NATO Has Set Itself on a Collision Course with Russia and Iran in Syria

by Martin Berger, New Eastern Outlook:

It’s been noted that NATO has officially joined the so-called anti-ISIS coalition, vowing to fight the terror group with resolve in both Iraq and Syria. This move has immediately been labeled by a number of Western media sources as symbolic. Indeed, the move is somewhat redundant, as all 28 NATO allies are already members of the anti-Daesh coalition. Nevertheless, we are being told that NATO’s AWACS planes are going to provide air control support to all of anti-ISIS operations, except for bombing missions. However, as it’s been announced in Brussels, the North Atlantic Treaty warplanes are not going to directly engage the enemy in the foreseeable future, therefore one can describe this decision as a purely diplomatic move.

However, it must pointed out that al-Qaeda under its various disguises, Ahar al-Sham and even ISIS are mostly done. It’s been reported that the latter especially is no longer a capable military force but is reverting to guerilla levels of operation. Its final defeat will take a long time but it must and will be achieved by local forces.

Regardless of this fact, Washington pressed on NATO members to force them into allowing NATO to join its “fight against ISIS”. What this means is that now those states have brought large scale command and control capabilities as well as additional resources under Washington’s control in the Middle East. No wonder analysts have raised the alarm, noting that this addition could lead to a confrontation with Russia in Syria, as the organization has historically shown great hostility toward Moscow.

As it’s been noted by MintPressNews, as a formal part of the anti-ISIS coalition, NATO – as France and Germany once feared – will become more than capable of waging a covert war against the Syrian government and Russians within Syria, all in the name of “fighting terrorism.” As former British Foreign Secretary Lord David Owen warned last year, if NATO becomes “embroiled as an alliance in fighting on the ground in Syria, there is a real danger of a military spillover” into a much larger war, sure to involve Russia. Now that NATO has formally announced its involvement, a wider war seems much more likely – a war that NATO is all too eager to fight.

There’s a long list of facts all pointing to the high probability of such a scenario. NATO’s troop movements in recent years make this clear, as they reveal a tendency on the part of the Western-dominated military organization to pounce on any excuse for further militarizing the border between Europe and Russia.

The prominent alternative source Moon of Alabama urges us to make no mistake in our judgment, as the fight against ISIS is not the real purpose of the move. It would note that the US wants NATO support to invade Syria from the north in Idleb as well as from the south near Deraa and from the south-east starting at the al-Tanf border station to Iraq. Syria and its allies will now be fought under the disguise of “fighting ISIS” which factually can no longer be the purpose.

Thus, NATO together with Wahhabi Gulf forces, will now be engaged in an expanded war not only against the Syria government but especially against its Russian and Iranian allies. Trump’s endorsement of anti-Iranian rhetoric on his visit in Saudi Arabia served the same exact purpose.

Read More @ Journal-NEO.org