ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND >> TURKEY PREPARED TO INVOKE ARTICLE 5 REQUESTING NATO INTERVENTION IN SYRIA

After admitting UN peace plan was a ploy, Brookings predictably scraps it and begins promoting expanded military conflict.

by Tony Cartalucci

Land Destroyer

“An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership. This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts.” –page 4, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Image: Also out of the Brookings Institution, Middle East Memo #21 “Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf),” makes no secret that the humanitarian “responsibility to protect” is but a pretext for long-planned regime change.

As if to alleviate any lingering doubts, NATO’s “Alliance News Blog” has confirmed that the US is committed not to “peace,” but rather to the overthrow of Syria’s government and is “already committed to helping [President Bashar al-Assad] fall,” but is “merely looking for the least violent, lowest cost way to get there.” The April 9, 2012 blog entry features an op-ed titled, “US ‘already committed to helping Assad fall’,” and fully admits that the US is equipping the so-called “Free Syrian Army” which has received weapons, leadership, and cash from the NATO-backed Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) terrorists led by notorious mass-murderer Abdul Hakim Belhaj.

Image: NATO’s official “Alliance News Blog proudly reports that the US is already committed to helping “Assad fall” and is simply using the lull in fighting brought on by Kofi Annan’s disingenuous “peace plan” to rearm, reorganize, and redeploy their terrorist proxy forces against Assad. The op-ed featured on NATO’s blog was featured in the LA Times and written by CFR member Doyle McManus

And now, the Brookings Institution itself has predictably declared the Annan “peace deal” a failure and states that the time to “stretch” Syria’s military to the breaking point through expanded foreign-backed unrest has come. In an article titled, “Annan’s Mission Impossible: Why is everyone pretending that the U.N. plan in Syria has a prayer of suceeding?” Brookings Doha Center director Salman Shaikh insults the intelligence of his readership while handing out useful talking points surely to be parroted by the corporate-media over the next few days and weeks. Shaikh depicts the ceasefire’s failure as solely the result of the Syrian government’s belligerence and brutality, while mentioning nothing of the Syrian opposition’s documented and even admitted atrocities.

Video: Michael Weiss of the Neo-Con “Henry Jackson Society,” openly admits that diplomatic options are being paraded publicly to satisfy public opinion, but ultimately NATO plans to unilaterally intervene militarily in Syria, and will do so with the UN’s purposefully sabotaged “humanitarian operation” as its pretext.

And while portraying the Syrian government as irrationally carrying out a campaign of brutality against the Syrian people, Shaikh admits that the “Free Syrian Army” is operating militarily out of Turkey and that the Syrian National Council (SNC) represents foreign harbored and influenced leadership. While Shaikh portrays Syria’s minorities as “on the sideline,” he declines from explaining why they have not joined the foreign-driven unrest. In reality, these groups have been the hardest hit by rebel atrocities, including Syria’s large Christian communities.

Image: Christians in Syria have been particularly hit hard by what is being described as “ethnic cleansing,” not by Syrian security forces, but by NATO-backed death squads under the banner of the “Free Syrian Army.” The LA Times has been quietly reporting on the tragedy of Syria’s minorities at the hands of the Syrian rebels for months – and indicates that wider genocide will take place, just as it is now in Libya, should Syria’s government collapse under foreign pressure.

Shaikh’s shoddy salesmanship also reveals another truth – when he claims that “opposition leaders inside and outside the country do not have the resources to unite their ranks alone.” Surely any opposition group that represented the vast majority of the Syrian people, as the UN and the corporate-media claim daily, would not have trouble finding the resources inside of Syria “alone.” In reality, the unrest in Syria is driven by a foreign-backed violent minority, carried out by a combination of violent Sunni-extremists from Syria and many foreign fighters brought in from abroad. Many of Syria’s real opposition find the “Free Syrian Army’s” collaboration with foreigners “unacceptable.”

