Strikes on Syria: Failed US WMD Lies and the "Israel Approach"

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April 9, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci – LD) – After failing utterly to produce public support for a US-led attack on Syria following an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, northeast of the capital Damascus, the US appears to have immediately circumvented the United Nations and international law, apparently tasking its proxies in Tel Aviv with carrying out initial attacks on Syria’s T-4 airbase.

Image: Aftermath of a similar US attack last year in Syria.

The Western media has reported missile attacks on the airbase in Syria. 

CBS in its article, “U.S. denies missile strike in Syria, Russia says Israel did it,” claims:

Missiles struck an air base in central Syria early Monday, but the Pentagon quickly denied claims from Syrian state media that the strikes were “an American aggression.” As a war monitoring group said Iranian-backed militia members were killed in the strikes, Russia accused Israeli jets of firing the missiles.

An Israeli Strike is Still a US Strike 

However, regardless of who carried out the strike, it was still ordered by the US.

US policymakers – who have sought regime change in Syria and its ally Iran for decades – have meticulously laid out their plans for covert terrorism, staged provocations, feigned peace offers, and even the use of Israel as an intermediary for carrying out attacks the US itself could not initially justify or rally public support behind.

In the 2009 Brookings Instittution paper, “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran” (PDF), US policymakers would state under a section titled “Allowing or encouraging an Israeli Military Strike,” that (emphasis added): 

…the most salient advantage this option has over that of an American air campaign is the possibility that Israel alone would be blamed for the attack. If this proves true, then the United States might not have to deal with Iranian retaliation or the diplomatic backlash that would accompany an American military operation against Iran. It could allow Washington to have its cake (delay Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon) and eat it, too (avoid undermining many other U.S. regional diplomatic initiatives).

The report also states (emphasis added): 

It would presumably be easier to convince Israel to mount the attack than it would be to generate domestic political support for another war in the Middle East (let alone the diplomatic support from a region that is extremely wary of new American military adventures). 

The same report would also state (emphasis added):

However, as noted in the previous chapter, the airstrikes themselves are really just the start of this policy. Again, the Iranians would doubtless rebuild their nuclear sites. They would probably retaliate against Israel, and they might retaliate against the United States, too (which might create a pretext for American airstrikes or even an invasion).

Clearly these options laid out for Iran in 2009 have been repeatedly used instead against Syria. The fact that US regional aggression has stalled in Syria and has yet to fully manifest itself against Iran indicates a tipping balance of power against Washington.

The response by Syria and its allies to these staged chemical attacks, provocations, and strikes will determine whether or not Washington’s failed attempts at regime change ebb into an indignant withdrawal, or provide a vector toward greater and more destructive war.

A US failure in Syria will likely permanently derail its attempts to reassert is global preeminence as a multipolar world order emerges. How far the US and the special interests driving its policy – regardless of America’s elected representatives – is willing to go to preserve global hegemony remains to be seen. The task of Syrian, Iranian, and Russian intelligence would be to ascertain this – providing significant deterrence toward engaging in a wider war, and pushing the US back behind its borders as international law, the global public, and even the American people demand.