In a twist of irony that has escaped mainstream commentators, during the week of 9/11, the US is considering a course of action that will empower Al-Qaeda, i.e. bombing Syria.
As terror expert Evan Kohlmann put it, “two of the most powerful insurgent factions in Syria are Al-Qaeda factions.”Kohlmann is an authority on the subject, having worked as a consultant in terrorism matters for the DoD, DOJ, FBI, and other law enforcement agencies.
Regarding the prospective strike on Syria, Steven A. Cook, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at The Council on Foreign Relations, warns that“American and allied cruise missiles would be to the benefit of the Al-Qaeda-linked militants fighting Assad—the same militants whom US drones are attacking regularly in places such as Yemen.”
According to Bloomberg, speaking off the
record with military and intelligence officials within Obama’s
own administration, “among the primary concerns expressed were
that the main beneficiaries could be groups affiliated with
Al-Qaeda.”
Assad is a secular leader, which is one of the reasons he is
hated by Al-Qaeda. Bombing the secular regime he represents makes
it easier for fundamentalist challengers like Al-Qaeda to seize
power. Such transfer of power, from secular regimes to religious
extremists, is not without recent precedent. In Iraq, the US
overthrow of secular leader, Saddam Hussein, enabled an Al-Qaeda
organization (AQI) to emerge in Iraq in 2003. As the head of UN
weapons inspections in Iraq points out, AQI “didn’t exist in the
country until after the invasion.” Now the US wants to
participate in the Syrian conflict—the very same conflict that’s
provided a sanctuary for AQI leaders.
On the topic of Iraq, the US intelligence community expected the
invasion of Iraq to increase the likelihood of terror attacks
against the US. As a letter from CIA Director George Tenet to
the Senate Intelligence Committee chair revealed, it was
anticipated that Bush’s invasion of Iraq would lead to “much
less constrain[t] in adopting terrorist actions”. The
intelligence community was correct; according to a study by research fellows at the NYU School
of Law, terror has increased by over 600% following the invasion
of Iraq.
Now the US intelligence community is anticipating that a strike
on Syria would, as previously stated, “be…to the benefit of
the Al-Qaeda-linked militants.” We can only hope they’re
wrong this time around.
If we had an authentic democracy—rule by the people—an attack
wouldn’t happen, because strong majorities oppose intervening in
Syria. Polls conducted by Reuters almost daily between May 31st
and September 3rd indicate without exception that a strong
majority of Americans are opposed to intervening in Syria, even
if Syria used chemical weapons. Similarly, a
poll conducted by the BBC shows that, in the UK, “71% of
people thought Parliament made the right decision” to reject
military action against Syria. Two thirds of respondents said
they wouldn’t care if Parliament’s decision harmed UK-US
relations.
Another poll shows that a stunning 80% of
Americans believe that Obama should seek congressional approval
for a strike on Syria. The Obama administration has interpreted
this rather narrowly, having scheduled a congressional vote, but
still insisting that Obama has the right to attack Syria “no
matter what Congress does”, as Secretary of State John Kerry
bluntly remarked. Obama said the same thing, albeit somewhat more
tactfully: “I believe I have the authority to carry out this
military action without specific congressional
authorization”.
The polls pertaining to the prospective strike on Syria differ
significantly from those regarding the US and UK support for the
Iraq War. Back in 2003, a series of polls found that a majority of Britons
supported the invasion of Iraq; Americans at the time supported
the invasions by even larger majorities.
Simply put, there’s less support for a strike on Syria than there
was for the invasion of Iraq—and we know how well the Iraq War
turned out.
Yet public opinion and the threat of provoking terror attacks are
not persuasive to the unfathomable wisdom of the Obama
administration. As John Kerry said, a strike on Syria “is of great
consequence to…all of us who care about enforcing the
international norm with respect to chemical weapons.”
Apparently Kerry is more concerned with international norms than
international law, since attacking Syria without a UN Security
Council resolution would violate the latter. In Obama’s words, the Security Council is
“paralyzed”—meaning it won’t do what he tells it to do.
Matthew Waxman, writing for the Council on Foreign Relations,
observes that, “despite treaties outlawing
chemical weapons use, there is no precedent for using military
intervention as a response to violations.”
To be fair to the Obama administration, we should listen to what
US leaders have to say about chemical weapons; they’re experts on
the matter. In Iraq alone, they used white
phosphorous and depleted uranium munitions, which coincided
with an explosion of birth defects documented by a recent study published in the Bulletin of
Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. According to an Al Jazeera journalist,
incidences of congenital malformations in the city of Fallujah
surpassed those that followed the atomic bombs dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
Ken Klippenstein lives in Madison, WI,
USA, where he edits whiterosereader.org. He can be reached via email at
kenneth.klippenstein@gmail.com or on Twitter @kenklippenstein
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.