ERIC ZUESSE -- America’s Continuing Efforts to Conquer Syria

America’s Continuing Efforts to Conquer Syria

Eric Zuesse

The U.S. regime is focusing its Syria campaign solely on its goal to steal Syria’s oil, and has handed off to its UK partner the rest of the military and diplomatic operation to conquer and replace Syria’s Government. That operation is now under the direction of Ben Wallace, UK’s Defence Secretary.

Wallace had won a seat in Parliament by lying to the voters in his district and saying that he opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and that he also opposed the British Government’s effort to overthrow and replace Syria’s Government, but now he has taken over and leads the joint U.S.-UK operation to overthrow Syria’s Government.

On 17 December 2015, MP Wallace’s blog headlined “Statement on vote about Military Action in Syria” and he said:

I have visited the Middle East and the wider region numerous times and have often pushed for more progressive solutions to current problems.   I did not support labour's war in Iraq and I continue to oppose Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine.  I have often publicly spoken out against other Middle East Countries human rights record.   I am often accused by some of being too pro-Iran, as it is my view that any solution to Syria and Afghanistan needs to include Iran.  As an MP I have visited Iran more than any other parliamentarian and the last time I went I did so with Jeremy Corbyn. Only now the UK and US seem to be following my position on Iran and I welcome that.

In other words, just when the U.S. regime under Obama was softening its aggressive campaign against Iran, Wallace likewise favored a more “progressive” policy towards the Middle East. However, on 2 October 2019, the London Times bannered “Diehard ISIS prisoners must stay in Syria, says defence secretary Ben Wallace” and Wallace supported and endorsed the U.S. regime’s threat (since late in the U.S. Obama Administration) to go to war against both Russia and Syria if those two anti-jihadist Governments tried to slaughter all of the tens of thousands of Al-Qaeda-led jihadists who, throughout the U.S.-sponsored regime-change war against Syria, had been increasingly assembling together in Syria’s most heavily jihadist and “anti-Assad” province, Idlib.

Then, on 12 January 2020, the BBC headlined “Ben Wallace: UK ‘must be prepared to fight wars without US’” and reported that, “Britain must be prepared to fight wars without the United States as its key ally, the Defence Secretary has warned. Ben Wallace said the prospect of the US stepping back from its international leadership role under Donald Trump ‘keeps me awake at night’. … ‘I worry if the United States withdraws from its leadership around the world,’ Mr Wallace told the Sunday Times. ‘That would be bad for the world and bad for us.’” (Of course it would be bad for Lockheed Martin and bad for BAE, and persons such as Wallace represent them and get elected to Parliament only with their support.)

He stepped up his regime-change-in-Syria stance, so that on 6 March 2020 the Forces-dot-net site headlined “Ben Wallace: Syria Attacks ‘Tantamount To War Crimes’” and reported: “After an initial meeting [with U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper], Mr Wallace insisted the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad is intending to ‘flatten’ the province. ‘There’s an obligation on most of the civilised countries in the world to deal with what is a massively emerging humanitarian crisis in Idlib,’ said the British Defence Secretary. ‘What is going on under the Assad and Russia regime is tantamount to war crimes.’” He was accusing Syria and Russia of “war crimes” if they would try to exterminate the jihadists, who had formerly been most of the proxy-fighters for America’s war to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Now almost all of them were collected in that one province, Idlib, and the U.S.-UK alliance was protecting them.

On 23 March 2020, Tass bannered “Militants in Syria’s Rukban camp resell humanitarian aid to refugees, camp escapees say” and reported the testimony of refugees from the U.S.-run camp on Syria’s Jordanian border where aid that was being supplied by the U.N. was received by Al Qaeda-led militants (jihadists) who sold it to Syrian refugees who needed to bribe those jihadists in order to be allowed to escape and return to secular Syria.

On 24 March 2020, Voltairenet bannered “First NATO-ME [Middle East] War Overturns Regional Order” and reported:

President Donald Trump continues his policy of military withdrawal from the "Broader Middle East”. To this end, he is gradually moving his troops, signing agreements with the forces against which they were deployed (e.g. the Taliban) and negotiating the release of his prisoners. At the same time, the Pentagon called on the United Kingdom to take the lead in the operations of the new Atlantic-Middle East Alliance and to supervise the continuation of the "never-ending war" in the "Broader Middle East”.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper receives his British counterpart, Ben Wallace, at the Pentagon. The "special relationship" between the two countries is re-established. The "Five Eyes" [an outgrowth of the Cecil Rhodes organization for an all-encompassing U.S.-UK world empire] are strengthened. The United Kingdom takes command of NATO-ME (Middle-East) operations.

Transfer of military leadership to the United Kingdom

On March 5, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper received his British counterpart Ben Wallace at the Pentagon. The two men shared the command of the new NATO-ME [1].

Ben Wallace then delivered a speech to the Atlantic Council [NATO’s main propaganda organization] in which he confirmed the strength of the UK-US alliance and the availability of the United Kingdom. He also supported the need to try the "dictator Bashar el-Assad" (sic), but the impossibility of doing so given the support of the "Russian bear". In other words, Syria remains an enemy. ...

On March 12 and 13, Ben Wallace visited Turkey and jihadi-occupied Syria. He inspected the Turkish army observation posts at Idleb and conveyed £89 million in "humanitarian" donations to the families of the jihadists.

On 8 May 2020, AlMasdarNews headlined “Mini Cold War: US and Russia expand bases, buildup forces in east Syria” and reported that “the Russian military recently expanded their presence in the Al-Qamishli District, sending more reinforcements and establishing new checkpoints at the military airport. The source said the reinforcements to the Al-Qamishli Airport brought with them heavy equipment, including tanks and armored vehicles. At the same time, the U.S. military has also sent a large number of reinforcements to their base in Deir Ezzor, with the latest reports indicating some 300 trucks entering east Syria from western Iraq.”

On 11 May 2020, AlMasdarNews headlined “PMF [Popular Mobilization Forces, anti-jihadists] accuses US of transferring ISIS terrorists from Syria to Iraq” and reported “US forces have transferred Daesh (ISIS) terrorists out of Syria and into Iraq, Mohammed Mahdi al-Bayati, a key member of the Badr Organization, a powerful Iraqi Shia political and militia group, has claimed.” Furthermore: “intelligence gleaned by the [Shia and secular, anti-jihadist] PMF led the Iraqi Army to launch airstrikes against Daesh facilities in Mosul.” America was trying to rebuild ISIS in Iraq, so that Iraq’s Government would need to rely on U.S. forces in order to prevent ISIS from taking over Baghdad (where the American Embassy is the world’s largest embassy and distributes weaponry to U.S. embassies throughout the Middle East). There is no way that U.S. forces would allow ISIS to take Baghdad.

On 12 May 2020, Joshua Landis tweeted “‘My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians’ Special US envoy to Syria - James Jeffery. He pledged that the United States will continue to deny Syria - international funding, reconstruction, oil, banking, agriculture & recognition of government.” America steals Syria’s oil and destroys its infrastucture but won’t donate to its reconstruction unless its secular Government topples, and won’t even allow America’s ‘allies’ to do so.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.