Did The Putin/Assad Meeting Cement The End Of America"s Mid-East Dominance?

Authored by Tom Luongo,

I’m not a terribly religious man.  But, I’d like to believe there is a special corner in Hell reserved for those that fomented the Syrian Civil War.

From its beginnings in Libya with gun-funneling through the U.S. embassy in Benghazi to yesterday’s meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, this entire affair will be remembered as one of the most cynical and abusive periods of history.

The Syrian ‘Civil War’ was meant to be the crowning achievement of U.S./Israeli/Saudi policy in the Middle East, the apotheosis of neoconservatism.

Had it succeeded it would have transformed the world into a living hell governed by the likes of Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Angela Merkel and the U.S./U.K. banking cartel.

Syria was to be the wedge that blew open not only the Middle East but Central Asia as well.  It would stop the resurgence of Russia as a world power, subjugate Europe to an endless nightmare of forced cultural assimilation and completed bankrupting the United States to bring it in line with the a failing European integration project.

Supranational treaties like the TPP, TTIP and the Paris Accord were designed to create a superstructure that would supplant national sovereignty without any input from the people who were most affected by it.

Putin’s Turning Point

With Vladimir Putin’s pivotal speech at the United Nations on September 28^th, 2015, opposition to this vision was expressed in the most forceful, and frankly, humanist terms one could imagine.  I’m going to remind you of the most important passage as it relates to Syria.

In these circumstances, it is hypocritical and irresponsible to make loud declarations about the threat of international terrorism while turning a blind eye to the channels of financing and supporting terrorists, including the process of trafficking and illicit trade in oil and arms. It would be equally irresponsible to try to manipulate extremist groups and place them at one’s service in order to achieve one’s own political goals in the hope of later dealing with them or, in other words, liquidating them.

 

To those who do so, I would like to say — dear sirs, no doubt you are dealing with rough and cruel people, but they’re in no way primitive or silly. They are just as clever as you are, and you never know who is manipulating whom. And the recent data on arms transferred to this most moderate opposition is the best proof of it.

 

We believe that any attempts to play games with terrorists, let alone to arm them, are not just short-sighted, but fire hazardous (ph). This may result in the global terrorist threat increasing dramatically and engulfing new regions, especially given that Islamic State camps train militants from many countries, including the European countries.

In truth, the whole speech is worth revisiting.  It is a stark reminder that Putin, normally very reserved in his words, laid all of his cards on the table and directly accused the United States of declaring war on the world.

And within 48 hours Sukhois were flying over Syria, bombing targets opposed to Syria’s government, allowing one military victory after another for the beleaguered Syrian Arab Army.  Shortly thereafter a coalition formed around Assad’s government including Iran’s Republican Guard, Hezbollah’s military wing and China’s tacit financial and moral support.

Putin told everyone, “Enough is enough” at the U.N. Then he backed up his words with actions.  War is always regrettable.  It is almost never justified.  But, when faced with an implacable enemy, there was little else to be done.

And I submit that the neoconservative forces driving the anti-Assad policy decisions are that implacable enemy.

The End of ‘Assad Must Go’

That action began the process of unraveling the carefully constructed narrative that was the Syrian Civil War.

But, enough history.

Yesterday Putin introduced Assad to the military commanders who are most responsible for the stabilization of his country.  Syria as a political unit has survived.

Saudi Arabia’s old guard are imprisoned, impoverished and losing influence around the world by the minute.  Israel’s neoconservative government, led by madman Benjamin Netanyahu, is fulminating impotently at the turn of events, and, of course, ISIS has all but been wiped out in both Syria and Iraq.

The U.S. continues to talk out of both sides of its mouth, allowing some ISIS members cover to escape to be used again another day, presumably against Iran and/or Lebanon, while taking credit for ISIS’s collapse and the capture of Raqqa.

This reflects the deep-seated issues within the vast U.S. diplomatic, military and intelligence communities and the difficulties President Trump is having bringing these disparate groups to heel while not appearing weak and ineffectual.

You need only look at the odd event over the weekend of military helicopters arriving at the CIA’s headquarters at Langley to know that, at a minimum, there is an internal war occurring within the U.S. government.

The best explanation I’ve heard (and this is by no means a corroborated fact) is that the U.S. military put on a show of force against Obama administration hold-overs in the CIA still operating its terrorist proxies in Syria.  And that these operations are in direct conflict with U.S. military goals there.

If that is the case then Putin is right to simply ignore the Americans and move policy talks forward at an accelerated rate, ignoring the talks in Geneva and giving Assad all the support he needs to continue on as Syria’s leader, if that is what the Syrian people want.

Given Assad’s open support of his military and the way the war against ISIS and other separatist groups was led by Syrian forces on the ground, there is little doubt that Assad will win that support in any upcoming elections.

Putin Won’t Gloat

The big question is, however, what price will be extracted from the U.S. for their part in all of this.  Putin will not put Trump in a bad position.  The loss of face for the U.S. has already occurred internationally.

The Obama administration’s complicity in this sorry chapter of Middle East history has been mostly laid bare for anyone with eyes open enough to see.

Putin will offer Trump a way to save face for the U.S. while laying all the blame on Obama, Clinton, McCain and the rest of them.  If you don’t think this ties into Robert Mueller’s ‘Russia-Gate’ investigation run amok, you aren’t paying attention.

Mueller is trying to desperately save everyone implicated here from treason charges.  But, I expect, everything about the U.S. political scene is about to change radically. 

Once Judge Roy Moore enters the Senate (the odds of that not happening are close to zero), Trump has an impeachment-proof majority in the House and the Senate and can shut down Mueller or get him to play ball.

Trump has the opportunity to play peace-maker here.  He can solidify his position as the handler of Saudi Arabia’s and Israel’s worst actors and keep them on a short leash.

