[News] Israel rescues Mujahid Obama

[Anti-Imperialist News]

**Israel rescues Mujahid Obama**
By Pepe Escobar

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-070513.html

Just when the red line charade was reaching fever pitch - but still 
buried in the sand - and he had to choose between the US "exercising 
restraint" or "directly involving itself" in the Syrian war, (see The 
Syria-Iran red line show 
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-020513.html>, Asia Times 
Online, May 2, 2013) President Obama was saved by Bibi Netanyahu's 
Israeli government.

The temptation was oh so great for Obama to replay Ronald Reagan and 
gloriously wear the mantle of Obama The Syrian Mujahid, just as Reagan 
did in the 1980s with his beloved freedom fighters of the Afghan jihad. 
That will have to wait - perhaps not too long.

*Israel's motives *
Let's cut to the chase. Israel's bombing of Syrian army installations at 
Jamraya near Damascus is a provocation and an act of war. Israel acted 
as a Washington proxy - which may have even provided the list of 
targets. And Washington - not to mention those useless puppets in 
Brussels - won't condemn the bombing, which for the umpteenth time makes 
a mockery of international law.

Israel insists the targets were ground-to-ground Iranian Fateh-110 
missiles bound for Hezbollah. Damascus says the targets were a military 
technology institute as well as troop training grounds; there are a lot 
of apartments nearby, whose tenants the CIA always wanted to recruit as 
assets. There are no chemical weapons at Jamraya. According to Syrian 
medical sources, 42 soldiers may have been killed.

Israel's Hezbollah angle is murky. There's no confirmation anywhere that 
Hezbollah bought Fateh-110s. Since 2009, Hezbollah has Syrian versions 
of the Fateh-110 - the M600, with a range of about 250 kilometers and a 
decent guiding system.

The usual gaggle of anonymous Washington "sources" insists that the 
Syrian Army itself needs those missiles against the armed mercenary 
strands of the self-described Free Syrian Army (FSA). So it would make 
no sense dispatching them to Lebanon.

But for Israel it makes sense smashing a supply of Fateh 110s - or even 
M600s. Israel thus directly helps the FSA; one of its spokesmen, by the 
way, real or fake, went on Israeli TV to praise the bombers. And Israel 
at least for now prevents more missiles from reaching Hezbollah.

Cutting through the fog is the fact that Israel has a bunch of serious 
motives to once again go rogue.

It craves a weak, chaotic Syria - deprived of advanced military 
technology. It craves most of all an all-out Somalization of Syria - a 
sectarian dystopia. What better justification for Israel to be up in 
arms 24/7 than hardcore Wahhabi terrorism right across its 
(non-delimitated) borders? On top of it, Israel wants to drag Syria, 
Hezbollah and ultimately Iran into all out war. It wants the whole 
package - and the sooner and better.

Damascus for its part can play chess - and not respond. At least for 
now. Or let Hezbollah respond - in the near future.

It's not by accident that the bombing happened after 1) Pentagon head 
Chuck Hagel's tour of Israel and the Gulf petro-monarchies; 2) the 
Syrian Army's advances during the past few weeks in the Homs corridor 
against the foreign-sponsored mercenaries/jihadis; 3) Hezbollah's Sheikh 
Nasrallah's "secret" trip to Tehran; afterwards Nasrallah, a fine 
geopolitical mind, stressed that what "they" really want is the 
destruction of the infrastructure, economy and social fabric of Syria - 
to "destroy Syria as a people, an army, a whole nation".

If there are further attacks - and there may well be - to deplete the 
arsenals of the Syrian army, it will be a gift of providence for the 
mercenaries/jihadis. Nasrallah is absolutely correct that the key 
objective of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-Gulf Cooperation 
Council-Israel coalition of the willing is to try to drag Syria into a 
total war. After an eventual Syrian response, the "solution" would be to 
carpet-bomb it to Iraqi levels.

