Trump's recent orders regarding US troop withdrawal from
Syria have generated a political and media firestorm. He has (wittingly or not)
undermined a key plank of US imperial policy with regard to the Middle East.
Syria was but part of a larger strategy and the battle against ISIS, like the
larger war against al Qaeda, (and the interminable 'War on Terror') are but a
pretense, a means to an end in a series of larger geostrategic goals.
While this may sound controversial and speculative to some,
it shouldn't be. The literature is there and the policy reflects it. In fact the
US has and continues to utilise militant Islam in critical spheres and that's
not likely to change. The war in Syria was partly about the removal of Assad
but it was also meant to capture strategic land and resources, to eliminate a
foe of Israel, to destroy Moscow's foothold in the Levant and Arab world and to
wound Iran.
The Trump withdrawal has left the Establishment sputtering
and the Praetorians are ratcheting up the threat level against him. The
rhetoric is becoming quite intense and it would seem the multifaceted plot to
remove Trump is nearing some kind of crescendo.
Suddenly we hear talk of 'betraying allies' and concern for
the Kurds. This is of course preposterous as the US has only one track record
with the Kurds and that is one of over forty years of betrayal. This latest
stab in the back is nothing new and while Turkey's policies toward the Kurds
have been nothing less than murderous, Erdogan is right that the YPG and the
Kurdish paramilitaries in Northeastern Syria are effectively branches of the
PKK. This reality only underlines US hypocrisy as the PKK has long been
considered a terroristic group... even while the US has happily supported their
cross-border manifestations in Iraq and Syria.
It's a big game and the public is largely ignorant of it. The
media bears great responsibility in this as they deliberately obscure and
mislead in order to provide a gloss for US policy.
Likewise (and on a related note) Turkish concerns for
journalist safety and their great moral outrage over the Khashoggi murder is
simply laughable if the overall story wasn't so tragic. Turkey remains a
dangerous place for journalists and the list of murdered reporters and
investigators is by all accounts substantial. Journalists investigating either
Ankara's war with the Kurds or the nature of the Turkish Deep State were and
are (more likely than not) going to turn up dead... very often killed by Right-wing
paramilitaries affiliated with the CIA. At least until Erdogan that was the
pattern.
But what is perhaps the most telling, what has been the most
revelatory with regard to Trump's Syria order is the response of the so-called
Left in the United States. From the media to academia, hosts of Leftists and
ostensible opponents of US imperialism have suddenly shown their true colours
and it is instructive.
They are of course unwilling to grant even an iota of
approval to anything Trump does which I will grant even his 'good' moves are un-praiseworthy
and done for bad reasons. And yet, these 'Leftists' have completely signed onto
US imperialism's anti-Assad and anti-Moscow campaigns and so the Syrian War has
become for them an almost existential conflict and one they support. They are
angry and distressed at the prospect of US disengagement.
Many are appealing to ISIS and its threat of resurgence.
Indeed it may return especially in Iraq but this prospect is only being
exacerbated by Shiite dominated Baghdad's policy of repression and revenge
against the Sunni population. These policies aren't just being quietly
supported by Washington, the Pentagon continues to provide military support. In
other words Washington is helping to create the very conditions that will lead
to the return of ISIS. Trump's Syrian withdrawal will always be pointed to but
it is in reality but a small piece in a larger puzzle. What many can't seem to
figure out is that since 1990 (at least) the US has been looking for reasons to
involve itself in the Middle East and keep a substantial military footprint in
the region.
What the Establishment is really mad about is the fact that
Syria is in the end a victory for Assad and for Putin. Some have tried to play
the Trump is a Putin puppet card. On
this point, it would seem Trump is giving a Putin gift but that's not entirely
accurate either. A troop withdrawal doesn't always mean full disengagement. Time
will tell just what it means and doesn't mean and Trump's motives are (at this
point) unclear. And yet Trump's overall policy toward Putin has been one of
ever increasing hostility. And yet primarily Trump still wants to focus on
China. He's always been with the Establishment minority Blue Team in terms of US imperialism and wants to disentangle the
US from the ever expanding war in the Middle East. The thought (among that
faction) has always been that in the new 'Clash of Civilisations'-type world of
the post-Cold War, Russia is a natural ally and friendlier relations with
Moscow will break the Russia-Iran relationship and allow the US to focus on its
real enemies... Islam in general, Tehran and Beijing.
