The US is “debating” setting up a no-fly zone across Syria and along Jordan’s border—a matter said obviously to be difficult and costly but still being given serious consideration after dubious claims that nerve gas was used by the Syrian government.
“Washington is considering a no-fly zone to help Assad’s opponents,” one senior diplomat told Reuters. He said it would be limited “time-wise and area-wise,” adding that it could be implemented “possibly near the Jordanian border.” Where have we heard those words before? Could it be . . . Libya?
A White House spokesperson stated last Friday that it would be expensive, and not their preferred choice. “We feel like the best course of action is to try to strengthen a moderate opposition,” Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told a news briefing. I’ve never known the U.S. to follow courses of “moderate opposition.” Bombing into the Stone Age was more like it.
Even a limited zone could cost the US at much as $50 million per day, according to the Wall Street Journal. A full-scale operation would be considerably more expensive. The Pentagon has hopes that US foreign partners will help in footing the bill, if necessary. I wouldn’t count on tapping “foreign partners” to pick up part of the tab. Europe is strapped with its own financial problems.
Jordan, not too coincidentally, has a massive presence of US troops, which took part in a major exercise, dubbed Eager Lion. Last Thursday, the Obama administration authorized the arming of rebels, and the Pentagon decided that it would keep its F-16 fighter jets and Patriot anti-aircraft missiles in Jordan after taking part in the drill, according to a US defense official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity. Not a good sign.
Historian Gerald Horne told RT that, “It seems . . . this is a very dangerous and ominous moment, particularly as Sunni clerics have just met in Cairo, Egypt and called for a holy war against the Assad regime. Instead of trying to calm things down, it seems to me the Obama administration is about to throw gas on the flames.” That would not surprise me at all.
The US’s next steps are held appropriately with suspicion and apprehension in both Moscow and Beijing after the Libyan débâcle, in which a ‘no-fly zone’ erupted into a full-scale NATO bombing campaign, tipping the balance in favor of Libyan rebels and allowing them to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Estimates for the casualties of the Libyan no-fly zone ran as high as 100,000 people killed. Adding to that, the political infrastructure of the country was destroyed as well with its leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
The US governments asserts that chemical weapons, most likely sarin (a nerve gas), were used in battle against the Syrian rebels, according to Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes. This was the warning line not to cross, but the sarin proof is thin.
The White House claims to have obtained ‘proof,’ which could reinforce ideas that a no-fly zone to accompany the gradual arming of rebels is on the cards: a move labeled “flagrant double standards,” by Syria.
Russia remains skeptical that the US is in possession of such proof. “I will say frankly that what was presented to us by the Americans does not look convincing,” said foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov last Friday. “It would be hard even to call them facts.” “We are seeking a constructive solution to this issue which is vital for the situation in the region,” continued Ushakov.
“Providing arms to either side would not address this current situation,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon stressed on Friday.
Attempts to ensure the implementation of any no-fly zone could fail at an early hurdle: France believes that the scenario is unlikely because it would require approval of the UN Security Council, it said last Friday.
“It would be very problematic for them to declare a no-fly-zone over Syria and engage in air strikes over Damascus and Aleppo and other cities throughout the country, because they have the support of other countries that have said they will not allow the US or UN to carry out bombing operations over Syria,” Abayomi Azikwe, editor of the pan-African news wire told RT. That’s the good news.
Veto-holding members of the UN Security Council, Russia and China, are opposing foreign intervention into the Syrian crisis. That’s good but potentially hazardous news.
Russian president Vladimir Putin held an operational meeting with Russian Security Council members last Friday, Putin’s official spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed to RIA Novosti. Included among the discussion topics was “the situation around Syria in light of recent statements made in Washington,” he added.
The decision is not yet ‘imminent’ according to Rhodes. “It’s far more complex to undertake the type of effort, for instance, in Syria than it was in Libya,” he said.
It’s amazing to me to see the peace-keeping role that Russia and Putin have taken in recent years in these events of regime change. Perhaps it echoes back to Afghanistan, Russia’s ten-year rigged war with the Afghans that bled the Russian economy into bankruptcy. That lessen of U.S. barbarity was not forgotten. Passing to a related front . . .
Let’s talk Turkey
When Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, met President Obama at the White House last Thursday, the most pressing topic was the war in Syria. Turkey has not faced a threat on this scale since Stalin brass-knuckled territory from the Turks in 1945.
