Victoria Panfilova, columnist for "NG", exclusively to VK
The world is waiting for the decoupling of the situation around Syria. Any, even the most insignificant statement from Washington, Moscow , Damascus etc. immediately comes to the fore, overshadowing other news. Will the U.S. launch a strike at Syria, or will it refrain from participating in another war ?
Too many knots, weaves and interests of different countries converge in Syria. The recent publication in the Financial Times under the headline "Quick Start Guide for the Middle East" explains the situation as follows: "Iran supports Syria. The Gulf countries are against Assad. Assad is against the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood and Obama are against the Minister of Defense of Egypt Sisi, but the countries of the Gulf support Sisi. That is, they are against the Muslim Brotherhood. Iran supports Hamas, but Hamas supports the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama supports the Muslim Brotherhood, but Hamas is against America. The Gulf countries support America. But Turkey is acting together with the Gulf countries against Assad. At the same time, Turkey supports the Muslim Brotherhood and opposes General Sisi. The Gulf countries support Sisi. Welcome to the Middle East and have a nice day."
Is everything clear? There is the same situation with supporters and opponents of U.S. military involvement in Syria. Suddenly, the surest ally - the United Kingdom – opposed the intervention. The Prime Minister David Cameron passionately declared: "I am not obliged to report to Obama." The UK parliament suddenly asked the government to clarify what chemicals have recently been sent to Syria and whether they could produce chemical weapons.
NATO is also against intervention. But Francois Hollande’s France is ready almost independently, without regard to the United States, to join the Syrian conflict against Bashar al-Assad. However, the overwhelming majority of the French population protests against such a scenario.
Turkey is extremely displeased with the fact that Washington is considering the possibility of targeted attacks, not a full-scale invasion and punishment of Assad's regime. Saudi Arabia is frustrated by the slowness. Russia and Iran are strongly against the Western intervention. China is traditionally pacifist when it does not concern its vital interests. However, as recent experience shows, the attitude of these countries to the U.S. military intervention in the affairs of third countries is not playing any large role for Washington, like, for example, the frenzied support of Georgia, taking into account their capacities and roles in the world community.
Bashar al-Assad in an interview with Le Figaro asked for evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Syria to be produced – seemingly, not only by government troops, but all chemical weapons. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the evidence is being brought to Russia, but "the Russian leadership seems to pretend that it did not believe the irrefutable evidence of the sarin attack." Here we should probably talk about the two proofs – of the use of chemical weapons by Damascus and of the use of these weapons by troops loyal to President Assad .
The latter has not been presented yet. And as for the former, on the internet there is a publication by a photographer, asserting that the pictures the Americans have presented as evidence of the use of sarin were taken by him a few years ago in Iraq. A similar story occurred before the invasion in Iraq – then, some pictures were also demonstrated showing a crime of Hussein's regime, and some people also spoke of fraud.
America has taken a pause. Barack Obama is going to try to win the support of Congress, which may oppose the opening of a new front. Opponents of the strike on Syria, however, should have no illusions. According to the legislative amendments of 1973, the U.S. president has the right to have the last word. Here it is like at the UN Security Council, the veto of which Washington repeatedly ignored by acting according to its own plans. Yet a pause is being taken, obviously, to prepare the thoroughness of their actions. It is necessary to obtain more precise information about the mood of the Syrian opposition – could it turn out that a strike by the U.S. on Syria will cause the opposite reaction, i.e. could some of the opposition pass from patriotic motives to the camp of their current opponents? It may even be needed to adjust the developed plans for a military strike.
The Syrian authorities have announced that they are ready for war with the United States, and even promised to defeat the superpower. To do this, air defense forces are in the corresponding state, there are pilots who are ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the homeland, and the vast majority of people can stand up for the legitimate government. All this, however, is familiar. Official Baghdad met the U.S. invasion with exactly the same statements and slogans, but the U.S. units took control of Iraq, almost without encountering resistance.
However, military expert Viktor Litovkin believes that in Syria everything will be harder for the Americans than anywhere else. The wars that the U.S. waged in recent years took place in one scenario - they began with attacks by the Navy with high-precision weapons - "Tomahawks". It was the same in the Balkans in 1995, in Yugoslavia in 1999, twice in Iraq in 1991 and in 2003, in Libya in 2011. Perhaps "Tomahawks" will play the principal role in the Syrian conflict. They are present on both American destroyers plying near the Syrian coast, and submarines that are in the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, in the Indian Ocean. The range of "Tomahawks" allows them to hit a Syrian facility. But the Syrian army is armed with Russian anti-aircraft missiles (SAMs) "Buk -M1" and "Tor- M1", as well as the anti-aircraft missile and gun system "Armour -C1". They are able to successfully counter "slow-speed" missiles, which include “Tomahawks” with their subsonic speed of about 800 km/h. "There are other nuances associated with the specifics of low-flying "Tomahawks”, but with sufficient training of combat crews of the SAMs they can fight,” Litovkin told the author.
The expert did not rule out that an important role in possible military actions can be played by Syrian intelligence services, which may have to deal with so-called "beacons" that can be set by the enemies of Assad on various buildings, to which “Tomahawks” react.