NATO and its proxies’ efforts have failed primarily because the movement’s semi-covert foreign backing is still not enough to turn the tide, and more overt backing is needed, including foreign military intervention. Shaikh’s entire argument hinges on the creation of a “genuine grand opposition coalition ” that currently, admittedly, does not exist.

As the Brookings Institution prepares the next stage of its premeditated escalation against the sovereign nation-state of Syria, and continues framing the violence as one-sided, a torrent of reports even from the corporate-media itself confirms what many geopolitical analysts have been saying for over a year – that the “Free Syrian Army” is conducting a vicious campaign of terrorism leaving Syrian security forces no choice but to continue fighting on to restore order.

In fact, just today, Wednesday May 9, 2012, Syrian rebels attempted to attack a convoy consisting of Kofi Annan’s UN monitors. France inexplicably then blamed the Syrian government for not providing adequate security for the UN monitors, after a year of condemning the government for attempting to restore order in the face of the very growing militant violence the attacks resulted from. And in recent weeks, everything from Human Rights Watch reports, to open admissions from the rebels themselves confirm that they are committing widespread human rights abuses and turning toward indiscriminate bombing tactics. This indicates a threat Syria’s government would be remiss not to counter – and surely a threat the “international community” would be remiss to continue supporting, funding, and even arming.

Now a concerted effort will be made to sabotage the UN peace plan in every shape, form, and manner, especially through increased violence and particularly in cross-border incidents to help sell NATO-backed, Turkey-led incursions into Syria to carve out “safe havens.” From there a steady stream of weapons and fighters from around the world will be funneled in, in an attempt to, as Brookings Shaikh puts it, stretch Syria’s forces “to a breaking point.”

Image: The cover of the CFR’s flattering report on US-Turkey relations, full of empty promises to entice Turkish leaders into falling on their swords for Western ambitions across the Middle East. And of course, the report is written in the context of what Turkey can do for the US in terms of Syria and Iran in particular. Pro-genocide Madeleine Albright chaired the “task force” that produced the report.

To help convince Turkey to “take the plunge” for NATO, the Council on Foreign Relations has recently published a report attempting to flesh out an improved alliance between the US and Turkey – claiming the new relationship would trump the potential for US cooperation with any BRICS nation (except perhaps India). This patronizing political stunt attempts to fill Turkish leaders with delusions of grandeur, tempting them with “goodies” ahead of falling on their swords for Wall Street and London’s ambitions in Syria and Iran. Turkish leaders might reassess such grandiose claims and remember BRICS’ growth and benefits are based on solidarity and production, avoiding “alliances” with Wall Street, London, and their institutions, while conversely, Wall Street and London’s “benefits” are based on domination, exploitation, betrayal, and unsustainable pyramid schemes.

Syria’s fate rests on both Syria and its allies’ ability to produce a tactical reality on the ground that would make any foreign military incursion a disaster. It also depends on either Turkey’s wisdom or foolishness in considering the elementary ploy and poisoned “goodies” the West is dangling in front of it in exchange for complicity in dividing and destroying neighboring Syria.

The corporate-financiers centered around the capitals of the West have committed to a global war aimed at permanently destroying nation-states and replacing them with a homogeneous administrative system built out of Wall Street and London-funded NGOs, interlocking with the West’s contrived “international institutions.” It is in essence, a World War, currently being fought with 4th generation warfare to build a neo-imperial global government. With overt efforts to destabilize nations around the world, including Russia and China, the West’s hand is revealed and there is no turning back.

The only hope of stopping disaster if either the corporate-financiers succeed or fail (thus turning in and feeding on itself), is to recognize their source of power, and begin undermining it on a daily basis through both boycotting their goods and services, while simultaneously replacing their corporations and institutions with local, genuine alternatives. Syria may seem like an isolated conflict, but is in reality linked to us directly, regardless of where we live. Either we live in a nation that will be next, or a nation who will be further crushed under the hubris, power, and arrogance of an empowered Wall Street and London elite.