In 2011, the Turkish government severed all diplomatic ties with the government of Bashar al-Assad and began to support the Syrian opposition groups seeking to oust him. Bad choice! And, thus far, the policy has failed, exposing Turkey to growing risks, most recently two deadly bomb attacks in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli, most likely planted by pro-Assad forces in retaliation for Turkish support of the Syrian rebels.
The water-cannons cruising like a flock of iron elephants through the streets and near the Taksen Gazi Park that was destined to become a shopping center look kind of pathetic spraying protesters about like toys. Yet there is injury also by the jet-sprays, nightsticks, beatings, and death, by fire, as one of the elephants went up in flames and smoke as a grenade hit it.
Also, the people’s desire to have a larger park for rallies and to express their feelings went up in smoke, stamping on the sparks of democracy and free speech. It seems that PM Erdogan has transformed overnight to a dictator.
That caused Turkey’s blessing over the past decade of being a stable country in an otherwise unstable region to sag. In November 2012, the global ratings agency Fitch rated Turkish bonds investment-grade for the first time since 1994. The country’s improved international reputation has cured a chronic economic problem: lack of capital. A steady infusion of foreign investment for more than a decade ushered in incredible growth, at some points exceeding 8 percent annually, launching Turkey into the Group of 20 industrialized nations.
Turkey today is a majority middle-class society for the first time in its history. This aided Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party win in three successive elections since 2002.
But getting stuck in the war in Syria threatens these gains and Erdogan‘s political future. Turkey won’t be able to dodge the fallout from a Somalia-like failed state next door—or a rump Assad regime looking for revenge against Turkey for supporting the rebels. Turkey grows because it attracts international investment. Turkey does so because it is stamped stable. A spillover of the mess in Syria darkens Turkey’s economic rainbow.
Turkey has a community of over 500,000 Arab Alawites, whose ethnic kin in Syria have, with few exceptions, supported the Assad regime against the Sunni-led rebels. This sectarian conflict alone threatens to seep across the border into Turkey, pitting Syrian rebel fighters and Sunni Turks against pro-Assad Alawites, especially in the country’s southernmost province, Hatay, where the Alawite community is concentrated.
There is also a risk or rumor of chemical weapons’ being deployed and spreading toxic agents over Turkish territory; and the proximity of al Qaeda fighters in Syria poses a serious threat to Turkey’s vaunted stability.
Moreover, the Syrian war also awakened Turkey’s once dormant Marxist militant groups that strongly oppose any government policies they see as serving American imperialist interests, and have already launched a number of attacks, including one at the United States Embassy in Ankara on Feb. 2. Turkish media reports that these Marxist groups, in cooperation with elements of Mr. Assad’s regime, may have been behind the May 11 attack that killed 51 people in Reyhanli.
This is bad news for Mr. Erdogan’s heavy-handed bid to remake the Turkish political system into a shopping center, with a strong French-style presidency. Mr. Erdogan has aligned the domestic political stars to be elected president in 2014. He even made peace with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K., a move that would have been a major no-no just a few years ago.
By entering a peace process with the P.K.K.’s reviled leader, the imprisoned Abdullah Ocalan, Mr. Erdogan has insured the country’s domestic stability in the run-up to 2014, and secured himself at least some Kurdish support. Yet an economic downturn brought on by the war in Syria could put Erdogan’s neck on the chopping block.
Erdogan is aware that unless he secures bigger, better American assistance against the Assad regime, Turkey could become the loser in Syria; and Erdogan the bigger loser at the ballot box if he can’t put together an absolute majority in 2014. This is also bad news for the United States, which sees Turkey as one of the few stable, strong pillars of Western values in the region.
So why did Erdogan start this repression in the first place. Does he have a death wish for Turkey? Was it an act of Erdogan’s personal hubris? He does like to preach in lengthy speeches, reports RT, and not listen well to his people who are angry for being denied their space, their political will, and given the heavy slap of a self-made dictator.
Turkey’s government believes that unless the balance of power in Syria is tilted in favor of the rebels now, the Syrian conflict will turn into an unending sectarian civil war that pulls Hatay Province, and with it the rest of Turkey, into turmoil.
Only Washington can change the equation. Following the May 16 summit meeting between Mr. Obama and Mr. Erdogan, two options seem to be on the table.
