Syria : America makes it Worse

Farooque Chowdhury

With the pounding of 59 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles on Shayrat airbase in Syria America under Trump has widened its aggressron in the strategically crucial country. Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Donald Trump, the US president, branded Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, a "dictator", and called on "all civilized nations to join" the US "in seeking to end this slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types." He hoped that "as long as America stands for justice, then peace and harmony will in the end prevail".

But, who is to define "dictator", "civilized nations", "justice", "peace" and "harmony"? Is it the "peace and justice", which have been showered on the Afghan people? Is it the "peace and harmony", which have been handed out to the Libyan people? Is it the "civilized nations"—the imperial powers—from Europe that carried on acts of armed intervention along with the evil Empire of America in Iraq and Libya? The "civilized nations" formulating of arguments is now exposed. None forgets the "arguments" formulated by the "civilized nations" prior to their Iraq aggression. Now, the missiles launched from the USS Porter and USS Ross is having their "arguments and logic" in Syria: defending a "vital national security interest", as Trump has said. It's the "vital national security interest" of the Empire, not of other countries; and "civilized nations" "should" step forward to defend that "vital national interest". The Empire is the final investigator and judge as Trump said: "There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons". Hence, there remains "no" space for multi-national investigations and further arguments. This is imperialist verdict; none to differ.

Following a chemical weapon attack in East Ghouta in Syria in 2013, the Syrian authorities agreed to transfer their chemical weapons to international control for destruction of those so that those don't fall into the hands of militants operating in the country. Syria also joined the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons following the chemical weapon attack. The Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said in January 2016 that all chemical weapons in Syria had been destroyed. Those were destroyed on board a US vessel, and were destroyed under UN supervision.

Following US vice-president's recent claims on chemical weapons in Syria the Russian foreign ministry reminded US that all chemical weapons were taken out of Syria by mid-2014 with US' assistance. So, there are "no grounds to claim that the 2013 Russia-US deal did not work out". Russian foreign ministry's Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department Director said: The main burden fell on Damascus and Russia. But the US also made important contribution.

Walid Muallem, Syrian foreign minister, said : 'The accusations against the Syrian army using chemical weapons make no sense since Damascus has been succeeding in fighting on all fronts. He questioned: In such context, would it be logical for us to use chemical weapons?'

Who shall be the beneficiary of the chemical weapons attack? It's the opponents of Assad. Shall Assad engage with such act that benefits his opponents?

Doesn't fairness demand that there should be a multi-national, full-fledged investigation of the reported chemical weapons attack in the vicinity of the Khan Shaykhun settlement in the Idlib province on April 4? The OPCW is in the process of gathering and analyzing information from all available sources. With this background, is the missile attack logical?

Further questions arise when the sources of information on reported chemical weapons attack are the Syrian Observatory and the White Helmets. The Observatory's capacity to monitor incidents within Syria is questionable. The White Helmets are already exposed.

But, it seems, Washington is always "correct" whatever the source of information is. America is always "correct" despite its past record of false claim about Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction". Moreover, has the world forgotten the Gulf of Tonkin incident?

Other twists are there in the Syria-missile-attack-development.

Only days ago, the White House told "the Syrian people should choose their destiny" and "Assad must go"-policy is over. Similar opinions were expressed by other US senior leaders. What has happened within the system within days that leads to the missile attack on the basis of unverified reports?

After the missile attack, it was told that the US had given an advanced warning to Russia about the missile strike. But, later, Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, said in a statement: The US did not communicate with Russia either before or after it conducted a missile strike in Syria.

Does this difference in claims signify Anything?

Is it that there are pulls/pushes by factions within the Trump administration?

The developments in Syria demand attention as many countries face threat of imperialist intervention. Actors like Syrian Observatory and White Helmets will be/are organized. Persons are engaged to propagate issues, which may be used for preparing background for imperialist intervention. The Syria case was organized from a small, peaceful protest years ago. There's no reason to imagine that country "x" or country "y" is immune from imperialist intervention. Among others, market size, raw material to be plundered, location, geographical size, relations with the world bosses act as alluring or tempting factors for imperialist intervention in countries. And, imperialist role is forgotten by many while raising voices of opposition.

[farooque_chowdhury@yahoo.com ]

Frontier
Vol. 49, No.43, April 30 - May 6, 2017