In fact, one could make a credible argument that is what the purge in Saudi Arabia was all about.  Mohammed bin Salman’s counter-coup was done with Trump’s blessing.

Putin can act similarly to allay suspicions of Iran’s and Hezbollah’s intentions.  He can also restrain Assad from retaliating against his enemies, though rightly deserved, in order to build a lasting peace.  And once the talks are over and the threat of Kurdish independence is over, Turkey will withdraw its troops from Syria.

Putin called Trump earlier in the week to update him on what comes next.  It’s obvious that the two have been in contact about how things are progressing in Syria.  And, Trump, for his part has smartly left the clean-up work to Putin while he deals with his domestic neoconservative problems.

Whatever happens after this - framework for long-term peace or an uneasy ceasefire with Russia playing the go-between for the time being - the U.S. has lost all credibility in the region outside of Riyadh and Tel Aviv.

And we have no one to blame except ourselves.

On The West"s Demise To The Sidelines Of History...

Authored by Seth Lievense via Limpidus.org,

The world is changing, but the west is clinging on to a unipolar vision of the world that has passed. It’s attempts to discard this changing reality in exchange for a western worldview expressed in their politics and media are so ungrounded, it’s comical as it is dangerous. This western bubble of reality laid down before the wests general public seems to hold up for now, although fragile and less and less by the day. Really, Russia again? Outside this western bubble however, credibility is lost daily as the west places itself on the sidelines of history.

The fundamental building blocs in western hard power and soft power are not under attack as the mediapolitical landscape could make us feel they are, it is more that they are revealed for what they are without the sugarcoating. As the multipolar world creates the political and economic power to pursuit alternatives and show new perspectives and interpretations, they now have the power to reflect the actions of the west mirrored back upon themselves as apposed to ‘just the way things are’ in the world.

Suddenly we are presented with another version of reality that also begs for a different version of history for the past decades. Our economic system seems to benefit the few as those few have a well managed grip on politics. Local business and craftsmanship, the real economy, have given way to the privileged multinationals and the financial world, the world of tax breaks and tax havens.

Whilst the real economy is breaking down, the central banks were printing money like never before to keep the banks and the familiar names afloat -so long as the Apple’s and Facebook’s and other household names keep the indices up, all is good. At the root of this infinite printing of money lies of course the petrodollar. The 1973 deal with Saudi-Arabia where the US would support the house of Saud so long as OPEC would sell all oil in US dollars only and buy US bonds, creating an immense need for dollars in the world and preventing inflation as the Federal Reserves printing presses make way for the economic, political and military US might since. Since, the whole international trade system has been dollar based. If Bolivia wants to sell logs to Venezuela, it will still use dollars. And by US law, every dollar has to be cleared by the bank of New York, thus making this transaction subject to US law. And don’t you dare circumvent it. Blocking Iran from the dollar-trade for not selling oil in dollars, and thus blocking it from the swift-system, and thus from world trade, was therefore the nuclear bomb in economics. Their currency devalued 50%. The earlier threats to the petrodollar –Libia selling oil for gold, Iraq for euro’s- have been met with heavy resistance. Now, in Syria, it seems the world has changed. The predominantly Saudi-US creation of ISIS to destabilize the nations of Iraq and Syria into chaos has now failed. Could we again see Syria, Iraq and Iran work together to create the Friendship Pipeline (a.k.a. the Islamic Pipeline in the west), exporting oil from Iran to Europe? Or will it be more of the same political-economic-monetary-military export of the west, with freedom, democracy and human rights as it’s sugarcoating?

The guardians of a new geopolitics: Iran-Russia-China

The demise of military hegemony
The success-story of the liberation of Syria by ISIS is a result of the Astana peace talks between Russia, Syria, Turkey and Iran, not the Geneva talks where the US made promises it broke within days on the ground. It is the cooperation of Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq and Russia (as tides changed, Turkey) that in spite of US-Saudi aid to ISIS managed to liberate the countries of Syria and Iraq. The military power of Russia, with for example it’s S-400 anti-missile all over the middle east is a game-changer. It’s a defensive system that leaves air-intervention in a padlock. Turkey as well as Saudi Arabia buying these demonstrates once more the break down of this unipolar world. Where NATO’s version is unable to attack ‘friendly’ aircraft -friendly as defined by NATO-, the S-400 is neutral in this aspect and respects the autonomy of a country.

As for within Syria, where Iran and Russia are invited by Syria and are legal in respect of international law, the United States is seen as an invader by Syria. Also, but most importantly, Assad is popular in Syria itself and self-determination is being undermined. It must sound as alienating to a west man’s ears as Assad stressing education and health services in the rebuilding of Syria or the gas attack being from ‘moderate rebels’, not Assad’s government. At the moment 95% of Syria has been freed from ISIS (sometimes known as moderate rebels in the west), yet the United States is still making a last-minute effort to control the border of Iraq and Syria to prevent regional integration -or a pipeline. They will fail.

The demise of economic hegemony
For the past decades the west has been producing less and less, as cheap labour was found in the east. It seemed to make the average western person rich as purchasing power (pp) rose. These riches are however the fruits of the rise of technology, oil and the currency devaluation of e.g. China. This cheap produce from the east could be branded to sell for many times it’s cost as this gave way to multinationals and the service and retail industry in the west. Likewise, cheap money from the printing presses allowed for financial industry to blossom. And on the other side of the petrodollarcoin, the OPEC-countries maintained whatever powers that were via the high oil prices the world paid them and US protection.

As the west and OPEC-countries profited of cheap labour, China saw a boom in exports that developed their country. China then used these profits to buy US obligations to keep their currency low as it blew up the dollars value even more. You could say a whole generation of Chinese has had to sacrifice/work their way out of a dollar-dominated trade.

