[News] Exposed: The Arab agenda in Syria

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Exposed: The Arab agenda in Syria
By Pepe Escobar

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NB04Ak01.html

Here's a crash course on the "democratic" machinations of the Arab 
League - rather the GCC League, as real power in this pan-Arab 
organization is wielded by two of the six Persian Gulf monarchies 
composing the Gulf Cooperation Council, also known as Gulf 
Counter-revolution Club; Qatar and the House of Saud.

Essentially, the GCC created an Arab League group to monitor what's 
going on in Syria. The Syrian National Council - based in North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries Turkey and 
France - enthusiastically supported it. It's telling that Syria's 
neighbor Lebanon did not.

When the over 160 monitors, after one month of enquiries, issued 
their report ... surprise! The report did not follow the official GCC 
line - which is that the "evil" Bashar al-Assad government is 
indiscriminately, and unilaterally, killing its own people, and so 
regime change is in order.

The Arab League's Ministerial Committee had approved the report, with 
four votes in favor (Algeria, Egypt, Sudan and GCC member Oman) and 
only one against; guess who, Qatar - which is now presiding the Arab 
League because the emirate bought their (rotating) turn from the 
Palestinian Authority.

So the report was either ignored (by Western corporate media) or 
mercilessly destroyed - by Arab media, virtually all of it financed 
by either the House of Saud or Qatar. It was not even discussed - 
because it was prevented by the GCC from being translated from Arabic 
into English and published in the Arab League's website.

Until it was leaked. 
<http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ehauben/Report_of_Arab_League_Observer_Mission.pdf>Here 
it is, in full.

The report is adamant. There was no organized, lethal repression by 
the Syrian government against peaceful protesters. Instead, the 
report points to shady armed gangs as responsible for hundreds of 
deaths among Syrian civilians, and over one thousand among the Syrian 
army, using lethal tactics such as bombing of civilian buses, bombing 
of trains carrying diesel oil, bombing of police buses and bombing of 
bridges and pipelines.

Once again, the official NATOGCC version of Syria is of a popular 
uprising smashed by bullets and tanks. Instead, BRICS members Russia 
and China, and large swathes of the developing world see it as the 
Syrian government fighting heavily armed foreign mercenaries. The 
report largely confirms these suspicions.

The Syrian National Council is essentially a Muslim Brotherhood 
outfit affiliated with both the House of Saud and Qatar - with an 
uneasy Israel quietly supporting it in the background. Legitimacy is 
not exactly its cup of green tea. As for the Free Syrian Army, it 
does have its defectors, and well-meaning opponents of the Assad 
regime, but most of all is infested with these foreign mercenaries 
weaponized by the GCC, especially Salafist gangs.

Still NATOGCC, blocked from applying in Syria its one-size-fits-all 
model of promoting "democracy" by bombing a country and getting rid 
of the proverbial evil dictator, won't be deterred. GCC leaders House 
of Saud and Qatar bluntly dismissed their own report and went 
straight to the meat of the matter; impose a NATOGCC regime change 
via the UN Security Council.

So the current "Arab-led drive to secure a peaceful end to the 
10-month crackdown" in Syria at the UN is no less than a crude regime 
change drive. Usual suspects Washington, London and Paris have been 
forced to fall over themselves to assure the real international 
community this is not another mandate for NATO bombing - a la Libya. 
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described it as "a path for a 
political transition that would preserve Syria's unity and institutions".

But BRICS members Russia and China see it for what it is. Another 
BRICS member - India - alongside Pakistan and South Africa, have all 
raised serious objections to the NATOGCC-peddled draft UN resolution.

There won't be another Libya-style no fly zone; after all the Assad 
regime is not exactly deploying Migs against civilians. A UN regime 
change resolution will be blocked - again - by Russia and China. Even 
NATOGCC is in disarray, as each block of players - Washington, 
Ankara, and the House of Saud-Doha duo - has a different long-term 
geopolitical agenda. Not to mention crucial Syrian neighbor and 
trading partner Iraq; Baghdad is on the record against any regime 
change scheme.

So here's a suggestion to the House of Saud and Qatar; since you're 
so seduced by the prospect of "democracy" in Syria, why don't you use 
all your American weaponry and invade in the dead of night - like you 
did to Bahrain - and execute regime change by yourselves?

Pepe Escobar is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0978813820/simpleproduction/ref=nosim>Globalistan: 
How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 
2007) and 
<http://www.amazon.com/Red-Zone-Blues-snapshot-Baghdad/dp/0978813898>Red 
Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His most recent 
is 
<http://www.amazon.com/Obama-Does-Globalistan-Pepe-Escobar/dp/1934840831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233698286&sr=8-1>Obama 
does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia at yahoo.com.



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