Israel Goes on a Rampage in Syria Part 2 (of a 2 Part Series)

The story continues from Part 1

*The American Role (what number)?

Washington had stopped targeting Jolani in August 2018.” A senior American official stated, “HTS was the least bad option of the various options on Idlib, and Idlib is one of the most important places in Syria, which is one of the most important places right now in the Middle East.”

In the North East of Syria, Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces are a proxy for the US, which is in occupation of Syrian oil and wheat fields there. This part of Syria is being “owned” by the US. The US has a smallish number of troops there and appears to depend on the roughly 100,000 Kurdish forces who enable them to steal almost all of Syria’s oil. In the south of Syria, a seemingly new grouping emerged. The Southern Operations Room, a merger of a coalition of Sunni and Druze groups, announced its creation on December 6. Staggeringly they were reportedly the first to reach Damascus. According to reports, these fighters would appear to be related to the previous Southern Operations groupings created by Jordanian & US intelligence agencies.

The CIA covert operation was run out of Amman in Jordan and involved the transfer of weapons, including from Saudi Arabia to the Jordanian intelligence agency for onward transmission to Syrian rebel groups. The agency is known as the General Intelligence Directorate. In fact, in 2016, “the CIA essentially created the GID to help shield the Jordanian monarchy from internal and external threats.” Fighters from the Southern Operations Room were the first to reach Damascus on the 7th of December and may have been involved in the case of armed rebels removing large numbers of boxes from the Syrian Central Bank. Following previous modus operandi by the CIA in Iraq and Libya, this was most likely gold bullion belonging to the Syrian state. How much was stolen is anybody’s guess.

So, all four of the supposedly disparate “rebel” forces would appear to be backed directly or indirectly, by the US .

The Kurdish-dominated SDF reported earlier that the SNA had been attacking Manbij, a city to the northeast of Aleppo, since November 27 and was advancing towards Kobani, a Kurdish stronghold near the border with Turkey. The SNA was conducting operations against Kurdish militias that are affiliated with the SDF and are considered terrorist groups in Turkey.

“We have reached a ceasefire agreement in Manbij with US mediation, in order to preserve the security and safety of civilians,” Abdi wrote on X in the early hours of Wednesday. He added that local SDF fighters “will be withdrawn from the area as soon as possible – our goal is a ceasefire across Syria and to enter into a political process for the future of the country,” Abdi wrote.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) have reached a ceasefire after days of fighting for control of the northern city of Manbij, top SDF commander Mazloum Abdi has announced. The US has reportedly attacked pro-Iranian Iraqi militias heading into Syria at the al-Bukamal crossing, not to mention targets near Deir Ezor. During the air strikes, three MLRS, a tank (for some reason listed as a T-64, which Syria does not have), an armored personnel carrier and several mortars were destroyed.

The RCA is an armed group established by defected Syrian Arab Army (SAA) troops and is headquartered in the al-Tanf area, near the Syria-Jordan-Iraq border area, in southern Syria. US forces are also stationed in the al-Tanf area, acting as an anti-Iran outpost. The group has now filled a major void vacated by the former regime forces, taking over one-fifth of the country’s territory and pockets north of the capital. The RCA was told to increase its forces and prepare for an attack that could “end” the Syrian regime.

“They did not tell us how it would happen,” Captain Bashar Mashadani, an RCA commander, told The Telegraph from a Syrian air base in the city of Palmyra. “We were just told: ‘everything is about to change. This is your moment. Either Assad will fall, or you will fall.’ But they did not say when or where, they just told us to be ready,” the commander added. The RCA remains on the US’s payroll. Mashadani said that in the weeks preceding the offensive, the RCA’s ranks were expanded by smaller “freelance” units, all of which were briefed at the US al-Tanf air base.

Palmyra, known for its ancient ruins, was among the main objectives of the US-backed operation. Fighters who captured the Russian-controlled air base in Palmyra were reportedly told to prepare to take such action in early November. The commander also said that Americans coordinated communication between RCA and HTS during the offensive. The HTS forces are famously murderously sectarian, and more evidence of this quickly emerged. At a geopolitical level, they are directly helping the Zionists to continue the genocide.. The Zionists themselves were about how useful the alleged ‘uprising’ is. “From Israel’s perspective, the rebel advance in northern Syria further isolates Iran and Hezbollah”, said Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official; “This ongoing Israeli pressure, coupled with the rebel offensive, weakens the ‘Axis of Resistance’ and challenges Iran’s hegemonic ambitions.”

*Muslims are Ignorant of the Geopolitical Realities in Syria

The ending of the Assad government begs all sorts of questions about what happened and the significance of the events. It is no surprise that the enemies of Syria, Assad and other supporters of Western power should celebrate, but the significant outpouring of positive sentiment from Muslims was perhaps more surprising. The failure to appreciate the geopolitics of it all and to apparently blithely accept the victory of takfiri terrorists is disturbing for those who see the importance of Muslim unity.

The outpouring of support for the so called “revolution” in sections of the Muslim community in the UK and elsewhere is an indication of the success of propaganda and misinformation much of it from the West and the Zionist entity. Once again, the Muslims have been led down a false path by the continued non-stop Western lies about Assad and Syria.