Over the past decade Chinese growth has allowed for the rise of wages, “China is no longer the cheap labor haven it once was. Monthly manufacturing wages reached 4,126 yuan at the end of 2015, equal to those in Brazil but much higher than Mexico, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and India.” –Bloomberg. Chinese per capita income rose from $200 in 1990 to $5000 in 2010. The Chinese middle class has grown significantly and according to the World Bank, more than 500 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty as China’s poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 2012. “Between 1990 and 2005, China’s progress accounted for more than three-quarters of global poverty reduction and a big factor in why the world reached the UN millennium development goal of halving extreme poverty.” –Wikipedia. Extreme poverty has now almost completely disappeared from China and by 2020 it aims to have eradicated poverty at all. These great stories don’t form part of the wests reality. It clings on to past views of the world to explain its place in this world. The east looks forward, the west still only sees $1/hour sweatshops and environmental pollution.

Besides the rise of purchasing power (PP) in the east soon meeting the demise of PP in the west and besides the oil price having plummeted with fewer petrodollars to recycle into the US economy, there is also the factor of technology that undermines the unipolar world, the western favoured world.

Multinationals of the west used to be able to buy up cheap products, market them and sell them off highly priced, supporting whole industries in advertising and the service and retail sector. The internet however has now made it possible to bypass these western cooperations and to buy directly from small and medium enterprises (SME’s) in China.

Alibaba processed 812 million orders within 24 hours and its payment service Alipay handled 1.5 billion transactions during the day, peaking at an incredible 256,000 transactions per second.

Chinese export subsidies make it very affordable to ship these products all over the world, where for example a European import tax on goods over €30 from China seeks to limit this. As Alibaba allows western SME’s to buy directly from Chinese SME’s, bypassing import and export companies and western branding, so does AliExpress make these products available for the consumer. As this will temporarily save western purchasing power, it will in the long run also favour the real economy over the one pushed upon us by the wests hegemonic structuring of political-economic power. Less and less money will flow through this hierarchical organizing of society. And, “By 2020, China will account for about 60% of global e-commerce.” – Forbes

China seeks to be at the forefront of the third industrial revolution by heavily investing in automation and renewable energy. “Somewhere around 80GW of solar manufacturing capacity exists in China, of 130GW global – using 50 of those 80 gigawatts is clear evidence that China is no longer focusing on exports.” –Electrec. China knows it will have to invest in automation and renewables, as the rise of wages is already putting pressure on economic growth. The Chinese are pricing themselves out of the market. This concept of economic interconnectivity of the real economy by connecting SME’s and customers is part of China’s ‘win-win‘-strategy of diplomacy abroad. This is where the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), fits in too. Both seek to facilitate and steer, rather than dominate. Like a parent would a child, a very Chinese view of government. The BRI is the largest infrastructural realization the world has seen to day and seeks to connect China via large infrastructure projects, or so called ‘new silk roads‘, with the rest of the Eurasian continent, guarenteeing export for the foreseeable future as the Chinese economy is changing away from a production-oriented economy.

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

BRI connects the economies by annihilating time and space and creates interdependence, ideally preventing regional instabilities or wars. The ‘win-win’ presents a clear business alternative against the hegemonic ways the west organizes the world to the advantage of those that have the advantage already.

One of these new silk roads will connect China via high speed rail and road to Europe via Russia, drastically reducing traveling time of goods and people. China and Russia have also found each other in bypassing the US dollar in bilateral trade. “In 2016, the share of national currencies in payments for exports of Russian goods and services was 13 percent, imports 16 percent. In the first quarter of 2017, these figures rose to 16 percent and 18 percent, respectively,” said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Prikhodko. Jack Ma’s Alibabi/Aliexpress has also been invited to stimulate, diversify and localize Russia’s economy by creating a Russian arm of the company. Russia already diversified the economy over the past years dropping oil and gas state revenues from over 50% in 2014 to 39% now and less than 1/3^rd expected in 2020. When sanctions from the west came for (people in) the oil, banking and military industry, Russia chose to reply with sanctions that affected the real economy, promoting the growth and diversifacation of local industry, creating an immense growth and maturation of their agricultural sector. The russian economy is remarkably self-relient in agriculture. “Russia is one of the world’s leaders in exports of grain, vegetable oils, fish, and a number of other foods. We expect to become the leading supplier of ecologically clean food to our neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region.”, published by Russia ahead of the APEC meeting of last november.

It would be interesting for people in the west to listen to a Valdai speech of Vladimir Putin, the speech of Xi Jinping at the 18^th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China or to the balanced words of Hasán Rouhaní when confronted with polarizing western rhetoric. For most in the west however, the mind has constructed views of these countries that are hard to break, based on allegations circulating within the western bubble of reality that seek to polarize and justify the unipolar hegemony. Russia’s RT has successfully been able to show different understandings of the world and has become the object of discussion itself. It’s usually a disturbing allegation brought forward by a politician, backed up by institutions and amplified by media. It either consequently lacks any proof of the allegation and usually ends in self-reference to the wests mediapolitical show and might even be corrected when the attention of the media has shifted to a new hype or is either so blown out of proportion that it fails to make the argument. This includes the election-hacking I’ve written (Dutch) about before, as well as the whole Crimea-unification, as I’ve written about before as well. There is a world of views to discover for which I hope we may find ourselves mature enough to decide over ourselves. Geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar put it wonderfully when visiting Iran, “So once again, in Tehran, provoked by the meeting of minds around the conference – the absolute opposite of “clash of civilizations” – it was possible to discuss how Iran (resistance against injustice), China (remixed Confucianism) and Russia (Eurasianism) are offering post-Enlightenment alternatives that transcend Western liberal democracy – a concept that has been completely co-opted and shattered by the hegemony of neoliberalism.”

