Regardless, it also seems that the situation in Syria has moved ahead in the race regarding the ongoing watch to find the tipping point in the Middle East.
A Syrian rebel group's pledge of allegiance to al-Qaeda's replacement for Osama bin Laden suggests that the terrorist group's influence is not waning and that it may take a greater role in the Western-backed fight to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The pledge of allegiance by Syrian Jabhat al Nusra Front chief Abou Mohamad al-Joulani to al-Qaeda leader Sheik Ayman al-Zawahri was coupled with an announcement by the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq, that it would work with al Nusra as well.
Lebanese Sheik Omar Bakri, a Salafist who says states must be governed by Muslim religious law, says al-Qaeda has assisted al Nusra for some time.
A U.S. military proposal for arming Syrian rebels also calls for a limited no-fly zone inside Syria that would be enforced from Jordanian territory to protect Syrian refugees and rebels who would train there, according to U.S. officials.
Asked by the White House to develop options for Syria, military planners have said that creating an area to train and equip rebel forces would require keeping Syrian aircraft well away from the Jordanian border.
The White House is currently considering proposals to arm the rebels in Jordan, according to U.S. officials. White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden declined to comment on the details of those deliberations.
Proponents of the proposal say a no-fly zone could be imposed without a U.N. Security Council resolution, since the U.S. would not regularly enter Syrian airspace and wouldn't hold Syrian territory.
The Obama administration has concluded that Syrian President Bashar Assad's government used chemical weapons against the rebels seeking to overthrow him and, in a major policy shift, President Obama has decided to supply military support to the rebels, the White House announced Thursday.
"The president has made a decision about providing more support to the opposition that will involve providing direct support to the [Supreme Military Council]. That includes military support," Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes told reporters.
In the article below, we may have the best summary of this situation in Syria:
So Ed was right. They sent out the Big Dog to pretend-goad Obama into intervening, knowing that Clinton’s popularity would give O extra cover on his already-made decision to intervene. They’ve been planning to do this for weeks at least, I’d bet. You don’t promote “responsibility to protect” aficionados like Susan Rice and Samantha Power if you aren’t.
And away we go.
According to an internal memorandum circulating inside the government on Thursday, the “intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year.” President Obama said in April that the United States had physiological evidence that the nerve gas sarin had been used in Syria, but lacked proof of who used it and under what circumstances. He now believes that the proof is definitive, according to American officials…
It is unclear precisely how the Obama administration made its final determination about the chemical weapons use in Syria. According to the internal memorandum, intelligence agencies have “high confidence” in their assessment, and estimate that between 100 and 150 people have died to date from chemical weapons attacks. The memorandum goes on to say that the conclusion is based on a variety of intelligence…
The Obama administration’s cautious approach about Syria has already frayed relations with important American allies in the Middle East that have privately described the White House strategy as feckless. Saudi Arabia and Jordan recently cut the United States out of a new rebel training program, a decision that American officials said came from the belief in Riyadh and Amman that the United States has only a tepid commitment to supporting rebel groups.
Here’s the official White House statement, which emphasizes that using chemical weapons is a “red line” in case you had any doubt that this announcement means we’re intervening in some way. Their findings are based in part on hair, blood, and urine samples from two rebels that showed traces of sarin.
I’ll repeat what I said in this post last month about polls showing deep opposition to U.S. action in Syria: The only way he can sell it is by emphasizing the WMD angle. If you look back at the polling data, only when chemical weapons are mentioned does public opinion against getting involved there begin to soften. Go figure that U.S. intelligence would suddenly conclude that sarin has been used at precisely the same time that Obama’s looking to intervene in Syria for strategic reasons unrelated to WMD — namely, that if the rebels aren’t reinforced soon somehow, Assad and Hezbollah might roll right over them and the big upcoming “peace” conference will be even more meaningless than it’s expected to be.
One of the ironies of the U.S. putting such stock in the peace talks, notes Aaron David Miller, is that when they inevitably fail, military intervention of some form will be the only option left to Obama. He boxed himself in. Maybe he realized that and decided to get the ball rolling today. Another grand irony is that if you asked Americans what they’re most afraid of vis-a-vis Assad and WMD, most would probably say it’s the prospect of jihadi rebels overrunning his stockpiles and using those chemical weapons against western targets. Well, thanks to Assad’s recent victory streak, that seems less likely than ever right now. And yet here we are.
More details from the Journal:
A U.S. military proposal for arming Syrian rebels also calls for a limited no-fly zone inside Syria that would be enforced from Jordanian territory to protect Syrian refugees and rebels who would train there, according to U.S. officials.
Asked by the White House to develop options for Syria, military planners have said that creating an area to train and equip rebel forces would require keeping Syrian aircraft well away from the Jordanian border.
To do that, the military envisages creating a no-fly zone stretching up to 25 miles into Syria which would be enforced using aircraft flown from Jordanian bases and flying inside the kingdom, according to U.S. officials…
Proponents of the proposal say a no-fly zone could be imposed without a U.N. Security Council resolution, since the U.S. would not regularly enter Syrian airspace and wouldn’t hold Syrian territory.
