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by Eric S. Margolis
December 12, 2024
What is clearly a joint US-Israeli plan to remake the Mideast map is now well underway. Changes will be seismic.
The Biden administration, by now almost totally controlled by pro-Israel neocons, is making its final major moves by loosing a Parthian shaft into the heart of the Mideast.
Syria – or what’s left of it – was divided up into zones - a third of the country with all its oil and gas fields is under the control of US military forces. Revenues from this oil and gas accounted for half of Syria’s income and paid its armed forces. Deprived of pay and munitions, the Syrian armed forces faded away, leaving the roads to Damascus open to Islamist forces, branded ‘terrorists’ by the west.
Israel collaborated closely. In two days alone its powerful air forces launched 480 attacks against Syrian military and strategic targets, including Syria’s tiny navy on the coast and major air bases. Israeli forces occupied a UN-sanctioned demilitarized zone on its northern border with Syria.
While western media and politicians waxed euphoric over the fall of former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, there was amnesia about the history of Syria’s nasty dictatorship. Not for me, of course, as a frequent visitor to the Assad’s frightening Syria.
The first time I visited Syria, there was a public hanging in front of my hotel. Later, I was arrested at the airport for carrying a hand-held dictaphone, described by guards as ‘a CIA radio device.’ Syria was even scarier than awful Iraq. Paranoia and suspicion were everywhere. But I also met with government officials and walked most of the Syrian side of the heavily militarized Golan Heights, later seized and annexed by Israel.
What our heavily biased media in the US and Britain don’t tell you is that the US has been trying to overthrow Syria’s different regimes since the 1950’s. I refer readers to a delightful book, ‘The Game of Nations,’ written by a former CIA agent based in Syria, Miles Copeland. He recounts how the US sought to order about successive Syrian regimes or overthrow them.
Syria’s worst years were under an Alawite air force general, Hafez al-Assad, who seized power in a 1971 coup. Until his death in 2000, he misruled Syria with an iron hand, battling attempts by Islamists, communists, Nasserites, Baathists, CIA, Britain’s MI6, France’s DGSE, Saudi intelligence, Turkey and Israel to unseat him. Syria suffered eight coups since 1946.
These efforts led to the brutal repressiveness of the Syrian regimes. I was in the city of Hama shortly after its Islamists revolted against the Assad regime. Tens of thousands were killed there.
Hafez Assad did America’s bidding when he sent troops to attack Iraq in 1991. The US long sent Arab captives to Syria to be tortured, particularly to link Iraq to non-existent nuclear weapons. Hafez’s oldest son Basil, who was slated to replace Hafez after his death in 2000, killed himself in a car crash. In true Mafia style, the Assad family forced the mild-mannered, Bashar, a British-trained ophthalmologist, to become president. His brutal brother Maher became the real power behind the throne.
Today, a third of Syria and Iraq are occupied by US forces. The mighty US air force rules the Mideast skies, along with its ally, Israel. When I was asked to the Pentagon to consult with the Air Force’s strategic planners, I was amazed to see many uniformed Israeli air force officers there. Qatar has become an aircraft carrier for the US Air Force. Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt and Kuwait all host powerful US forces.
Syria is crushed. Almost 50,000 Palestinians have been killed. Gaza is rubble. Israel is openly considering annexing more parts of Syria as well as slices of Lebanon. Israel’s hard expansionist right is cock-a-hoop over grabbing more land. The incoming Trump administration, flush with a $100 million gift from the casino magnates, Israeli-American Adelsons, and packed by Israel supporters, is giving Israel’s far right government carte blanche.
Will there be more targets? Possibly. One of the heroes of the Afghan War, Khalil Haqqani, was just murdered in Kabul, allegedly by an Islamic State suicide bomber. We don’t know who is really behind Islamic State, but the killing sounds a lot like some assassinations recently carried out by Israel’s intel agency, Mossad. Or was it delayed American revenge for its defeat in Afghanistan?
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2024