The longer the mediapolitical west keeps up the false narratives around Russia, Iran and China for maintaining their unipolar worldview, the more it will distance itself from the socioeconomic integration in the world around them. It will happen slowly -China favours stability-, as our growth slows down and tourists will visit our historic scenery. The new Silk Road doesn’t have to stop in Istanbul or Moscow, it can connect through to the harbour of Rotterdam and go via Berlin. The concept of the enemy is the produce of a society that lacks the leap of trust to participate in a lateral way in the challenges of tomorrow.

The west will have to start to understand that the ideas of the enlightenment, the concepts of freedom, democracy and human rights are shattered not by the development of the rest of the world -the exception of ISIS noted-, but by the stratification of a society undermined by monetary and neoliberal concepts that have hollowed out their ideals. As for spreading those ideals of human rights, freedom and democracy abroad, we might do well listening once again to the east. The Chinese do not argue these principles, yet are in no way convinced of the path dictated by the west, nor the moral high ground to preach from. They see these principles arising out of economic development. Out of a rising middle-class and basic needs for citizens -thus free of poverty and free from harsh economic inequality- will arise democracy. These values have to be developed and can not be enforced without economic democracy and basic needs. How can you expect someones human rights to come first, does not your survival do? In the export of Chinese ‘win-win’ diplomacy, it does not seek to impose a way of living, a certain developmental path. It provides stability, a way for both economies to become interdependent, of which cultural exchange and respect may follow.

The west is in debt, immensely. And this time it’s not only consumer debt that resulted in the mortgage crises of 2008, it’s also corporate debt, states, bond markets, you name it.  Whatever credit market the crises will start in, it will spill over resulting in a crash far greater than 2008. The real wealth has moved east. Sure, China has debt, but it also has growth and actual production and it’s debt is small in comparison. Russia and Iran hardly have any debt. Gold is moving from west to east and is in high demand. We can’t see it reflected in the price yet, for the wests money printing presses and their leveraged ‘paper gold’ still manage to hold down the prices, but the direction is clear.

If not for production, resources or gold, what still backs a euro or a dollar? With bitcoin gaining credibility with each passing day, be it for storage or as currency, the euro/dollar demise doesn’t even stop there. Blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin, allows for the whole replacement of most of the financial world that forms one of the last strongholds of western power. Ethereum’s ether does not only allow for new coins (the famous initial coin offerings where lots of money is bound to be lost) on top of their base system, but this also allows for smart contracts. These have the potential to replace any mortgage, loan or other smart contract you could think to need a financial institution for. In time, settings in a program or on a site will make these interpersonally, with the community to verify for the conditions made. Russia, the first state to announce so, has it’s CryptoRuble ready, undoubtedly balancing the perseverance of the state (taxes) with the newfound freedoms and stability of digital money.

China’s Panda Power Plant

With the west to be behind in automation and renewables, without production and resources and no multinationals and financial world to profit of others, what are we but left in dependency? It’s time to find ground in roots of the renaissance and the enlightenment, find strength in local economies connecting laterally to local economies, find autonomy in renewables and find security in cryptocurrencies and gold as we connect ourselves to a future we can pull forward ourselves, away of dependance of institutions and corporations we can not rely on and in spite of their hinderance. As we pull out of globalization as put forward by the west, we will see the world connect globally from a local angle. And, as automation and technology can decentralize, they can provide locally. Think crypto instead of central bank or mortgage, solar instead of OPEC, 3d-printing directly from local resources instead of shipping from afar, the arts and craftsmanship (a design at the local 3D-shop?) instead of the wage-slave, vertical farming instead of poverty and local abundance instead of global scarcity. It’s a way of thinking that puts autonomy and free time back up front. Wasn’t that what freedom once meant? And from that place, we will see each other in shared pursuits of dreams.

Surely, all societies have flaws and have challenges to work on, as I understand this is the case in China, Russia and Iran, however, a western attitude of false moral superiority prevents understanding. How can we adapt to a future we understand less and less? The more the west will put in the full weight of it’s apparatus based on the old industrial revolutions and monetary and mediapolitical hot air, the harder the fall will be. The more the west clings on to this western bubble of reality brought to them by giving ear to their mediapolitical, the more certain it’s demise will be. The multipolar world now holds up a mirror, it’s about time the west dare look into it. It’s time for the west to grow up and join a new world in the making.

US-Russian Ceasefire Deal Goes Into Effect In Southwest Syria

A U.S.-Russian brokered ceasefire in southwest Syria was holding several hours after it took effect according to Reuters, the latest international attempt to restore peace in the six-year Syrian war. The truce, which took effect across southwest Syria on Sunday at noon Damascus time (09:00 GMT), extends to Syrian government forces and rebel groups in the provinces of Deraa, Quneitra, and Sweida where western-backed rebels control swathes of territory and form a center of the insurgency south of the capital Damascus.

Last week, shortly after the first meeting between Trump and Putin, the United States, Russia and Jordan announced they had reached a ceasefire and "de-escalation agreement" with the aim of paving the way for a robust truce to deliver aid to war-torn areas and end hostilities; it will be enforced by the three countries’ militaries.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters that "calm was prevailing" with no air strikes or clashes in the southwest since the truce began at noon on Sunday.

"The situation is relatively calm," said Suhaib al-Ruhail, a spokesman for the Alwiyat al-Furqan rebel group in the Quneitra area. Another rebel official, in Deraa city, said there had been no significant fighting. It was quiet on the main Manshiya front near the border with Jordan, which he said had been the site of some of the heaviest army bombing in recent weeks. A witness in Deraa said he had not seen warplanes in the sky or heard any fighting since noon.

Separately, a Syrian official indicated that Damascus approved of the ceasefire deal, describing the government"s silence over it as a "sign of satisfaction".

"We welcome any step that would cease the fire and pave the way for peaceful solutions," the government official told Reuters.

