The Anti-Syrian Vendetta By Ghassan Kadi 9 June 2011

The Anti-Syrian Vendetta

By Ghassan Kadi, June 9, 2011

The background of the Western stand behind so-called Syrian revolution is hard to understand without a proper understanding of the recent history of the region.

Luckily, we only need to go back to 1982, the year Israel invaded Lebanon and ousted the PLO from Lebanon.

Just prior to the 1982 invasion, Israel had secured its borders with both Egypt and Jordan with peace treaties. The uneasy quiet on the Syrian front was likely to stay that way. Syria is not capable to launch a major conventional attack on Israel. That status quo gave enough security to Israel. The only thorn in Israel’s backside was the presence of the PLO in Lebanon, and in South Lebanon to be more specific.

By ousting the PLO, Israel believed that Lebanon has become a subservient country and that it was going to be able to install a puppet regime, and why would it not believe so? The PLO was driven out, the Lebanese capital was under its control, and the pro-Israeli leader of the Lebanese Forces (Bashir Gemayel) was elected to be president of Lebanon.

When Gemayel was assassinated by a member of the Syrian Social National Party (SSNP, a Lebanese political party that promotes the idea of Greater Syria), Israel lost a powerful ally and a power broker. Under the presidency of his brother Amin (who was elected a few days after the assassination of Bashir), the Lebanese government was coerced to enter peace talks with Israel. A peace agreement was reached on the 17th of May 1983 but Amin Gemayel did not ratify it. He was undoubtedly worried to pay for it with his blood.

It looked however like it was a question of time before Lebanon and Israel signed a peace agreement.

During that period, the Syrian influence on Lebanese politics was reduced to almost nothing despite the continued presence of Syrian forces in the part of Lebanon that remained outside Israel’s control. The presence of Israeli forces in virtually half of Lebanon together with the later presence of American/French/Italian peace-keeping forces in Beirut, not to mention the muscle power of the US sixth fleet and its pride USS New Jersey was more than overwhelming. The very thought of resistance was unfathomable.

The situation was very desperate and virtually hopeless. How could Lebanon, the small fragmented country, rise up and defeat the many enemies within and without?

And then, from the ashes rose the Lebanese Resistance. With the support and strategic genius and tenacity of Hafez Al-Assad, the Lebanese Resistance was able to score a multitude of painful blows to the Western alliance.

To make a long story short, this culminated in an unprecedented defeat of Israel. For the first time since its infamous inception, Israel had to retreat from Lebanon. Never before had Israel given up Arab land without trading it for something of value. Israel called its retreat a strategic withdrawal. It was in fact a very humiliating defeat. This defeat of Israel was the biggest victory of Syria and Lebanon and the crown jewel of Hafez Assad’s political career and greatest achievement. He lived enough to see this victory and passed away a few weeks later.

Israel’s gamble in Lebanon failed abysmally. The PLO was replaced by a much more potent and much better organized Hezbollah, and Syria was back in Lebanon in greater force.

It was probably at that time that Israel and the USA decided to escalate their plots against Syria. The young and little-experienced Bashar Assad was seen as an easier target than his seasoned father. Bashar was however not scared of reform like his father was. He opened up Syria to the world and made huge steps towards political and economic reform. No doubt, more needed to be done. Bashar needed to clean up his camp and get rid of some serious cronies. This however is not the topic of this article. That said, the West needs to realize that what it perceives as a perfect political system ie democracy, does not work everywhere; needless to say that America’s biggest allies and friends in the Middle East are dictators.

When Bush was elected, he had around him the infamous circle of Neo Conservatives. These were a group of pro-Zionist fanatics. Perle, Wolfewitz and Co had one thing and one thing only in mind; to use the tenure of Bush to buy an everlasting peace for Israel.

They had their eye on their strategic enemy; Syria. Attacking Syria however was a difficult concept to sell to the world. They had to come up with a smarter plan. They had to find an enemy that the world loves to hate. They found the perfect one and the perfect excuse.

September 11 gave the infamous Bush alliance a good excuse to justify escalating the rhetoric against Saddam. Furthermore, in Iraq, the alliance found a good lure for oil-thirsty hyenas. The Neo-Cons rounded up the fanatics and Cheney rounded up the scavengers. The war against Iraq became history.

Unlike what many people think. The invasion of Iraq was not about petrol. Petrol was only the lubricant. America invaded Iraq to protect Israel.

But how does invading Iraq protect Israel even though Iraq and Israel do not share any borders?

Destabilizing Iraq and removing the threat of Saddam’s scuds was seen as good enough, but there was much more on America’s mind.

America was planning to use Iraq as a stepping stone to attack Syria and Iran.

In fact, soon after Bush’s arrogant declaration that his mission in Iraq has been accomplished, America started to accuse Syria of trouble in the border region of Iraq; just as planned. America was trying to show the world that it could not control Iraq properly unless it controlled Syria. The same was planned for Iran.

In its arrogance, the USA believed that it was mighty enough to attack and occupy Iraq, Syria and Iran.

But just like Israel got bogged down in Lebanon a decade earlier, the USA soon realized that controlling Iraq was not a possibility. Instead of turning against Syria, the USA realized that it was already in a very deep mess that it is still trying to get out of.

Syria took over one million Iraqi refugees and in doing so, it inadvertently helped the resilience of Iraq. But even without this help, the USA and Israel became increasingly at dis-ease with Syria and its growing strength in the area, especially that it signed a strategic alliance treaty with Iran.

The Assad legacy has outsmarted the American Israeli alliance twice by then. Hezbollah has grown much stronger and its missiles reached deep into Israeli territory in 2006. Never more before did Israel and the USA want to see Assad fall.

Israel and the US are both aware that if Bashar Assad gets toppled he will most likely be replaced by Sunni fundamentalists. As a matter of fact, the USA has been sponsoring the Lebanese-based Sunni fundamentalists (Salafists) for some years. The USA and Israel are prepared to take this risk and much prefer an Al-Qaeda type regime in Syria to that of Assad.

At the end of the day, America will fight the Arab and Muslim worlds, create enemies for itself, send itself broke, bend over and backwards, just to support that illegitimate state of piracy that calls itself Israel.

The Western stand behind the uprising in Syria is not one that is aimed for reform as it alleges. America does not give a hoot about political freedom in Syria. America and Israel have a score to settle with the Assad legacy and they are capitalizing on the Arab revolt. Helped by their Saudi cronies, they are finding new recruits; the Prince of Qatar.

The Prince of Qatar is another regional dictator who is a good friend of both the USA and Israel. He hosted on Qatari soil the headquarters for the alliance of the infamous invasion of Iraq.

Al-Jazeera, his pet newsagency is using all its influence to fuel violence in Syria. For the Qatari Prince to think that his country is immune to an uprising similar to that in Bahrain is laughable to say the least.

Originally published on Ghassan Kadi's Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/ghassan-kadi/the-anti-syrian-vendetta/135976409811848/

To America and Israel, this is the time to even up the scores with Bashar Assad. To Bashar, it is a great moment of reckoning.