While Syria makes progress in freeing areas of the country from foreign-supported terrorist groups, with invaluable assistance from Iran and Russia, the United States is seeking alternate ways to maintain its own presence there. The defeat of ‘rebel’ groups is not good news for the U.S., since it arms and supports them, and has done so for years.
Now it is being reported that an agreement between the U.S. and Turkish governments, that seeks to give some semblance of legitimacy to continued U.S. presence in Syria, has been reached.
Turkey, like the U.S., is seeking to remove Kurds from Syrian areas, such as Afrin, where the Kurds gained control after ISIL was driven out. A Russian news outlet reported that U.S. and Turkish forces would occupy that area of Syria, once the Kurds are removed, and that Turkey will be represented in Afrin by the so-called Free Syrian Army, a western-financed terrorist group that was established with the sole purpose of overthrowing the legitimately-elected government of Bashar al-Assad. If the U.S. and Turkey do take control of Afrin, it will become the center of terrorist activity in Syria.
It is puzzling to consider how two nations can come to any kind of agreement on the partial occupation of another nation. U.S. presence in Syria violates the internationally-recognized sovereignty of the Syrian nation. U.S. support for groups in Syria that seek the overthrow of that government does the same. Yet government officials from Turkey and the U.S. discuss Syria as if it is theirs to divide however they choose.
Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon, in December, said this: “We are going to maintain our commitment on the ground as long as we need to, to support our partners and prevent the return of terrorist groups.” This is typical of the black-is-white and white-is-black rhetoric of U.S. government spokespeople. Which partners are they supporting? They are supporting those, such as Israel, who seek to destabilize the Middle East. And the best thing the U.S. could do to “prevent the return of terrorist groups” is to remove all U.S. support for those groups, remove all U.S. soldiers from Syria, and assure that none ever set foot there again. It can also stop bombing Syria, and cease all efforts to overthrow the government of Syria. U.S. actions in and toward Syria are classic examples of the worst kind of terrorism.
U.S. spokespeople had been saying that the U.S. will maintain a presence in Syria, even after ISIL is defeated, proclaiming that it must do so to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region. Yet the government of Syria has in no way agreed to allow the U.S. to be there today, let alone to remain in Syria at any time in the future. And there is no reason to think that Syria’s government will ever do so, considering the destruction, death and unspeakable suffering that the U.S. has caused, and continues to cause, in Syria.
The U.S. is forever declaiming Iran’s growing influence, as if that is a dangerous and negative thing for the Middle East and the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unlike the U.S., which has been at war for 225 years of its 242 – year existence, Iran has not invaded another nation since 1798. The U.S. has invaded and/or otherwise destabilized several nations in the Middle East, and is currently at war with Afghanistan, and still has troops in Iraq, which it invaded and occupied early in the current millennium, destroying the infrastructure, ushering that nation to the brink of civil war, and killing at least 2,000,000 people. The U.S. is currently bombing at least seven countries. Nowhere on the planet does any nation want U.S. ‘influence’.
A partial list of independent nations victimized by U.S. violence is the following: Syria, Iran, Guatemala, Tibet, Indonesia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Vietnam, Brazil, Ghana, Chile, Afghanistan, Turkey, Poland, Nicaragua, Cambodia, Angola, Philipp9ines, Iraq, Venezuela, Palestine, Somalia, Libya. Please note that this is not a complete list, only covers U.S. aggression from 1949 to the present, and several of the countries listed have been targeted multiple times by the U.S. since the second half of the twentieth century.
Compare and contrast that record to that of Iran, a nation which has successfully defended itself from its enemies, and which aids its allies, as it is doing in Syria today. Iran does not have military bases around the world; the U.S. has close to 1,000 of them, often in countries where the people do not want them. The U.S. uses its military and intelligence to thwart free elections; foment rebellion; overthrow governments and bring death and suffering wherever it is, including within its own borders. Its contempt for international law is matched by no other nation, with the exception of Israel.
The spokesman referenced above also reiterated, incredibly, that the U.S. is assisting its allies in fighting ISIL.
That the U.S. supports ISIL and other terrorist groups can no longer be denied; the evidence is far too overwhelming. The U.S. arms and trains ISIL, and that organization also gets assistance from Israel. Using fighting ISIL as a reason to remain in Syria, against the wishes of the sovereign Syrian government, is a bold-faced lie.
What the United States government will do next, domestically or on the international stage, is unknown. The erratic and unpredictable Donald Trump seems to have few deeply held convictions, but those he does hold appear to be fraught with danger. He believes in U.S. supremacy in all areas; the need to use violent force to assure that the world is ordered to his liking is another core belief. He seems to think that wealth and power are better ‘virtues’ than fairness and equality, as is demonstrated by his full and uncompromising support of apartheid Israel. The concepts of human rights and international law have no importance to him, because of his belief that the U.S. way is sperior to every alternative.
Domestically, he governs for the rich, white class that supports him from the top, caring noting for civil rights, public education, affordability of higher education, assistance to the poor, universal health care or national infrastructure.
As the economies of China, India and other nations grow, and as the military power of Iran, and its influence around the world, continue to increase, the U.S. finds itself in the position of a world power in decline. This is always dangerous, like a wounded animal that knows it is vulnerable, and therefore lashes out at anything nearby. Add to that an unqualified, violent, egotistical president, and the formula for international catastrophe is very great.