Free Syrian Army fighter near an anti-air craft machine gun in Quneitra, Syria July 8, 2017.

So far so good, however this won"t be the first time that a Syrian ceasefire agreement was implemented, only to crumble shortly after, especially with the tide of Syria"s proxy war turning in Assad"s favor over the past year: with the help of Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias, Assad"s government has put rebels on the back foot over the last year. Furthermore, the wide array of mostly Sunni rebels which include jihadist factions and other groups supported by Turkey, the United States and Gulf monarchies, have suffered a potentially terminal drop in support following the Qatar diplomatic scandal, which has made it virtually impossible for either Saudi Arabia or Qatar to continue providing logistical and financial support to the Syrian rebel groups.

* * *

President Vladimir Putin, who discussed the issue with Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg, called the ceasefire agreement “a breakthrough, to a certain extent,” noting that the deal was made possible by Washington’s “more pragmatic stance” on working with Russia. While little is known about how the truce will play out on the ground, it is understood that Russian, American, and Jordanian forces will be deployed to the area to stabilize the situation.

“In the first stage, Russian military police, as well as the Americans and the Jordanians, will ensure security around this de-escalation zone covered by the ceasefire,” Lavrov explained.

Trump addressed the ceasefire on Sunday, tweeting "We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!"

...We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2017

The deal marks the first peace-making effort in the Syrian war by the U.S. government under Trump, appearing to give him a diplomatic achievement at his first meeting with Putin. 

According to Reuters, Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that the ceasefire agreement clearly states that “Russia, Jordan, and the United States are committed to Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as UN Security Council resolutions that pave the way to political reconciliation” and added that deal includes "securing humanitarian access and setting up contacts between the opposition in the region and a monitoring center that is being established in Jordan"s capital."

Free Syrian Army fighters rest inside a room in Quneitra, Syria July 8, 2017.

The United Nations, in turn, has stated that it appreciates the international effort being made to bring lasting peace to this part of Syria. “This is a step in the right direction,” UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy told reporters in Damascus, as cited by Reuters. “All of this leads to supporting the political process,” he added.

Under the memorandum, all hostilities between government forces and the armed opposition should cease within the safe zones. Extremist groups, including Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra  will be separated from the ‘moderate’ opposition in security zones set up in the cities of Idlib, Latakia, and Homs, as well as parts of Aleppo.  Checkpoints and observation posts will be installed along the de-escalation lines within the safe zones, which should provide free movement for unarmed civilians and humanitarian access to areas under the control of the guarantor states.

Saudi Arabia’s March Towards Civil War

Via Disobedient Media

Has Saudi Arabia"s brinkmanship and heavy-handed policies of intervention in the Middle East come back to haunt the desert kingdom?

After decades of playing the role of middle man between foreign states and establishing itself as a regional power, Saudi Arabia"s policies of meddling in the affairs of neighbor states and support for terror appear to have finally exacerbated issues in the country which could threaten to plunge it into chaos. Growing anger over attempted austerity cutbacks, economic issues due to the fluctuating price of oil and tell tale signs of royal disagreement over the successor to King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud mean that Saudi adventures abroad are preparing a perfect storm for civil conflict which could lead to further instability in the Middle East. The disruption comes as other states such as Iran and Turkey are positioning themselves as potential competitors to the de facto leader of the Arab world.

I. Saudi Arabia Is Experiencing Increasing Signs Of Instability

Saudi Arabia has experienced a number of issues which contribute to internal destabilization. In April 2017, Bloomberg reported that King Salman was forced to restore bonuses and allowances for state employees, reversing attempts to reform Saudi Arabia"s generous austerity programs. The Saudi government insisted that the move was due to "higher than expected revenue" despite the fact that observers were noting in March that Saudi Arabia"s foreign reserves were plunging as one third of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait have seen their credit ratings slashed and have increasingly disagreed on common foreign policy towards Iran.

The kingdom"s increasing financial problems are due in part to the falling price of oil. In January 2016, The Independent noted that the dropping value of oil would put Saudi Arabia"s man spending programs in jeopardy and that a third of 15 to 24-year-olds in the country are out of work. The Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering estimates that Saudi Arabia will experience a peak in its oil production by 2028, but this may be an incredible underestimation. The Middle East Eye has noted that experts in the United States who state that Saudi Arabia"s net oil exports began to decrease in 2006, continuing to drop annually by 1.4% each year from 2005 to 2015. Citigroup has estimated that the Kingdom may run out of oil to export entirely by 2030. The end of the Kingdom"s cash cow is likely to cause problems in a nation that The Atlantic has accused of running itself like a "sophisticated criminal enterprise."

II. Increasing Signs Of Internal Conflict In Saudi Arabia

There are a number of indications that Saudi Arabia"s royal family is also experiencing a significant amount of internal strife. King Salman has caused significant upheaval in the kingdom by taking the controversial step of totally overhauling Saudi Arabia"s line of succession and appointing his son, Mohammed bin Salman, as crown prince. The move is a dangerous one given that it has caused division in the royal family. Foreign Policy has noted that Saudi Arabia"s security forces are not under a single command authority, meaning that the military runs the risk of becoming fractured in the event of an internal conflict.

In 2015, The Independent spoke with a Saudi prince who revealed that eight of Salman"s 11 brothers were dissatisfied with his leadership and were contemplating removing him from office, replacing him with former Interior Minister Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz. NBC News revealed that the promotion of Salman"s son to the position of crown prince has also angered Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, who was previously in line for the throne and is known for his hardline stance towards Iran. On June 28th, 2017, the New York Times reported that Nayef had been barred from leaving Saudi Arabia and was confined to his palace in Jidda with his guards replaced by others loyal to Mohammed bin Salman.