The infusion of American power (do we need that), by arming the rebels or enforcing a no-fly zone (think Libya), would change the military and regional dynamic and help unite the frequent gobble-gobbling “Friends of Syria” behind American leadership. Only direct American military engagement will rally the disparate parties that want to act against Mr. Assad into unified action. Sad but probably true.
The wars in Kuwait and Bosnia are cases in point in proving the value of American leadership, though they both came with a lion’s share of destruction for both countries. It would tilt the balance of power in favor of the rebels and provide diplomatic cover for Turkey, while it faces the wrath of Iran and Russia.
By presenting Moscow with a counter-incentive, threatening to act alone if Moscow does not use its influence to bring an end to the conflict, the United States could demonstrate that it is serious about engagement. Not another war, please.
This would also lighten the pressure on Turkey, which is hesitant to take further steps in Syria without at least tacit Russian consent. Historically, Russia is Turkey’s nemesis, the only country in the region with an economy and military larger than Turkey’s. The Turks fear the Russians and will not confront them alone. Who can blame them?
If convincing the Russians proves impossible, should Washington consider raising a buffer zone in northern Syria along the Turkish border to protect rebel-captured areas? A buffer zone, protected by American airpower and an international coalition, would endow the rebels with a staging ground from which to launch operations against Mr. Assad.
It would also help Turkey push the conflict back into Syria by transferring rebels and their headquarters into the buffer zones on Syrian territory—rather than offering sanctuary to militants on Turkish soil. It would also push the U.S. deeper into the struggle, even though there would most likely be regional support for such a policy, including from Jordan, which would also benefit from a buffer zone inside southern Syria
More decisive American engagement (which I’m not for) would also end doubts about the United States’ commitment to Syria and save Turkey from being pulled further into a conflict that threatens to squander its progress toward resolving the Kurdish conflict and undermine its impressive economic achievements.
My question remains whey did Erdogan initiate this conflict with his people in the first place? What was he thinking? Did he think he’d get there without ruffling feathers and Turkey’s blood spilled over Turkish and Syrian earth? Not.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com.He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.
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Lighting up Syria with a no-fly zone
Posted on June 21, 2013 by Jerry Mazza
The US is “debating” setting up a no-fly zone across Syria and along Jordan’s border—a matter said obviously to be difficult and costly but still being given serious consideration after dubious claims that nerve gas was used by the Syrian government.
“Washington is considering a no-fly zone to help Assad’s opponents,” one senior diplomat told Reuters. He said it would be limited “time-wise and area-wise,” adding that it could be implemented “possibly near the Jordanian border.” Where have we heard those words before? Could it be . . . Libya?
A White House spokesperson stated last Friday that it would be expensive, and not their preferred choice. “We feel like the best course of action is to try to strengthen a moderate opposition,” Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told a news briefing. I’ve never known the U.S. to follow courses of “moderate opposition.” Bombing into the Stone Age was more like it.
Even a limited zone could cost the US at much as $50 million per day, according to the Wall Street Journal. A full-scale operation would be considerably more expensive. The Pentagon has hopes that US foreign partners will help in footing the bill, if necessary. I wouldn’t count on tapping “foreign partners” to pick up part of the tab. Europe is strapped with its own financial problems.
Jordan, not too coincidentally, has a massive presence of US troops, which took part in a major exercise, dubbed Eager Lion. Last Thursday, the Obama administration authorized the arming of rebels, and the Pentagon decided that it would keep its F-16 fighter jets and Patriot anti-aircraft missiles in Jordan after taking part in the drill, according to a US defense official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity. Not a good sign.
Historian Gerald Horne told RT that, “It seems . . . this is a very dangerous and ominous moment, particularly as Sunni clerics have just met in Cairo, Egypt and called for a holy war against the Assad regime. Instead of trying to calm things down, it seems to me the Obama administration is about to throw gas on the flames.” That would not surprise me at all.
The US’s next steps are held appropriately with suspicion and apprehension in both Moscow and Beijing after the Libyan débâcle, in which a ‘no-fly zone’ erupted into a full-scale NATO bombing campaign, tipping the balance in favor of Libyan rebels and allowing them to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Estimates for the casualties of the Libyan no-fly zone ran as high as 100,000 people killed. Adding to that, the political infrastructure of the country was destroyed as well with its leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
The US governments asserts that chemical weapons, most likely sarin (a nerve gas), were used in battle against the Syrian rebels, according to Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes. This was the warning line not to cross, but the sarin proof is thin.
