new things. There is consideration of buffer zones and other things, but it is not as simple as it sounds.”

And the propaganda function is fulfilled. When the story appeared yesterday on Google News the lede was about no-fly zones. So once again no-fly zones are in the news, despite the fact that the Syrian government is widely regarded to have all but won the civil war. An interesting alteration is how a "buffer zone" is now being introduced along with "no-fly zone" as an interchangeable term when clearly it is not. Establishing a no-fly zone would do little to change the facts on the ground because much of the fighting is conducted without air power. But a buffer zone entails claiming Syrian territory by full military means.

It is important to keep in mind here what Franklin Lamb reported on the Counterpunch web site last month, that the prevailing wisdom of Congressional staffers he polled on Capitol Hill was that a no-fly zone would be in place by the end of summer.

The story today tells me that a no-fly/buffer zone is still in the works. War pig Senator John McCain's block on General Martin Dempsey's second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff pending his fulsome proclamation of support for the rebels is more proof.

Spain Busts Up Al Qaeda Network, Highlighting Western Schizophrenia

The BBC is reporting this morning that Spain has raided an Al Qaeda recruiting network responsible for sending fighters to Syria. The network is based in the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta and the Moroccan city of Fnideq.

This highlights the schizophrenia of the West regarding Syria. On the one hand there is an extensive anti-terrorism infrastructure built up over the last decade-plus to combat Al Qaeda and its affiliates, while on the other we are actively working to enhance terrorist networks in a catastrophic quest to collapse the sovereign nation of Syria. In fact, Secretary of State John Kerry is in Qatar today to huddle with the Gulf Arab monarchies at the forefront of the effort to export jihad to Syria. (An interesting story on the Syrian Arab News Agency from yesterday alleges, based on documentary evidence, that Saudi Arabia is offering a general amnesty for criminals to fight in Syria.)

Last weekend on the Counterpunch web site, Franklin Lamb published a story taking the temperature on Capitol Hill. He interviewed his Congressional-staffer contacts and the opinion was that a no-fly zone was an inevitability, and with a no-fly zone comes all-out war. So the prevailing wisdom was that shortly, possibly a matter of months, the United States would be in a full-scale military conflict with Syria.

Fox is reporting this morning that a bipartisan group of senators led by Kentucky's Rand Paul is trying to block Obama from sending military aid to the rebels.

Rick Gladstone has a story in the New York Times this morning about the Philippines threatening to withdraw its peacekeepers from the Golan Heights unless they are supplied with heavy weapons, antitank and antiaircraft guns, by the United Nations. The Times over the last several days has reduced its coverage of the Syrian civil war.

Patrick Cockburn has a story in The Independent from a couple days back that is worth checking out. He says that Damascus is more peaceful today than it was six months ago. "Assad's forces have a tight grip on 13 out of 14 provincial capitals and increasingly hold the main roads between them." The population is tired of war and have no sympathy for the rebels who shoot children and eat the hearts of fallen soldiers. Cockburn says the government's strategy seems to be a slow encirclement of the rebels. It seems to be working.

I think it's already obvious to anyone paying attention that the West is engaging in an obscenity by supporting the fatwas of Wahhabi clerics. Soon, when the only rebel military strategy left will be suicide attacks, this obscenity will be even more glaring.