Nayef rules over Saudi Arabia"s Eastern Region, which is described as one of the provinces most likely to rebel in the event of civil conflict due to the region"s large population of Shi"a Muslims. He is generally believed to be one of the leading advocates for the 2016 execution of Shi"a cleric Nimr al-Nimr, a move which caused serious anger amongst Iranians. Nayef"s family also has historic ties to insurgent groups used by Saudi Arabia as a foreign policy tool. His father, Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, served as Interior Minister and controlled Saudi Arabia"s internal intelligence services, police, special forces, drug enforcement agency and mujahideen forces.

King Salman has used the war in Yemen to counteract elite dissatisfaction by causing what the Washington Post describes as a surge in nationalist sentiment among citizens. The move also served as an attempt to take proactive steps against Iranian support for Yemeni Houthi rebels and prevent destabilization from the Arab Spring. But while intervention may have provided Saudi Arabia with short term benefits, it has also contributed to further fracturing of the Middle East and allowed neighbor states to take steps to replace Saudi Arabia as the region"s dominant power.

III. Geopolitical Changes Increase The Likelihood Of Conflict

It is not merely Yemen that causes the Saudis concern. Years of meddling now mean that the kingdom is increasingly conducting its foreign affairs with the goal of avoiding internal destabilization and balancing a regional house of cards. Wikileaks releases of diplomatic cables from Saudi Arabia"s Ministry of Foreign Affairs show that officials are committed to continuing to destroy the Syrian regime out of fear that Assad"s government might engage in reprisals for the destructive civil war there. Saudi Arabia has helped fuel the war through their support of Islamic terror groups. State Department cables released by Wikileaks show that Saudi Arabia is considered to be the most significant funder of Sunni terror groups internationally. But like foreign intervention, terrorism as a foreign policy tool serves as a means of directing destructive energy at best.

There have long been fears that the method could grow out of hand and create problems for the benefactors of terror. Saudi security forces have routinely had issues with infiltration by terror groups. In 2001, Stratfor noted the royal family"s growing concern over the increase in terror sympathizers amongst the military due to fears that some of the insurgent groups were not friendly towards the kingdom. Terror groups such as ISIS have in the past several years engaged in a number of attacks against Saudi targets, including suicide attacks which targeted the holy Islamic city of Medina and the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

Traditionally, power in the Middle East has been split between the Israeli and Saudi governments. This regional order may be starting to shift however, due to a combination of changing U.S. strategy and attempts by other Middle Eastern states to become more important players in the region. In March 2016, Julian Assange noted to the New Internationalist that U.S. strategists such as John Brennan increasingly viewed the Israeli-Saudi nexus as getting in the way of broader American strategic interests, especially in regards to Iran.

This political shift is now playing out with the current crisis in Qatar. Qatar has historically positioned itself as a diplomatic center in the Middle East, staying friendly with Iran and providing multiple insurgent groups such as the Taliban with a venue for negotiation. Emails from John Podesta reveal that Qatar has supported terror groups such as ISIS alongside Saudi Arabia, but does so with the intent of vying for influence with terror groups. Factions in Qatar have also leant support to Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra, Hamas and the Taliban. Additionally, Qatar"s Al-Jazeera outlet has also provoked Saudi Arabia by providing hard hitting coverage of previously unacknowledged issues in the Middle East (though critical coverage of Qatari politics has been off limits). NPR has also noted that Qatar openly competed with Saudi Arabia during the Arab Spring, when the two sides supported opposing factions in nations such as Egypt. The conflict with Qatar creates a very real risk that hostilities could spill into Saudi Arabia, given both sides" support of terror groups.

The recent flare up has also revealed the emergence of a new order in the Middle East: states which stand behind the old, Saudi-Israeli nexus and those who wish to redraw the balance of power. Saudi Arabia is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Yemen and the Maldives. Qatar has been supported by Saudi Arabia"s regional opponent Iran and Turkey. Turkey has been steadily increasing it"s role in the Middle East in recent years, and is seen by the United States as a suitable player to balance Saudi influence in nations like Pakistan. Turkey and Iran now are now actively posturing to challenge Saudi Arabia, as Turkey deploys troops to Qatar and Iran supports the small gulf state with food aid. Should the two states survive the destabilization of coups and terrorism, they are well positioned to benefit from any future reduction in Saudi influence.

IV. Dangers Of A Saudi Civil Conflict

A civil war or internal conflict in Saudi Arabia would quickly become international in nature. Defense contractors are being increasingly courted by Saudi cash as part of an effort to overhaul the military, part of which includes the recent $100 billion arms deal with the United States. Saudi Arabia has also increasingly used private military corporations such as Blackwater, which currently provides personnel to the Saudi-lead coalition in Yemen.

The specter of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East also raises concerns that weapons could fall into the wrong hands or be used indiscriminately. Julian Assange has repeated 2010 claims from the head of Al-Jazeera that Qatar is in possession of a nuclear weapon. Saudi Arabia itself also is suspected of possessing nuclear arms. In 2013, BBC News reported that Saudi Arabia had nuclear weapons "on order" from Pakistan, whose nuclear program was bankrolled by the Saudis. In 2012, the Saudis also entered into an Atomic Collaboration Deal with China which projects that Riyadh will construct 16 nuclear reactors in the country by no later than 2030. Arab acquisitions of weapons of mass destruction have created concern among Israeli intelligence officials, who fear that the countries acquiring these weapons systems will not use them effectively.

Should the conflict with Qatar (or any of the multiple regions where Saudi Arabia has intervened) spiral out of control, the potential proliferation of nuclear arms systems pose a serious danger. International conflicts, regional interventions and terror operations all create the risk that these weapons, whether intentionally or inadvertently, might be used. A Saudi civil war also creates risk for the international community, as there would be widespread unrest should the holy cities of Mecca and Medina be damaged during a conflict.