That last bit is the key. A UNSC resolution won’t work because Assad is, of course, a Russian client and Russia will veto the resolution. An NFZ needs to be done through other means; this is what they’ve come up with. And note: This does mean that we’re on the brink of a proxy war with Russia, or maybe even something slightly more. What happens if one of those advanced anti-aircraft missiles given by Moscow to Assad ends up blowing a U.S. jet out of the sky?
Stand by for updates. While you wait, if you’re in the McCain camp in thinking that we’ll be able to keep weapons out of the hands of bad guys while supplying the good guys, read this piece from last December. The AP reported just a few days ago that MANPADS, a.k.a. shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, are likely now in Al Qaeda’s hands in Mali thanks to the western-enabled chaos in Libya after Qaddafi was overthrown. Imagine what’ll come out of Syria.
Another contributing factor to O’s decision is our Sunni “allies” like Saudi Arabia and Qatar more or less blackmailing us by threatening to arm the Sunni in Syria if we don’t. Would you rather have the Saudis shipping weapons directly to fundamentalist lunatics like Jabhat al-Nusra, or would you rather have the steady hand of the United State shipping weapons that’ll end up in Nusra’s hands indirectly after “our” rebels inevitably sell them, are killed for them, or defect to Nusra themselves?
Another striking development is this: The rebels are sworn to destroy Israel, so if they gain ultimate power/control of the government, then we know what to expect. However, if Assad remains in power, we see this (under either scenario, Israel stands directly in the crosshairs:
Syrian President Bashar Assad's long term plans include a continued struggle against Israel, Lebanese officials visiting Syria told Lebanese paper Al Akhbar.
"The commitment of the Syrian community to resist the Israeli enemy can help fortify the internal struggle facing Syria," Assad told the officials.
According to the official, Assad called on all Syrian factions to join with Palestinian forces in resisting Israel along the Golan Heights.
"We have to protect our oil from the Americans... and employ the proceeds in the development of our country and in the conflict with the Israeli enemy," Assad said.
In May, Assad said he was considering the possibility of "opening a new front on the Golan," in an interview with Al-Manar TV.
Assad's recent comments coupled with his assertion that he has contemplated renewing the conflict with Israel is particularly troubling at a time when the Syrian civil war has threatened to trickle across the Syrian-Israeli border.
[It's a sad day when you are instinctively more inclined to believe the words coming from Syrian leadership over that of the U.S. government]
Syria's foreign ministry said the United States was lying about chemical weapons use to give it an excuse to intervene in the country's two-year-old civil war.
"The White House...relied on fabricated information in order to hold the Syrian government responsible for using these weapons, despite a series of statements that confirmed that terrorist groups in Syria have chemical weapons," it said.
"The United States, in resorting to a shameful use of pretexts in order allow President Obama's decision to arm the Syrian opposition, shows that it has flagrant double standards in the way it deals with terrorism."
"The White House...relied on fabricated information in order to hold the Syrian government responsible for using these weapons, despite a series of statements that confirmed that terrorist groups in Syria have chemical weapons," it said.
"The United States, in resorting to a shameful use of pretexts in order allow President Obama's decision to arm the Syrian opposition, shows that it has flagrant double standards in the way it deals with terrorism."
The Obama administration has finally officially acknowledged that the Syrian government has used illegal chemical weapons in its bloody civil war half a year after reports first surfaced, which opens the door to U.S. involvement in the conflict.
Ben Rhodes, a young White House speechwriter who works as the White House’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said “the president has made his decision.”
Rhodes, for what it’s worth, may be responsible for concocting the official lies about last September’s deadly terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
“Suffice it to say that decision has been made about providing additional direct support to the [opposition Supreme Military Council] to strengthen their effectiveness,” Rhodes said. “This is more a situation where we’re just not going to be able to lay out an inventory of what exactly falls under the scope of that assistance other than to communicate that we have made that decision.”
These bland assurances, of course, are similar to what the Obama administration said as it armed jihadists in the effort to topple Libya’s Moammar Qaddafi. Despite hopes for a new secular liberal status quo in Libya, the Qaddafi regime was replaced by an Islamist government friendly to Islamic radicalism, which only continues to grow in the country. Like in Libya, America may find that our intervention on behalf of similar extremists in Syria will come with deadly consequences.
According to a Lebanese report on Friday, embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad plans to open a “resistance” front on the Golan Heights and thinks such a move could unify the various factions in Syria.
Assad possesses a detailed plan for the establishment of such a front, reported the Beirut-based Al Akhbar daily, which would in practice be similar to the terrorist group Hezbollah’s activities in southern Lebanon.
Syrian society’s involvement in the “resistance” against Israel — according to statements attributed to Assad and allegedly made to recent visitors at his presidential palace in Damascus — would unite the homefront.
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