*Obama the Mujahid's options *
Whether the US/Israeli gambit will be successful is an open question. 
What it did was to postpone the crowning of Obama The Mujahid.

The netherworlds of US Think Tankland were oh so excited with the 
prospect of Obama bypassing the UN Security Council (as in Russia and 
China) a la Bush and unilaterally impose a no-fly zone over Syria - so 
the US could engage in the requisite "suppression of the enemy air 
defense campaign".

Nonsense, although the Brits and France have not given up within the 
European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in fact even 
trying to bypass NATO in imposing a no-fly zone.

The no-fly zone was being spun in Washington as a means to secure 
Syria's chemical weapons. The problem is that Washington has lousy intel 
on where these chemical weapons are actually stockpiled. And to top it 
off, chemical weapons were probably used not by the government but by 
the "rebels" - according to widely respected UN investigator Carla del 
Ponte <http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE94409Z20130505?irpc=932>.

The Obama administration was also flirting with "direct lethal aid" to 
the rebels - as in anti-tank guided missiles and surface-to-air missiles.

Washington believes its own myth that it is "indirectly" involved in 
vetting and arming opposition groups in Syria. Since 2011, the 
weaponizing of Syrian mercenary/jihadi gangs has been sourced through 
the black market, stockpiles in Libya, and in Croatia. The CIA has been 
up to its neck all along. Many of these weapons are now in the hands of 
hardcore jihadis of the Jabhat al-Nusra kind.

The notion that the CIA is capable of vetting and weaponizing those 
gangs/mercenaries/jihadis to Washington's benefit after the Bashar 
al-Assad government collapses is THE joke of the early 21st century. 
Just take a trip down memory lane to Afghanistan.

Or imagine these Syrian McJihadis, or You Tube mujahideen, equipped with 
some fine shoulder-held heat-seeking missiles wreaking havoc all across 
Southwest Asia.

So after much huff and puff, Obama ended up with something way more 
comfortable than a no-fly zone: targeted strikes - with jets and/or 
missiles, conducted by the Israelis. The blueprint could be Operation 
Desert Fox (the Bill Clinton-ordered bombing of Iraq in 1998.) The 
objective, to "send a clear message" to Syria.

The next bombings may target airfields, concentrations of aircraft, more 
weapons depots, tanks and artillery. Collateral damage, inevitably, will 
soar, proportionately to the level of provocation.

Former US ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson, very close to the 
Clinton clan, has already gamed on ABC News that Obama is "leaning 
towards aerial strikes". Yes; this is just the beginning. Mini-Shock and 
Awes await.

*Just follow the roadmap*
The question is why did it take so long. The destruction of Syria - as 
conceptualized by Sheikh Nasrallah - with the West once more 
collaborating with jihadi gangs, has been in the cards for years. See 
how Seymour Hersh outlined it in 2007 
<http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all>. 
And see how badly the bipartisan Washington establishment craves regime 
change 
<http://www.scribd.com/doc/108893509/brookingssyria0315-syria-saban>.

And Damascus, of course, is just a stop towards Tehran. The proverbial 
anonymous sources have leaked to the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sunday Times 
in London that a "Defense Crescent 
<http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/world_news/Middle_East/article1255088.ece>" 
is becoming a reality.

It's the same GCC-Israel element in the coalition of the willing in 
Syria, in this case ganging up to "counter Iran's nuclear ambitions". 
Turkey, the House of Saud, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Israel 
merrily partying in joint command-and-control centers to detect evil 
Iranian ballistic missiles.

Don't know much about history. But what a wonderful world this would be. 
Presided by Obama The Mujahid.

/*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), /Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the 
surge 
<http://www.amazon.com/Red-Zone-Blues-snapshot-Baghdad/dp/0978813898> 
/(Nimble Books, 2007), and /Obama does Globalistan 
<http://www.amazon.com/Obama-Does-Globalistan-Pepe-Escobar/dp/1934840831> /(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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