Falling currency reserves, a dwindling supply of oil, conflict within the royal family and the ever present threat that terror networks will cause backlash for their benefactors all indicate that Saudi Arabia is on a crash course for a crisis. With the Qatari conflict continuing to heat up, the real questions should not be about the potential end of terrorism or the ethics of further weapons sales to Arab nations, but what the world hopes that the Middle East will look like once the dust clears.

As Trump Heads To MidEast, Is His Plan Finally Becoming Clear?

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The first stage of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to restore America’s former dominance as a manufacturing country will be announced this coming weekend in Riyadh Saudi Arabia and Washington DC, but its outlines are now already more than clear.

The biggest-ever foreign sale of U.S.-made weaponry will be announced at that time, and, according to a little-noticed report by Reuters on May 12^th, an unidentified U.S. government official informed Reuters that «We are in the final stages of a series of deals», whose size will be of truly extraordinary historic proportions.

Trump will announce during this, his first trip abroad as the U.S. President, starting on Friday May 19^th, deals for the fundamentalist-Sunni government of Saudi Arabia to purchase more than $100 billion, and perhaps more even than $300 billion, in U.S.-made weaponry. The announced intention of Saudi princes is to defeat what they declare to be the ‘existential threat" they face from Iran and from Shia Islam, and so these weapons will presumably be used for ‘defense’ against the fundamentalist-Shiite government of Iran, and against any nation whose leader is Shiite (even if not fundamentalist, and including non-sectarian and even secular Shiite, such as Syria’s leader Bashar al-Assad, and such as the Houthis in Yemen). The U.S. (especially the major investors in corporations such as Lockheed Martin) will therefore be in a position to profit from intensification of the wars in Syria and in Yemen, as well as from other national battlefields between Sunni and Shia. That’s the plan, and, on this basis, as soon as Trump won the 2016 election, he appointed to all of his national-security posts people who have solid records as being rabidly hostile, above all, towards Iran, and secondarily, toward Iran’s allies, such as Russia and Syria. (Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, was hostile, above all, toward Russia; her aim was to conquer it, which would entail unlimited spending on nuclear weapons. Trump’s plan is focused instead on unlimited spending on conventional weapons, and the deal that he has reached with the Sauds is designed specifically to supply them with that — not with nuclear.) 

The key international ally of the American government has long been the fundamentalist-Sunni Saudi royal family, the world’s wealthiest family, who own Saudi Arabia, including the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, which is 100% owned by the Saudi government, which is 100% owned by the Saud family, actually by whomever the royal family’s princes select to be the King. No one can be selected by the Saud family to become the King who is disapproved of by the nation’s fundamentalist-Sunni Wahhabist clergy, who have been committed ever since 1744 to eliminating Shia Islam. Israel also is allied with the Saud family. Consequently, on the Sunni side are the U.S. and Israel; and, on the Shiite side are Russia and Syria. Other countries are secondary. For example, Sunni Turkey is part of America’s NATO military alliance against Russia, but is obsessed against America’s Kurdish allies and therefore more on Iran’s and Russia’s side in that regard.

The Reuters news-report also quoted this unnamed U.S. government official as saying that «Israel would still maintain an edge» so as to remain the most powerful military nation in the Middle East. This suggests that part of these “deals» will be that the Sauds will continue to say no-thank-you to the repeated offers by Pakistan to sell some of their nuclear weapons to the Saudi government. And it also means that the Sauds will continue to rely upon the U.S. nuclear force as protection or ‘umbrella’ against any possible nuclear attack, from Israel or any other nation. (The full terms of the ‘deals’ won’t be made public but will also include purely spoken agreements, more in the nature of the 1945 original deal that was reached in private between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and King Saud.)

The Sauds are buying the U.S., as their ally in their centuries-old war against Shia Islam; and, the U.S. is selling the Sauds the weaponry, and the military trainers (so as to be able to use America’s weapons), against Iran and other Shiia-controlled or -allied countries.

The Trump Administration has already been applying pressure against Russia in an attempt to get them to abandon their support of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and of Iran; but this pressure has not yet borne any fruit, and is not currently a front-burner issue in Trump’s plan; it’s on the back burner right now.

The Trump Administration has still not decided whether to continue the Obama Administration’s refusal to label as a “terrorist organization” the Syrian jihadists who are led by Al Qaeda, which is funded by the royal Saud family and has been the most effective fighting force in Syria to overthrow Assad’s government.

As regards domestic U.S. issues, they’re viewed, by the top levels in both the Republican and Democratic Parties, more as vote-getting baits, than as issues of actual primary concern. Whereas the public focuses mainly upon those issues, the political-donor class (owners of international corporations) are concerned mainly about foreign affairs; and, in domestic affairs, on lowering the taxes that they pay and the economic regulations that increase their costs of doing business — and even those domestic issues have a large foreign-affairs component. So: international alliances are the central concern of America’s wealthy. Since the general public knows and cares little about those matters and doesn’t understand them but instead misunderstands them, there is virtually no political cost to any politician who, as a public official, gives away the store to the donor-class, on what they care about the most. What the public see in the ’news’media is propaganda that’s paid for by advertisers and/or by the aristocratically controlled government itself, and therefore carefully veils key realities that would enable the public to understand what’s going on and why. Of course, individuals such as Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning, are viscerally hated by the donor-class and get thrown into prison even while people such as George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, walk free and are even honored by large portions of the electorate (not to mention by their own financial sponsors) (and even win such things as the Nobel Peace Prize).

Exit, Hope & Change - The Obama Post-Mortem

Submitted by Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

By now, anyone in this country still of sound mind knows that Barack Obama presided through eight years of remarkable continuity - of changeless conditions that left a great many hopeless. As the days of his tenure dwindle, what do we make of the departing 44^th president?

