Carta OpinionGlobal, 20.01.2018 Riad Fouad Saade, empresario libanés y cónsul honorario de Chile en Beirut
While commemorating the first year of President Trump’s mandate and listening to various comments about his very unconventional policies, at home and worldwide, the Middle East has got its share, a harsh and bloody one.
If a pseudo consensus between the USA and Iran has been momentarily reached in Iraq, if a very questionable rapprochement has been initiated with the House of Saud, and if the atrocious and ignored war in Yemen is marginalized, not forgetting the rotten Libyan situation, the real battle has been taking place in Syria for the past seven years.
Same as in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon and Yugoslavia, Low Intensity Warfare, dear to US post WW2 international policy, is raging in Syria. As usual, there are the main players: the USA and Russia, while regional powers get also involved: Iran, Turkey, oil rich monarchies not forgetting Israel.
Russia considers Syria as its last bastion in the region where the Soviets had lost influence in many countries. This will guarantee the continuity of President Assad regime since Russia has no other ally in the region.
The USA who failed with all their coalition (Europe, Gulf countries) to topple Assad, and finally ended ISIS which they had supported for 5 long years, are now testing a plan B which will create a Kurdish enclave in North Eastern Syria where the USA can have their military bases facing the Russians. Iran is keen on preserving its Shia crescent linking Teheran to Beirut via Baghdad and Damascus while Turkey is losing ground and political positions since 2011 and been threatened by the US plan B. Saudi Crown Prince is busy jailing billionaires to secure the 100 billion gap of his budget, while Israel is celebrating their lately acknowledged capital defying as usual, the whole world
We are far from a solution to the Middle East crisis, especially that both the USA and Israel’s rhetoric is fed by wars and that many plan C and D and E will be conceived by the US war machine to counter whoever opposes their hegemony.
Mike Whitney's analysis "Trump’s Plan B for Syria: Occupation and Intimidation" (Counterpunch, 20.01.2018) updates the situation at a moment when Turkey is violently expressing its opposition to the US plan B by bombarding the Kurdish enclave of Ifrin in Northern Syria. It will be very interesting to observe the outcome of two NATO powers fighting each other.