And so while Trump is in many ways an iconoclast, he at many
key and even critical points still represents the interests of the
Establishment or at least factions within it. The struggle at present is
largely due to a state of virtual civil war within US and Western ruling
circles which are in a state of crisis. Economics, resources, technology,
geopolitics and ideology have been pushed to the breaking point in the wake of
the Cold War's end and the struggle to re-shape the world. Everyone points to
9/11 as the seminal moment and indeed the events of that day have played an
important role in re-shaping the state and society but the larger crisis, the
larger struggle dates to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the
dissolution of the USSR twenty-five months later in December 1991.
And yet for all the bluster in the media (and the 'Left') with
regard to US troops in Syria, there's a substantial set of assumptions being
made and they are never questioned.
What right does the US have to be in Syria? What right does
the US have to hold territory in Syria?
Additionally when one looks at the history of the Syrian
Civil War, the rise of ISIS and US military conduct in places like Mosul (Iraq)
and the ISIS 'capital' in Raqqa, many more questions could be asked, but
they're not.
It has been stunning to observe all these supposedly
anti-American and anti-Establishment thinkers suddenly come to bat for US
imperialism and all but demand that US troops stay in country and if anything
expand the scope of their operations. These 'Leftists' even lavish praise on 'Mad
Dog' Mattis, the so-called 'adult in the room' who is in reality a war criminal
and certainly the 'Butcher of Fallujah'.
Few in the media have focused on what the Syrian withdrawal
will mean with regard to the US relationship with Turkey, one that Washington
desperately wants to repair, one that Moscow would like to see permanently sundered.
Turkey is a critical ally for the United States and Washington has on many
occasions used and betrayed the Kurds in the interest of maintaining the Ankara
relationship.
Are the Turks going to slaughter the Kurds? Probably. This
isn't the first time and interestingly American media has never cared about it
before and a case could be made that for decades they've helped to cover it up.
But suddenly under Trump, they care deeply about the Kurds? I
think not.
From Trump's perspective it would be better to provide
weapons, intelligence and logistical support to the Turks, Israelis and Saudis
and let them focus on Syria. This will allow the Pentagon to focus like a
laser-beam on the Asia-Pacific region. This is not to say that Trump wouldn't
still utilise air and missile strikes in the Middle East but he definitely
wants to shift the focus to East Asia.
There are some who agree with him and yet there are also many
aggressive Neo-Cons and increasingly a group we could call the CIA-Pentagon
Democrats who want the US to either focus primarily on the Middle East and
Russia and then of course there are those (maniacal people like John Bolton) who
want the US to pursue all fronts aggressively. The more realistic thinkers even
in the Pentagon will acknowledge there are serious difficulties with such a
three-front strategy.
Even Trump with all his bluster and all his increased
military spending seems to know (or has been advised) that such a strategy
would weaken America's hand... especially if Iran, Russia and China started to
coordinate strategy. Such a move would all but force them into a tight
alliance, something the American warmongers seem unwilling to contemplate or
are so arrogant as to dismiss it.
I think a case could be made that many intellectuals and
political thinkers at this point wouldn't mind a wider conflict. They fear the
continued domestic unrest and potential social breakdown in the United States.
Wars can galvanise society... or break it. But the propaganda machine has been
running white hot since the post-Vietnam era and thus far there isn't much of
an anti-war movement. Even those at the bottom of society, those being ground
into the dust by their own fellow-citizens have bought into the 'hero' mantra.
As far as the anti-war, supposedly anti-imperialist Left... well,
it would seem they're not really opposed to these things at all. It just
depends on the context. If the conditions are right not only do they support
the power and paradigms of Wall Street but they even support the Pentagon as an
expression of Western power. We are far removed from 19 May 1972 when the
Weather Underground set off a bomb in the Pentagon in order to protest the
bombing of Hanoi.
Trump is deplorable in every way but don't be fooled. Those
that oppose him do not necessarily hold the moral high ground and are not
always what they seem.
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