He played the role with cool-headed decorum, but that raises the question: was he just playing a role? From the get-go, he made himself hostage to some of the most sinister puppeteers of the Deep State: Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Tim Geithner on the money side, and the Beltway Neocon war party infestation on the foreign affairs side. I’m convinced that the top dogs of both these gangs worked Obama over woodshed-style sometime after the 2008 election and told him to stick with the program, or else.

What was the program?

On the money side, it was to float the banks and the whole groaning daisy chain of their dependents in shadow finance, real estate, and insurance, at all costs. Hence, the extension of Bush Two’s bailout policy with the trillion-dollar “shovel-ready” stimulus, the rescue of the car-makers, and a much greater and surreptitious multi-trillion dollar hand-off from the Federal Reserve to backstop the European banks with counter-party obligations to US banks.

In April of 2009, Obama’s new SEC appointees, strong-armed by bank lobbyists, pushed the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) into suspending their crucial Rule 157, which had required publically-held companies to report their asset holdings based on standard market-based valuation procedures — called “mark-to-market.” After that, companies like Too-Big-Too-Fail banks could just make shit up. This opened the door to the pervasive accounting fraud that allowed the financial sector to pretend it was healthy for the eight years that followed. The net effect of their criminal fakery was to only make the financial sector artificially larger, more dangerously fragile, and more prone to cataclysmic collapse.

Another feature of life on the money-side of the Obama presidency was that nobody paid a personal price for financial misconduct. This established the basic ethos of Obama-era finance: anything goes, and nothing matters. All the regulators looked the other way most of the time. And when forced to act by egregious behavior, they made deals that let banking executives off-the-hook while their companies shelled out fines that amounted to the mere cost of doing business. It happened again and again. The poster boy for this kind of “policy” — or just plain racketeering — was Jon Corzine, the head of the commodities brokerage MF Global, whose company looted “segregated” customer accounts to the tune of nearly a billion dollars in the fall of 2011. Corzine was never prosecuted and remains at large to this day.

Another signal failure in the money realm was Obama’s response to the 2010 Citizen United Supreme Court decision, which declared that the alleged legal “personhood” of corporations entitled them to exercise “free speech” by giving as much money as they wanted to political candidates for election. Big business no longer had to just rent congressmen and senators, they could buy them outright with cash.

A conservative Supreme Court made the call, but Obama could have acted forcefully in the face of it. The former constitutional law professor-turned-politician could have marshaled a response in his Democratic Party-controlled congress to draft legislation, or a constitutional amendment, that would properly redefine the personhood of corporations. It should be obvious, for instance, that corporations, unlike human citizens, do not have duties, obligations, and responsibilities to the public interest; by legal charter they have only to answer to their shareholders and boards of directors. How does this confer the kind of political free speech “rights” that the court allowed them to claim? And how did the Obama and his allies in the legislative branch roll over to allow this disgraceful affront to the constitution to stand? And how is that almost nobody in the mainstream press or academic law even pressed these issues? Thanks to all of them, we’ve set up the primary means for establishing a fascist Deep State: the official marriage of corporate money and politics. Anything goes and nothing matters.

Finally, in foreign affairs, there is Obama’s mystifying campaign against the Russian Federation. The US had an agreement with Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union that we would not expand NATO if they gave us a quantity of nuclear material that was in danger of falling into questionable hands in the disorder that followed the collapse. Russia complied. What did we do? We expanded NATO to include most of the former eastern European countries (except the remnants of Yugoslavia), and then under Obama, NATO began holding war games on Russia’s border. For what reason? The fictitious notion that Russia wanted to “take back” these nations — as if they needed to adopt a host of dependents that had only recently bankrupted the Soviet state. Any reasonable analysis would call these war games naked aggression by the West.

Then there was the 2014 US State Department-sponsored coup against Ukraine’s elected government and the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych. Why? Because his government wanted to join the Russian-led Eurasian Customs Union instead of an association with European Union. We didn’t like that and we decided to oppose it by subverting the Ukrainian government. In the violence and disorder that ensued, Russia took back the Crimea — which had been gifted to the former Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic (a province of Soviet Russia) one drunken night by the Ukraine-born Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. What did we expect after turning Ukraine into another failed state? The Crimean peninsula had been part of Russia for longer than the US had been a country. Its only warm water naval ports were located there. They held a referendum and the Crimean people voted overwhelmingly to return to Russia. So, President Obama decided to punish Russia with economic sanctions.

Then there was Syria, a battleground between the different branches of Islam, their sponsors (Iran and Saudi Arabia), and their proxies, (Hezbollah and the various Salafist jihad armies). The US “solution” was to sponsor the downfall of the legitimate Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad. We apparently still favored foreign relations based on creating failed states — after our experience in Iraq, Somalia, Libya, and Ukraine. President Obama completely muffed his initial attempt at intervention — the “line-in-the-sand” moment — and then decided to send arms and money to the various Salafist jihadi groups fighting Assad, claiming that our bad guys were “moderates.” Meanwhile, Russia stepped in to prop up Assad’s government, apparently based on the idea that the Middle East didn’t need yet another failed state. We castigated Russia for that.

The idiotic behavior of the US toward Russia in these matters led to the most dangerous state of relations between the two since the heart of the Cold War. It culminated in the ridiculous campaign this fall to blame Russia for the defeat of Hillary Clinton. And here we are.

I didn’t vote for Hillary or Donald Trump (I wrote-in David Stockman). I’m not happy to see Donald Trump become president. But I’ve had enough of Mr. Obama. He put up a good front. He seemed congenial and intelligent. But in the end, he appears to be a kind of stooge for the darker forces in America’s overgrown bureaucratic Deep State racketeering operation. Washington truly is a swamp that needs to be drained. Barack Obama was not one of the alligators in it, but he was some kind of bird with elegant plumage that sang a song of greeting at every sunrise to the reptiles who stirred in the mud. And now he is flying away.