Saudi Crown Prince, Trump Together Staring At Syrian
Exit Door
Saeed
Naqvi
The Crown
Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman, 32, has once again given international
affairs a twist which has caused a hush to descend on the world centres of
power.
He announced
that Bashar al Assad would not be toppled. “Bashar is staying”, he said, then
continued, “but we believe Bashar’s interests are not to let Iran do whatever
they want to do.” He also added, in parenthesis, that “American troops should
stay for atleast the short term if not the long term.”
This last bit
of advice to the Americans was obviously an immediate response to what Donald
Trump had announced in Ohio. He said US troops would be pulled out of “that war
weary country” very soon.
Did this
statement invite a panicked response from MBS in the course of his interview to
Time magazine set up in New York’s Plaza hotel? Or, was it all choreographed
with the Americans, in response to some “other” development.
The US
President announces troop withdrawals from Syria just when the Saudi Crown
Prince is visiting him. MBS goes one better. He makes the entire Saudi policy
since the beginning of the Syrian war stand on its head. President Assad can
now keep power in Damascus. Until a few days ago “Assad had to go”. This was
non negotiable.
The chorus has
been joined by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Addressing the UN
Human Rights Council, he thumped the table and screamed with emotion. What is
happening in Ghouta, south of Damascus is “Hell on Earth” and that “it must be
stopped”.
So divided is
opinion on the Syrian conflict, that fingers were instantly pointed at him.
Does the description “Hell on Earth” apply only to Ghouta and not what the
world saw in Aleppo, Idlib, Mosul, Fallujah, Yemen? After all, hundreds of
thousands of migrants walked, sailed, drove to Europe to escape the unspeakable
horrors of Syria, Libya, even Iraq. No one saw the Secretary General do the “Tandav”
then. He was not heard screaming. “Hell on Earth.” There must be something
special about eastern Ghouta. What is it?
Sifting
details, a narrative does emerge in sharper profile. A major provocation by the
“opposition” (for which read US led alliance) in Idlib near Aleppo, cause
Syrian troops, their Russian backers in tow, to rush in that direction. Syrian
Intelligence, meanwhile, picks up chatter which suggests that Idlib may have
been a diversionary ploy. In “opposition” focus was the biggest game of all:
attack on Damascus. If true, it was an audacious plan.
Tanfs, on the
Syrian side of the border with Iraq (Al Waleed is on the other side) serves as
a US base. To grasp the plan a map of Syria, bordering Iraq, Jordan and Israel
would help. About 30,000 trained militants, in small batches, were to move
along the border with Jordan, looping around Daraa towards Quneitra, the Golan
Heights, looking for passages into Ghouta. This is where the White Helmets were
to play a key role.
Media
audiences may be forgiven for imaging that White Helmets are variants of
Medicines without Borders, the Red Cross and so on. This precisely is the way
they have been projected on global media. Let me give you an example:
On October 12,
2016, Christiane Amanpour of the CNN, places in Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey
Lavrov’s hand a photograph of a four year old Syrian boy with a burnt face.
This is in the course of an interview with Lavrov, who looks at the photograph
and mutters “very sad”. In the same interview he says openly that the US was
helping the Nusra Front.
On October 20,
the same photograph is flourished by Hillary Clinton during the final
Presidential debate with Trump in Las Vegas. Clinton even simulates a lump in
her throat while dwelling on Russian perfidy in Syria. Remember, throughout
that election campaign, Trump was painted in dark colours as a beneficiary of
Russian favours.
Now, let’s
turn to Vanessa Beeley, of the 21st Century Wire website. She paints
the White Helmets in lurid colours. According to her and a host of alternative
media, White Helmets are part of the West-led anti Syrian war effort.
It was this alternative
media which posted visuals of the very same “burnt boy” being strapped to a
chair in a mobile studio even as cameramen produce pictures which find their
way to Amanpour and Clinton during shows with record viewership. It is a
frightening reality.
Now let’s
revert to the plan to take Damascus. As thousands of trained “rebels” close in
on the Syrian capital, the White Helmets, who, according to Beeley, are also
false flag specialists, will detonate poison gas or something worse which the
global media (also part of the operation) amplifies as the greatest detonation
since Bikini Island. The day would only be saved by a massive US led air
campaign. My source for this drama is only the alternative media which, alas,
is the most credible outlet available since the mainstream media appears to
have been mobilized for the “war effort”. This I know from my visits to Syria.
As often
happens, the Damascus plan leaked. Syrians had spared Ghouta thus far for a
simple reason: the human shield factor made it a forbidding operation. But
after the leakage of the mega plan, Syrians and the Russians had no option but
to go for broke on Ghouta. The white Helmets also went full throttle with their
propaganda amplifiers. The world saw the horrors of Ghouta (albeit manufactured)
on their TV sets.
In the meanwhile,
the Syrian army captured Western, Israeli, Saudi intelligence assets working
out of a full-fledged control room in Ghouta. This, as I indicated in an earlier
paragraph, is what is special about Ghouta.
Does this
explain the suddenness of revelation with which the script on Syria has been altered?
And, can peace which results from a gigantic blackmail, last?
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