[News] The Syria-Iran red line show

[Anti-Imperialist News]

**The Syria-Iran red line show**

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-020513.html
By Pepe Escobar

This eminently Bushist Obama "red line" business, applied to Syria, Iran 
or both, is becoming a tad ridiculous.

Take Pentagon head Chuck Hagel's tour of Israel and the "friendly" GCC 
(the de facto Gulf Counter-revolution Club) last week. US defense 
contractors had the Moet flowing as Hagel merrily congregated with that 
prodigy of democracy - United Arab Emirates (UAE) Crown Prince Mohammed 
bin Zayed - to celebrate the sale of 25 F-16 fighter jets.

There's more on the way; 48 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or 
THAAD missile interceptors, at a cool US$1 billion. The Pentagon is 
sending one of its only two of such systems to Guam this month to 
counter that other threat - missiles from North Korea.

The weaponizing free fest to Israel and the Gulf petro-monarchies - 
missile defense, fighter jets, mega-bombs - could not but be duly hailed 
as the proverbial "message" to "counter Iran's nuclear ambitions", or 
"the air and missile threat posed by Iran", or the general "worry about 
Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon" or "Washington's determination to 
stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."

There's no "red line" here; just hardcore weaponizing of Israel and the 
GCC. Any doubts, blame it on Iran. And this while Saudi-controlled media 
in the Middle East - roughly everything except al-Jazeera - was 
breathlessly spinning that Tel Aviv is pursuing a deal to use Turkish 
soil for an attack on Iran.

Wait; there's more weaponizing on the way - bound to neighboring 
latitudes. Kraus-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) from Germany closed another $2.48 
billion deal with Qatar - five years in the making - to deliver 62 
Leopard 2 tanks and 24 self-propelled howitzers. Qatar is not exactly 
using them for the 2022 FIFA World Cup; they are bound to "friendly 
groups in other countries" - as in Syria's "rebels", via Turkey.

*Ask the Nenets *
Now take the Syria chemical weapons charade. The White House now seems 
to be convinced that the CIA believes, with "varying degrees of 
confidence", that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons. 
Secretary of State John Kerry - an "intervention" cheerleader posing as 
a dove - was already convinced.

But then Hagel said, "Suspicions are one thing; evidence is another." 
Just to flip-flop a little while later, during his visit to Israel, he 
became convinced Bashar al-Assad was using sarin gas. Of course; after 
all, Hagel finally had unimpeded access to Israeli - not US - intel.

And now for the beauty of Hagel's marketing; what about embarking as a 
traveling salesman to "our bastards" with a sales pitch of " Look, Iran 
and Syria are both crazy, you might consider stacking up on this, this 
and this."

The Nenets of Siberia - crossing the Ob river to enter the Arctic Circle 
- could teach a thing or two about real strategy to those limping 
armchair warriors in US Think Tankland. Even the Nenets would know that 
the current chemical weapons hysteria is a total fabrication by the CIA, 
MI6 and Israeli intelligence - corroborated by zero evidence. Still, the 
prevailing Washington "wisdom" is that a "red line" must be enforced 
over Syria so a "red line" must be enforced on Iran.

The fact is that the al-Assad government initially accused the "rebels" 
of using chemical weapons - and asked the United Nations for an official 
investigation.

Even the New York Times 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/world/middleeast/syria-developments.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&> 
was forced, grudgingly, to admit the "rebels" acknowledged an attack 
happened in territory controlled by the government, with 16 Syrian Army 
dead, plus 10 civilians and over a hundred injured. But then the 
"rebels" changed the narrative, blaming Damascus of bombing their own 
soldiers. It was Moscow that introduced a measure of reality, detailing 
how Washington was stalling the UN investigation.

Our Nenets of Siberia would also know there's hardly anything secular 
leading the "rebels" in Syria; it's a motley crew of varying degrees of 
fanaticism. Once again, the Nenets would not need to freeze to death 
reading the New York Times to find out that the CIA is "secretly" 
funneling a free for all weaponizing to the "rebels" via Saudi Arabia 
and Qatar. Still the Obama administration peddles the fiction that 
Washington only supplies "non lethal" aid as Capitol Hill nutters keep 
insisting that Obama install a "no fly zone" over Syria - as in 
Libya-style NATO war remix.

*Follow-on strike package, anyone? *
US Think Tankland nonetheless is ecstatic that the GCC petro-monarchies 
now have access to precision-guided munitions to "strike Iranian targets".

But nothing compares to the cheerleading of Israel's new access to 
KC-135 aerial refueling tankers - or Stratotankers. Then there's the 
imminent transfer of anti-radiation missiles as well - advanced versions 
of the AGM-88 HARM missiles. These toys will "reduce the threat to 
Israel's follow-on strike package."

No, this is not exactly about "US circumspection", or "US resolve in the 
campaign against Iranian nuclear weapons"; it's unqualified Dog of War 
barking.

Meanwhile, that police state run by King Playstation, also known as 
Jordan, has opened its airspace to Israeli drones now engaged in 
"monitoring" Syria.

As Asia Times Online has repeatedly warned, Obama in Syria is fast 
becoming a remix of Reagan in 1980s Afghanistan. We all know what came 
out of those "freedom fighters" afterwards. In this context, Robert 
Ford, Obama's alleged Syria expert, telling the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee that it's important for Washington to "weigh in" to affect 
"the internal balance of power in Syria" qualifies as a joke line, not a 
red line.

There's wild speculation that after the Boston bombing Obama and 
Russia's Vladimir Putin made a deal; Washington lets Moscow do whatever 
it wants in Chechnya like, forever, but gets a nod to install a "no-fly 
zone" and further mayhem in Syria. There's no evidence to that. What a 
geopolitically savvy Putin wants to know is what does he get out of 
Syria in practical terms (and Obama does not have a clue). Crumbs from a 
NATO banquet don't apply.

As for allowing Syria to become a "Western-friendly" Wahhabi emirate or 
yet another failed Muslim Brotherhood fiefdom, one needs to go no 
further than Hezbollah's Sheikh Nasrallah 
<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34777.htm> ... "the 
goal of anyone standing behind the war in Syria, is destroying Syria so 
that a strong, centralized state would not be established in it, and so 
that it would become too weak to take decisions related to its oil, sea, 
or borders."

Now that's what a red line is all about.

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

/He may be reached at/ pepeasia at yahoo.com
-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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