When it comes to the US war in Syria, the Pentagon and the CIA don’t agree on much, and indeed don’t even seem to be able to settle among themselves who they’re actually fighting. The Pentagon sees the war as against ISIS, while the CIA sees the war as chiefly one to impose regime change against the Assad government.
The administration has always been more than a little vague on that point, of course, so it is perhaps unsurprising that this is the case. Still, the CIA and Pentagon are both heavily involved in their respective wars, and eagerly undercutting one another in advancement of their respective goals.
Back in December, Sy Hersh reported that the Joint Chiefs had been sending intelligence to several nations, including Germany, on the condition that it be forwarded to Syria, with an eye toward undermining a CIA arms smuggling campaign that they described as “co-opted” by Turkey, and which saw the US arms for “moderates” going to al-Qaeda and ISIS.
This week, reports from Nancy Youssef quoted CIA officials accusing the Pentagon of mimicking “Russian propaganda,” and who blasted the Pentagon for focusing on fighting ISIS and for being reluctant to back rebels embedded with al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front.
The Youssef article quoted one US intelligence official explicitly saying that imposing regime change is “a necessary precondition” to fighting ISIS, because the civil war the US has been backing for years has made Syria “a failed state,” and “you can’t deal with ISIS if you have a failed state.”
Problematic though Syria’s current weakness is, the CIA “plan,” such as it is, appears to be to follow the exact same strategy that worked so disastrously in Libya, imposing regime change militarily, and just assuming that eventually some more pro-US state is going to appear and then be backed for a whole separate war against.
The US can’t have it’s planned war due to Russia’s presense and Russia’s/China’s interests in Syria and Iran. The stalemate that Obama created in concert with Putin will hold indefinitely.
No US progress toward war will be made now in the Ukraine, for the same reason. The US’s window of opportunity has been slammed shut!
It would be a stalemate – but the Pentagon assistance to the Kurds is tipping the balance. The Kurds are fighting both ISIS and the cia/rebel/islamists, and inch by inch, beating both. This is tipping the scales, opening the path to the Syrian government and the Kurds doing a deal to divide the country between themselves and eliminate the cia/rebel/islamists, along with ISIS, completely.
After all the success that Russia has had of late in protecting Syria, you still say that Syria is doomed? Where are your facts?
I don’t think I said Syria was doomed. But progress has been very slow for the Syrian government, and I don’t think they have the appetite to fight another adversary in the Pentagon-armed Kurds.
Russia can hold the Syrian front, the Ukraine front, and the Iran front is being held by Iran through the Russian/China deterrent by extension.
When I talk of stalemate I’m talking about a Russia/US stalemate in Syria. Russia is not going to allow the US to install a US friendly regime. But it’s likely that Russia will allow the Assad leadership to be changed for the purpose of appearances. However, the propaganda to demonize Assad was not the end goal and so there’s no reason the US needs to or wants to pursue that goal. Assad stepping down and being replaced would only satisfy a US demand and demonstrate further that Russia is being cooperative.
The US was burnt so badly when the Obama initiative for Assad to give up his chem/bio weapons succeeded, that they aren’t going to allow that to happen again!
Our Empire builders are boxed in with no way to achieve expansion? Has such a thing ever happened since we nuked Japan?
You’re right John, they’re boxed in. But opening more fronts will make it more difficult for Russia to stand it’s ground. Putin is strong and consistent on Sryia, Ukraine, and by extension Iran and so that’s formed a box in the ME. But will Russia be able to mount a defensive on the Poland front the US is now pursuing.
These fronts will continue to represent the nature of the US offensive against Russia for the immediate future. I think the most positive thing to hope for is that China will become militarily involved in a defense, recognizing that to not is to allow the US advances that will prove costly for China’s future too.
(Jan.1998) US history – “How Jimmy Carter I Started the Mujahideen” – Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor 1977-1981
“Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [“From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a13_1240427874
Zbigniew Brzezinski Taliban Pakistan Afghanistan pep talk 1979
In 1979 Carters National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski went into Pakistans border regions with Afghanistan to give a little pep talk to some prospective majehadeen (Holy Warriors).
US Imperialism 1900-2010 Timeline of United States military operations; dates show the year in which the US dispatched troops.
https://youtu.be/Q51NFAkmE-g
All of this is a proof that there is a vacuum in the White House. Nobody is in charge.
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/tremblay=1177.htm
Exactly, a perfect description of a paid
actor doing what he is paid to do.
You know better John, because you understand the box that’s been created and you have to acknowledge that Obama was responsible for allowing it to happen.
A more proactive thinking president would have seen the stalemate that was created when Russia was allowed to step up in Syria. Obama should have never set the conditions for the stalemate to be created by offering an ultimatum that Putin and Assad could could accept so readily and so eagerly. That ploy could only work in Iraq because Russia was not prepared to be a part of fulfilling the WMD demands. Or, more correctly, asserting itself in Iraq with force when Hans Blix declared the conditions had been met.
luv from Canada.
No Carole, a situation in your country where the president is so far removed from the wishes of the people that he is powerless to stop your country’s aggression throughout the world. The vacuum will disappear when a new president goes to the WH whose agenda is more in tune with the people and the military’s.
Everybody knows this already about the new president Clinton but they can’t bring themselves to compare her to the current black one. (and if it’s not skin colour then it’s domestic partisan politics)
luv from Canada.
A dictator can give to the UN stolen wealth that has been plundered from the people it enslaves? The greatest governmental organization on earth is corrupted beyond all corruption and all of mainstream media worldwide, all owned by the richest of the rich and they find nothing abnormal in the doing of it?
Why, it’s almost as if this satanic world is under the control of a satanic devil and by intelligent design we all play our part in reaching the ultimate conclusion of the glory and power in wealth.