Meanwhile, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces General Hassan Firuzabadi said that any military attack on Syria will cause a blaze in the region, the U.S., Israel and its Western allies, and would pose a threat of chaos and instability for years to come. "The rhetoric of the U.S. and the possible attack against Syria could lead to big problems for other powers, regional allies of Israel and Washington... U.S. military intervention in Syria will cost the Russian Caucasus, and defense lines will move forward towards the Moscow Kremlin. Countries in the region that support this brutal war will suffer serious losses,” Fars quoted Hassan Firuzabadi. His statement is worth reading carefully in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, the leader of which hastened to express support for the aggressive plans of the United States.
"Small countries show diplomatic activity when they are not threatened. But when it is necessary to raise their voice in conflict situations they are silent. But the situation in Syria does not depend on them. International policy is made by heavyweights, which are not numerous. However, the war in Syria will affect the countries of the former Soviet Union,” leading researcher at the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies Azhdar Kurtov told the author. According to him, the actions of the United States are a show of force, which should provide purely moral and military support to the mercenaries howling against Assad who are now suffering defeat in this country. "The fact that they postponed the attack till the meeting of Congress, too, is understandable. Americans should give their actions at least some legitimate hue,” Azhdar Kurtov said.
Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies Irina Zvyagelskaya believes that, at this stage, the task of Barack Obama is to demonstrate decisiveness, a willingness to act – he has often been criticized for lack of decisiveness at critical moments. "The Syrian opposition is very fragmented, there are many radical Islamists, and there is absolutely no reason to expect from them democratization, liberalization and other things that were required from Assad,” Zvyagelskaya told the author. As an example, she cited Egypt - even when the more moderate "Muslim Brotherhood" came to power in Egypt, and it was absolutely legitimate, their actions nevertheless caused a deep split in society. "Egyptian society was split, and this has led to large-scale confrontations, what can we say about Syrian society? In Syria, for several years there has been a civil war, which naturally promotes the maximum hardening of positions of anger and intolerance. Who can guarantee that, once in power, they will not begin to take revenge on their opponents in the cruellest way?" Zvyagelskaya asked.
An expert at the Moscow Carnegie Center, Professor Alexey Malashenko, believes that the outcome of the Syrian crisis is unpredictable. "Two years ago, the imminent collapse of Assad was predicted, but he kept his positions and even beat his rivals. Whether the case will end, after all, with the overthrow of Assad, or we will see another round – this is not clear. Also, it is not clear who might come to power. No one knows that - neither Obama nor Putin, nor anyone else. In any case, if the Americans strike, the region can forget about stability. Now, I think, we can only talk in terms of the scenario. And if we consider the situation in Syria, according to Obama, as a punishment, Iran will be next,” Malashenko said.
Head of the Institute of Globalization Mikhail Delyagin believes that "the next target will not be Iran, which proved its toughness and willingness to fight for its own interests in Syria, but it is likely to be Russia." "The Islamist underground is, I think, doing alright, not only in the North Caucasus, but also in most major cities, as well as in the Southern Urals, Western Siberia and beyond. Even in Yakutsk I have seen a classic Wahhabi. And then there are structures uniting illegal and legal migrants from Central Asia - and, as far as it can be judged, everything is alright there, not only with the organization but also with weapons. Unfortunately, the Russian government cannot quarrel with the Americans, because the state's money, and most importantly, a critically significant portion of the assets of the ruling group, is under the control of the Americans. The financial system of Europe de facto to a large extent is controlled by the Americans," Delyagin said. In his view, the coming U.S. invasion of Syria is due to the economy. The need for randomization of the world appeared because the U.S. national debt is growing rapidly, and it is necessary to provide an inflow of speculative capital. "Opportunities for traditional buyers are limited because Europe has a budget crisis, China began refocusing on its own needs, the Japanese have huge debt problems over Fukushima. And, in general, it is necessary to invest the money in U.S. securities. Debt is growing rapidly and, most importantly, it is very big. So it is necessary to invest in the U.S. securities speculative capital that exists in the world, because in a depression all countries pour money into the economy, and this money is spilled. Money is flowing out of control and turns into speculative capital. How to scare away speculators? Only by increasing the chaos. And the U.S. has created a situation where they themselves are the only island of stability in the world,” Mikhail Delyagin said. In his words, "a world conflagration was vital to the U.S. economy."
With all this, we should not forget about energy, which has become an important element of the modern world. That's how some U.S. experts explain Washington's insistence to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad, even in the face of a severe financial crisis and a significant reduction in the military budget. Some time ago, the world media reported that, according to experts, in some way this explains a similar persistence of political circles in the U.S. who are appointees of the business community of America in dealing with the Syrian problem. In particular, Lebanese television reported that a small Norwegian company a few years ago carried out geological exploration in the territorial waters of Syria through a secret contract with Damascus. Geologists have discovered there 14 oil deposits, four of which are very large deposits. According to the Norwegian experts, these deposits can provide oil production comparable to Kuwait. Norwegian geologists have also found huge deposits of natural gas. If you sum up all the proven reserves of the Syrian gas, Damascus can come fourth in the world in terms of its production. If all this is true, the U.S. plans to establish justice in Syria are logically explainable.
