Are US and allies supporting Bashar Al Assad

(MENAFN- The Peninsula)

By Dr Faisal Al Qasim

In a report carried by the London Review of Books the prominent American investigative journalist and political writer Seymour Hersh who has been for a long time been close to the Syrian President Bashar Al Assad made the statement that “the American Joint Military Staff provided the Syrian Army with security information through Germany Russia and Israel”.

Former Director of the American ‘Defense Intelligence Agency’ (DIA) Michael Flynn also told the magazine that between 2012 and 2014 his agency sent a number of messages warning of the impact of overthrowing Assad’s regime. Accordingly his agency began to provide the regime with intelligence information without the approval of the politicians aiming to support the regime in its war against ‘common enemies’ like Al Nusra Front and ISIS (which America had also supported directly or indirectly).

What Hersh has stated clearly contradicts what the regime usually claims. Assad claims that he is facing the conspiracy of US and its allies because of the “resistance position” Syria took against Israel and US- for example allowing Hamas a safe haven. The regime repeatedly claimed that the main aim of the current revolution against him is to force him move from the resistance’s side to the US and allies side.

However looking at the situation in Syria after five years shows us that the “discourse of resistance” used by the regime does not fit the situation on the ground. If there is a real conspiracy it definitely it is not going against the regime but against Syria and its people. Although the regime has suffered big military and financial loses it still receives supports from its allies Russia and Iran and the main loser is the Syrian people.

Even the so-called “Friends of the Syrian People” seem much closer to the regime than the people of Syria. Those ‘friends’ allowed the regime to use different type of weapons against his people and they deprived the revolution from having weapons to resist the destruction and collective killing of innocent people which are taking place on daily basis. How can it be the case that the US and its Arab allies were conspiring against the regime when they left him for five years to do whatever he wanted against his opponents? In fact if the regime represents such a bastion of resistance to the US and Israel they would not have allowed Russia to intervene and rescue him. If Assad and his allies Iran and Hezbollah represent the “resistance bloc” then Israel would not have allowed them to reach its border.

Regarding the situation in Syria; Russia is coordinating with Israel which in turn means coordination through Russia with the Syrian regime Iran and Hezbollah. This means that the so-called “resistance bloc” is in the same trench with Israel and Russia. This asserts the falsehood of Assad’s claim that he is facing a global conspiracy through support provided to the armed opposition groups. Without Israeli and American cover his regime would have been overthrown long ago.

So what do the superpowers want from Syria if all states in the East and West are supporting the regime and protecting him and insisting on making him part of any political solution? Some believe that the regime has succeeded in arming the revolution by releasing thousands of extremists from prisons to join the opposition and thus managed to turn the revolution from a civil popular revolution into extremist and terrorist groups providing a good excuse to keep bombing. If this is correct then why did others send their extremists to Syria to join these groups? In fact it seems that the goals of the major actors in Syria have coincided upon the aim of targeting the people of Syria and not the regime.

The question that should now be answered is what is their purpose in destroying the Syrian civilisation and emptying Syria of most of its inhabitants? Unfortunately these events seem eerily similar to Iraq and Libya and to the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and seem to reflect a plan for a ‘War on Terror’ and division of Muslim majority Middle Eastern countries which General Wesley Clark of the USA knows all about.

The writer is an internationally renowned television personality based in Qatar. He is known for hosting the famous and controversial live debate show The Opposite Direction on Al Jazeera Arabic Channel.