The White House claims to have obtained ‘proof,’ which could reinforce ideas that a no-fly zone to accompany the gradual arming of rebels is on the cards: a move labeled “flagrant double standards,” by Syria.
Russia remains skeptical that the US is in possession of such proof. “I will say frankly that what was presented to us by the Americans does not look convincing,” said foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov last Friday. “It would be hard even to call them facts.” “We are seeking a constructive solution to this issue which is vital for the situation in the region,” continued Ushakov.
“Providing arms to either side would not address this current situation,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon stressed on Friday.
Attempts to ensure the implementation of any no-fly zone could fail at an early hurdle: France believes that the scenario is unlikely because it would require approval of the UN Security Council, it said last Friday.
“It would be very problematic for them to declare a no-fly-zone over Syria and engage in air strikes over Damascus and Aleppo and other cities throughout the country, because they have the support of other countries that have said they will not allow the US or UN to carry out bombing operations over Syria,” Abayomi Azikwe, editor of the pan-African news wire told RT. That’s the good news.
Veto-holding members of the UN Security Council, Russia and China, are opposing foreign intervention into the Syrian crisis. That’s good but potentially hazardous news.
Russian president Vladimir Putin held an operational meeting with Russian Security Council members last Friday, Putin’s official spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed to RIA Novosti. Included among the discussion topics was “the situation around Syria in light of recent statements made in Washington,” he added.
The decision is not yet ‘imminent’ according to Rhodes. “It’s far more complex to undertake the type of effort, for instance, in Syria than it was in Libya,” he said.
It’s amazing to me to see the peace-keeping role that Russia and Putin have taken in recent years in these events of regime change. Perhaps it echoes back to Afghanistan, Russia’s ten-year rigged war with the Afghans that bled the Russian economy into bankruptcy. That lessen of U.S. barbarity was not forgotten. Passing to a related front . . .
Let’s talk Turkey
When Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, met President Obama at the White House last Thursday, the most pressing topic was the war in Syria. Turkey has not faced a threat on this scale since Stalin brass-knuckled territory from the Turks in 1945.
In 2011, the Turkish government severed all diplomatic ties with the government of Bashar al-Assad and began to support the Syrian opposition groups seeking to oust him. Bad choice! And, thus far, the policy has failed, exposing Turkey to growing risks, most recently two deadly bomb attacks in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli, most likely planted by pro-Assad forces in retaliation for Turkish support of the Syrian rebels.
The water-cannons cruising like a flock of iron elephants through the streets and near the Taksen Gazi Park that was destined to become a shopping center look kind of pathetic spraying protesters about like toys. Yet there is injury also by the jet-sprays, nightsticks, beatings, and death, by fire, as one of the elephants went up in flames and smoke as a grenade hit it.
Also, the people’s desire to have a larger park for rallies and to express their feelings went up in smoke, stamping on the sparks of democracy and free speech. It seems that PM Erdogan has transformed overnight to a dictator.
That caused Turkey’s blessing over the past decade of being a stable country in an otherwise unstable region to sag. In November 2012, the global ratings agency Fitch rated Turkish bonds investment-grade for the first time since 1994. The country’s improved international reputation has cured a chronic economic problem: lack of capital. A steady infusion of foreign investment for more than a decade ushered in incredible growth, at some points exceeding 8 percent annually, launching Turkey into the Group of 20 industrialized nations.
Turkey today is a majority middle-class society for the first time in its history. This aided Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party win in three successive elections since 2002.
But getting stuck in the war in Syria threatens these gains and Erdogan‘s political future. Turkey won’t be able to dodge the fallout from a Somalia-like failed state next door—or a rump Assad regime looking for revenge against Turkey for supporting the rebels. Turkey grows because it attracts international investment. Turkey does so because it is stamped stable. A spillover of the mess in Syria darkens Turkey’s economic rainbow.
Turkey has a community of over 500,000 Arab Alawites, whose ethnic kin in Syria have, with few exceptions, supported the Assad regime against the Sunni-led rebels. This sectarian conflict alone threatens to seep across the border into Turkey, pitting Syrian rebel fighters and Sunni Turks against pro-Assad Alawites, especially in the country’s southernmost province, Hatay, where the Alawite community is concentrated.
