Sunday, September 30, 2018

Peter Ford - Idlib: Lull before the hurricane

Are the public being primed for a mass bombing of Syria? No need for chemical weapons, the public has been taught that the Assad government is evil. The US regime is going to cause more mayhem and destruction. 

New US policies for Syria

Without fanfare the US has just reformulated its position to create the conditions for it to launch devastating strikes on Syria no longer just on the pretext of alleged use of chemical weapons but on any ‘humanitarian’ pretext the US sees fit. In an interview with the Washington Post on 6 September, James Jeffrey, the hawkish new Special Envoy for Syria fresh from the neocon incubator of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, did not mince words:
“We’ve started using new language,” Jeffrey said, referring to previous warnings against the use of chemical weapons. Now, he said, the United States will not tolerate “an attack. Period.”
“Any offensive is to us objectionable as a reckless escalation” he said. “You add to that, if you use chemical weapons, or create refu¬gee flows or attack innocent civilians.”
Jeffrey’s remarks were little noticed because he was that day announcing something else more immediately striking: a ‘new’ policy on Syria involving cancellation of Trump’s announced departure of US troops before the end of 2018 and instatement of a plan to stay on indefinitely until achievement of the twin goals of removing all trace of the Iranian presence in Syria and installation of a Syrian government which would meet US conditions – conditions which President Asad would by Jeffrey’s own admission not be likely to meet.
The headlines naturally focussed on this latest Washington folly – do they think Iran will up sticks as long as there is a single US soldier on Syrian soil, or that there is Syrian Mandela waiting in the wings? – and the importance of the remarks about Idlib was missed. Yet those words may be about to bring the world to the brink of global war.
Tim Hayward Blog

3 comments:

Matt Franko said...

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/law-of-armed-conflict-loac-3332966

“Proportionality. Proportionality prohibits the use of any kind or degree of force that exceeds that needed to accomplish the military objective. Proportionality compares the military advantage gained to the harm inflicted while gaining this advantage. Proportionality requires a balancing test between the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated by attacking a legitimate military target and the expected incidental civilian injury or damage. Under this balancing test, excessive incidental losses are prohibited.”

Konrad said...

Everything will depend on whether Russia grows a spine, and does not allow NATO to carpet-bomb Syria the way NATO carpet-bombed Libya.

Will Russia grow a spine? I doubt it. Putin has turned out to be a wimp.

In the meantime, Washington DC is full of little worms like James Jeffrey who boast and strut and threaten, desperately wanting the public to regard them as “important.”

Matt Franko said...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/09/21/john-bolton-is-dead-wrong-the-u-s-has-every-reason-to-cooperate-with-the-international-criminal-court/?utm_term=.8fc947441459