Al-aalem Al-jadeed

A newspaper free from partisanship,
sectarianism and the influence of its owners

Washington‘s Elite and the Syrian Calamity

Amos Hochstein, Biden’s envoy  and former Israeli military officer,  announced in Doha (December 7) that the rapid success of the militant groups in Syria is weakening  Iran and the patriotic forces in the region that defy Israel. This announcement should not be viewed as a slip of the tongue. Rather, it should be treated as a well thought out strategic plan that Washington and Tel Aviv have formalized and effectively executed. This plan can be duplicated in other Arab countries.

Further, Hochstein declared that “Lebanon has internalized the weakness of Hezbollah on the one hand, [and] on the other hand, [Hezbollah’s ability] to fight Israel or to support the Assad regime has … diminished.” This  manifests that Washington’s plan was carried out to primarily ease Israeli’s domination in the Middle East and that Israeli interests are an overriding principle in determining  American actions in the region.

In an interview with the Times of Israel (December 6,  2024), a commander of the Syrian militants in Aleppo shed light on the depth of the relationship with Israel stating, “I will only say that we are thankful to Israel for its strikes against Hezbollah and against the Iranian infrastructure in Syria,. . . Israel should consider striking forces backed by Iran wherever it sees them. We are trying to block them on the roads and ambush them, but Israel should also act from the air.”

Back in 2011, The Obama -Biden administration encouraged insurgence against the Assad regime. While the program initially was limited, by 2013, Washington had initiated a massive program  to unseat Assad by providing military training and huge quantities of weapons and ammunition to the insurgents. This program was named  Timber Sycamore and involved a covert CIA operation in Syria.  According to the New York Times (August 2, 2017), the program was “one of the most expensive efforts to arm and train rebels since the agency’s program arming the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the 1980s.”

 Like the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, the militant groups in Syria have been considered useful allies. Jack Sullivan, the Current National Security Advisor, wrote in 2012 to Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State at the time, “ AQ [al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.” While  U.S. involvements in Syria have been intended to weaken the Assad regime and  or force him to abandon rhetoric that conveys patriotism and pride in Arab history and culture, the election of Trump has given a sense of urgency to the Biden administration to act swiftly to end the Syrian regime.   

Four reasons stand out for Biden and his team to act immediately and change the regime in Syria.  The most important and most urgent is Biden’s fear that his dream of forcing Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world to surrender to Israel and normalize relationships with God’s Kingdom might diminish if Assad is left in power.  Biden has always reiterated, “You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist.  I make no apologies for that.”  He has made it clear that he was running for reelection to make certain Saudi Arabia fully recognized Israel and that he was determined to “get this job done.” Recent events will enable him to claim credit for the change of regime in Syria instead of Trump.

The second reason is that Biden, like Trump, is committed to weakening Iran and paralyzing its operations in the region. For Biden, enabling religious zealots and overtly sectarian groups to assume power in Syria will incite division in the Islamic world and divert attention from Israel’s genocidal project for the region. If fact, the coming to power of religious fanatics will accelerate the downfall of Islamic civilization; a dream the Zionist groups are seeking to achieve.

The third reason is his failure to defeat Russia in Ukraine. Biden has invested time and money to achieve this objective without any tangible success. He knows that the incoming Trump administration is not interested in keeping and supporting the Ukraine war. Thus, defeating the Assad regime, which is supported by Russia,  gives him a sense of satisfaction.

Four, unlike many presidents before him, Biden represents the security and intelligence establishment. He views war as an instrument for strengthening the security apparatus and enhancing its role at home and abroad.  Instability in the Middle East andtolerance  of authoritarian regimes and their affiliated militants is  needed to maintain Israel as the regions dominate entity and ensure that democracy and liberty in the Arab world is a far-reaching possibility.

Most importantly, Biden understands that the Trump administration harbors anti-establishment sentiments, especially for the CIA and the FBI. Leaving him with invigorated and emboldened religious fanatics in Syria is thought that it will limit Trump’s ability to craft a sound plan to downsize the security apparatus and  meet his goal of having an effective strategy to end what Trump calls “the Deep State’s reign.”

The Biden administration has capitalized on advanced technology, especially artificial intelligence, to wage an intensive campaign to incapacitate Syria’s existing institutions. The most frightening action has been the ability to infiltrate the Syrian military command center in order to send orders to military units to abandon their posts and lay down their weapons.

What happens in Syria should be a reminder to Iraq, Algeria, Yemen, and Tunisia that Washington will not hesitate to use every means to ensure the submission of the Arab people to Israel’s will. Patriotic, liberal, and progressive groups in the region will face a gloomy future where secular and progressive thinking will be outlawed. The only acceptable discourse will be the one that emphasizes the virtue of serving Israel.

For Iraq, the implication of the catastrophe in Syria is the presence of foreign armies on Iraqi soil as an imminent threat to the existence and continuity of the country. These armies are there to institutionalize submission and backwardness.  More importantly, the support  provided to violent militants in Syria might be repeated in Iraq, and the cultural centers, like Najaf and Karbala, will be the logical targets of the fanatic religious groups backed by the West.

Abbas J. Ali is a distinguished university professor, Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

إقرأ أيضا