Syria’s War Was Only Ever the Beginning

With the US-led destruction of Libya in 2011 through the use of Al Qaeda-linked militants, and the transformation of the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi into a logistical springboard to Turkey’s border with Syria, the proxy invasion of Syria began amid already ongoing clashes in the nation’s urban centers.

By 2012, militants flooded over the Turkish-Syrian border, and invaded the city of Aleppo. The destructive war that followed has ravaged the nation, drawn in Syria’s allies – Hezbollah and Iran, as well as Russia, and may have sufficiently weakened the coalition ahead of the conflict’s expansion eastward into Iran and even southern Russia.

Look Who’s in Office, Just in Time for War with Iran…

President-elect Donald Trump has surrounded himself with not only pro-Israeli hardliners like David Friedman, but also a circle who have – for years – advocated war with Iran including Breitbart News’ Stephen Bannon and retired US Marine Corps General James Mattis.

A similar circle of policymakers would undoubtedly have accompanied 2016 US presidential candidate and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton into office as well had she won the election – her time as US Secretary of State being consumed with the destruction of Libya and Syria, prerequisites for this very conflict.

In essence, Washington is positioning itself for a wider confrontation with Iran just as its proxy war in Syria appears to have run its full course – and it would have begun positioning itself for this coming war regardless of who won the 2016 US presidential election.

In all likelihood, US policymakers envisioned Syria falling much faster and for a lesser cost. With Russia basing a significant military presence in the nation, and with Syria’s military distilled down to a highly effective, experienced fighting force, and with Iranian and Hezbollah forces having gained experience fighting a regional conflict, moving the conflict into Iran will be no easy task.

It is perhaps because of this, that President-elect Trump has been presented as a potential “ally” of Russia, and accusations of Russia “hacking” American elections are being used to chill the alternative media under the guise of combating “fake news.” With the alternative media muzzled, would it be difficult for US policymakers to once again engineer a large provocation – as Brookings’ “Which Path to Persia?” report recommended – to justify expanding Syria’s conflict and America’s involvement in it, into Iranian territory?

It should also be noted that systematically – throughout the Syrian conflict – Israel has attacked Hezbollah infrastructure throughout Lebanon and Syria. Israeli policymakers are likely attempting to maintain a buffer zone between themselves and those who would retaliate in the wake of US-backed Israeli attack on Iran – just as Brookings proposed in 2009.

Elections Won’t Beat US Hegemony, Only a Multipolar Balance of Power 

US special interests, since the end of the Cold War, have been consumed with confronting and eliminating any threat to their perceived global hegemony. As retired US Army General Wesley Clark warned for years, the US is pursuing a singular agenda since the 1990’s, one indifferent to who is in the White House and what rhetoric is being used to sell the myriad of wars and “color revolutions” required to incrementally achieve and maintain global hegemony.

As Russia and China reintroduce a global balance of power, checking US aggression and rolling back US hegemony to a more proportional, multipolar role upon the world stage, the US has increasingly reacted with direct confrontations with both Moscow and Beijing as well as an increasingly violent campaign of proxy wars and regime change operations worldwide.

The illusion that a presidential election could derail this singular, decades-long agenda is a dangerous one. In reality, the only obstacle between US special interests and achieving global hegemony are competing centers of power. These include nation-states like Russia and China, or grassroots movements like the alternative media, alternative and disruptive economic models, and political movements built on the power and influence such movements achieve. Such alternatives can undermine the unwarranted power and influence currently enjoyed by the US and the corporate-financier monopolies that dominate its political landscape.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

Article source: http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2017/01/syrias-war-was-only-ever-beginning.html