By Ted Belman
It doesn’t really matter who is responsible for the gas attacks. What matters is that the attacks present the US with the opportunity to turn things around in Syria.
The present perception in the US is that Assad is responsible and he is aided and abetted by Russia and Iran. This almost unanimous perception in the US and Trump’s willingness to punish Assad severely has Russia and Iran back on their heels.
Trump must and will enforce his red line. After doing so the US should take charge of directing the solution. It should do or propose the following:
1. It should remain in the territory it now controls namely all lands to the east of the Euphrates and some to the west namely around Manji. This amounts to 30% of Syria and contains 70% of her oil reserves.
2. While there she should assist the inhabitants, mainly Kurds and other minorities, to develop governing institutions and an army for self defense.
3. They should accept the same for the Alawites in the territories they control in Western Syria to the Mediterranean. Assad can continue to lead them and Russia can keep their port and airbase so long as Assad agrees.
4 As for the remaining 50% of Syria, it should be reserved for the Sunnis. In order to stabelize it and suppress the reemergence of ISIS, Saudi Arabia should be put in charge with the assistence of Jordan and Egypt.
5. In effect Syria would be divided into three Mandates in which the US, Russia and Saudi Arabia respectively are the Mandate powers. Over time these Mandates could become independant and federalize if they so choose.
6. Iran must be excluded entirely.
7. Iraq could also join such a federation to enable it to escape the clutches of Iran. This is so even though Iraq is 60% Shiite. For greater stability Iraq could become a federated state in which the Kurds continue with their autonomy and with the Sunnis being granted a similar autonomy. The oil wealth should be shared on a per capita basis.
Under American leaderhip, the mistakes made by Britain and France in the disposition of the Ottoman territories after WWI could be corrected for the good of all.
@ WB:
You posted the same rubbish in the other article where it was headed that Israel can bring down Assad, and I’ll say the same as I said there… There is NO hope that the Arabs will ever make REAL peace with Israel, the JEWISH State. They hate us and only cosy up, like now, when they have someone smart at their head who sees they NEED us but as soon as that need diminishes, they go back to mumbling Koranic verses in their whiskers and will look for the opportunity to destroy the State.
How many times must we stretch out the hand of peace and have it chopped off. We are running out of “hands”..
Israel should stop being a sharmuta for Saudi-America Incorporated and make peace with Syria – not do to them what the world wants to do to us (divide us by ethnic groups).
Read my first paragraph carefully.
A new U.S. strategy makes the same point.
The pieces should be encouraged to unravel and fall into place through their own gravity. The natural centrifugal forces exerted on Arab society will kick in and Infidels will not be required to put in much effort. Trump will thus be able to minimize further American sacrifices, which is of strategic importance for him and his success. The US must only do very little, less is more.
In Mesopotamia, this means let the Kurds fend for themselves, however, supply the Syrian Kurds with weapons, know-how, areal and ballistic coverage, provide them with some cash, and make sure they can harvest the oil resources lying in their ancestral lands. Syrian Kurds should then be encouraged to ally themselves with their Iraqi brethren, and wrestle the important Kurdish oil regions of Kirkuk and Mosul back out of Sunni and Shiite control thereby depriving Iran of a strategic asset.
As a nice by product, American oil corporations will receive a first place at the table when concessions are awarded by Kurds, benefiting the US.
That all will go a long way to weaken Iran and also what is left of Iraq. Another program should be run to coax the tribal fractions within Iran, Yazidis, Kurds, Zoroastrians, Baluchis, Sunnis as well as progressive secular westernized Iranians to splinter that nation into malleable entities. These elements will do the job by themselves.
Finally, Turkey should be read the riot act. Its funding withheld by America and the Gulf nations who anyhow look down on any Muslims who are not really Arab and they will also be asked to pull the rug under the Turkish financial system. To wrap it up, Turkey’s Kurds should receive any help to coalesce with the emerging Kurdish coalition to their East. That will take care of Erdogan.
Russia will resist this scenario, because in addition to its gas supplied via the Ukraine, Putin wants to control the complete energy lifeline supporting Western Europe’s economy, and that includes an Iranian line of supply running through Syria, Turkey or the Lebanon and westwards.
The depraved witch hunt against Putin waged by the American ancien régime must be stopped, Putin will be given certain concessions, whether with and perhaps better without a military foothold in the region, and things will come to rest.
The over-all outlines of this plan of ted’s are excellent. But it would be better if the U.S. would administer the Sunni area rather than Jordan and Saudi Arabia, because the power of the Islamic fundamentalists in these countries, which would certainly be exploited by the Sunni Jihadists in Syria and Iraq. As for Turkey, the U.S. demand that Turkey withdraw completely from both Syria and Iraq, and end its war against the Kurds. A threat to cut off military aid to Turkey, possibly reinforced by a threat to support a military coup against Erdogan as the price of ending such a cutoff, should bring to heal.
Turkey does what?