There is also a risk or rumor of chemical weapons’ being deployed and spreading toxic agents over Turkish territory; and the proximity of al Qaeda fighters in Syria poses a serious threat to Turkey’s vaunted stability.
Moreover, the Syrian war also awakened Turkey’s once dormant Marxist militant groups that strongly oppose any government policies they see as serving American imperialist interests, and have already launched a number of attacks, including one at the United States Embassy in Ankara on Feb. 2. Turkish media reports that these Marxist groups, in cooperation with elements of Mr. Assad’s regime, may have been behind the May 11 attack that killed 51 people in Reyhanli.
This is bad news for Mr. Erdogan’s heavy-handed bid to remake the Turkish political system into a shopping center, with a strong French-style presidency. Mr. Erdogan has aligned the domestic political stars to be elected president in 2014. He even made peace with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K., a move that would have been a major no-no just a few years ago.
By entering a peace process with the P.K.K.’s reviled leader, the imprisoned Abdullah Ocalan, Mr. Erdogan has insured the country’s domestic stability in the run-up to 2014, and secured himself at least some Kurdish support. Yet an economic downturn brought on by the war in Syria could put Erdogan’s neck on the chopping block.
Erdogan is aware that unless he secures bigger, better American assistance against the Assad regime, Turkey could become the loser in Syria; and Erdogan the bigger loser at the ballot box if he can’t put together an absolute majority in 2014. This is also bad news for the United States, which sees Turkey as one of the few stable, strong pillars of Western values in the region.
So why did Erdogan start this repression in the first place. Does he have a death wish for Turkey? Was it an act of Erdogan’s personal hubris? He does like to preach in lengthy speeches, reports RT, and not listen well to his people who are angry for being denied their space, their political will, and given the heavy slap of a self-made dictator.
Turkey’s government believes that unless the balance of power in Syria is tilted in favor of the rebels now, the Syrian conflict will turn into an unending sectarian civil war that pulls Hatay Province, and with it the rest of Turkey, into turmoil.
Only Washington can change the equation. Following the May 16 summit meeting between Mr. Obama and Mr. Erdogan, two options seem to be on the table.
The infusion of American power (do we need that), by arming the rebels or enforcing a no-fly zone (think Libya), would change the military and regional dynamic and help unite the frequent gobble-gobbling “Friends of Syria” behind American leadership. Only direct American military engagement will rally the disparate parties that want to act against Mr. Assad into unified action. Sad but probably true.
The wars in Kuwait and Bosnia are cases in point in proving the value of American leadership, though they both came with a lion’s share of destruction for both countries. It would tilt the balance of power in favor of the rebels and provide diplomatic cover for Turkey, while it faces the wrath of Iran and Russia.
By presenting Moscow with a counter-incentive, threatening to act alone if Moscow does not use its influence to bring an end to the conflict, the United States could demonstrate that it is serious about engagement. Not another war, please.
This would also lighten the pressure on Turkey, which is hesitant to take further steps in Syria without at least tacit Russian consent. Historically, Russia is Turkey’s nemesis, the only country in the region with an economy and military larger than Turkey’s. The Turks fear the Russians and will not confront them alone. Who can blame them?
If convincing the Russians proves impossible, should Washington consider raising a buffer zone in northern Syria along the Turkish border to protect rebel-captured areas? A buffer zone, protected by American airpower and an international coalition, would endow the rebels with a staging ground from which to launch operations against Mr. Assad.
It would also help Turkey push the conflict back into Syria by transferring rebels and their headquarters into the buffer zones on Syrian territory—rather than offering sanctuary to militants on Turkish soil. It would also push the U.S. deeper into the struggle, even though there would most likely be regional support for such a policy, including from Jordan, which would also benefit from a buffer zone inside southern Syria
More decisive American engagement (which I’m not for) would also end doubts about the United States’ commitment to Syria and save Turkey from being pulled further into a conflict that threatens to squander its progress toward resolving the Kurdish conflict and undermine its impressive economic achievements.
My question remains whey did Erdogan initiate this conflict with his people in the first place? What was he thinking? Did he think he’d get there without ruffling feathers and Turkey’s blood spilled over Turkish and Syrian earth? Not.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.