For the Empire, a Historic Victory or Grand Illusion?

Many now espouse the understandable sentiment that Israel and the US have achieved an unprecedented victory over their enemies.

First, let’s start with the obvious. At the moment, Israel is no closer to achieving its aims of returning its hostages, repopulating its citizens, or actually defeating Hezbollah as a fighting force on the battlefield. Israeli society has taken major blows in the last year of this crisis, and the trust in the government which was lost will not be recovered for a long time, if ever. The same goes for institutional trust, particularly between the military and political wing. Israel still appears headed toward decline.

Granted, there are potentialities for Israel to emerge on top, they simply don’t look likely just yet.

Firstly, Turkey is most likely to emerge as the chief victor and dominant influence over the powers in the region. Ostensibly, the group it controls most is the SNA rebels, which are not on perfect terms with HTS. However, ultimately the Syrian project has been a Turkish one, and Turkey’s main drive of Ottoman Empire revanchisim will eventually clash with Zionism’s Greater Israel project. Recall that the Ottoman Empire has classically controlled all of Palestine for hundreds of years, which includes Israel itself. You can levy accusations against Erdogan double-dealing and supplying Israeli oil and such, but these are all realpolitik practicalities and do not change the ultimate reality that Turkey’s destiny is to pursue restoration of its lost Ottoman lands, which includes not only all of Syria but Palestine and northern Iraq as well. That means by defeating an ‘independent’—but ultimately innocuous—Syria, Israel has just condemned itself to a future fate far worse than facing even distant Iran.

Does Israel even realize what it has just helped to facilitate? Instead of a peaceful secular state on its borders, it may soon have a rabid caliphate, led by someone without Assad’s temperance and pumped up by Turkey into a Reconquista of Jerusalem and Gaza. Israel thinks it has eliminated Iran from the chessboard but instead it has potentially brought on someone even far more historically aggressive, and someone who—unlike Iran—has an actual, real historical bone to pick with the colonial pretender of Israel. Israel seems to perhaps sense the blunder, as it began to immediately destroy ex-SAA military infrastructure before it falls into the new rebels’ hands: both Mezzeh airbase in Damascus and Syrian ships in Latakia were hit. Not exactly a good sign for the US-Israeli axis.

More and more recently Israeli figures have noted the need for expansion, hearkening to long-awaited Greater Israel prophecies:

Recall that Golan Heights is the eponym for which the nisba Al-Jolani (Golani) comes from. The HTS leader’s family is from the Golan Heights, and was displaced by Israel in the Six Day War. Can you see the problem here?

Israel is on a preordained path to more than just ‘local friction’ with Sunni groups: this is a religious show down that appears to be proceeding precisely to plan, which will lead down the line to Israel’s ultimate destruction.

Concurrently, Israel is proceeding with the plan to annex large chunks of Palestinian territory while keeping the Palestinian inhabitants in conditions of severe deprivation and isolation. If the maneuver is successful, Israel will end up with all of the territories it conquered during the 1967 war, including all of the Golan Heights and Jerusalem and most of the Palestinian Territories, including the best sources of water and agricultural land. The West Bank will find itself in the same situation as the Gaza strip, cut off from the outside world and surrounded by hostile Israeli military forces and Israeli settlements”.

Israelis generally are celebrating their ‘victories’. Hezbollah is contained, Syria is demilitarized, and Iran is not on Israel’s border. The threat to Israel today is of a qualitatively lower order. Is this, in itself, sufficient to allow tensions to ease, or to see some wider understandings to emerge?

Arab countries and Turkey have condemned the Israeli operations, with Saudi Arabia arguing that the IDF’s actions are further destabilizing the civil war-torn country.

Conclusion

The Global Majority may be mourning what, on the surface, looks like a nearly lethal blow against the Axis of Resistance. Yet there’s no way Russia, Iran, Iraq – and even thunderously silent China – will let a NATO-Israel-Turkey-backed jihadi proxy army prevail. Unlike the collective west, they are smarter, tougher, infinitely more patient, and consider the contours of the Big Picture ahead. It’s too early; sooner or later they will start rolling to prevent western-backed jihadists from spilling into Beijing, Tehran, and Moscow.

As it stands, the new regime in Damascus will be, for all practical purposes, backed by those who support and engineer Eretz Israel and the genocide of Palestine. It’s already out in the open, coming from Israeli cabinet officials themselves: Tel Aviv ideally would love to expel the population of Gaza and the West Bank to Syria, though Jordan is their preferred destination. This is the battle to focus on from now on. The late Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah was adamant when he insisted on the deeper meaning of losing Syria: “Palestine would be lost.” More than ever, it’s up to a Global Resistance not to allow it. Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad Jolani), the commander of the new regime forces’ military operations room, stated today that his forces “will not hesitate to hold criminals, killers, and security and military officers involved in the torture of the Syrian people accountable.”

“We will announce a first list of the names of senior figures implicated in torturing the Syrian people. Rewards will be offered for information about senior military and security officers involved in war crimes,” he added.

Syria has entered the abyss – the demons of al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the most intransigent elements of the Muslim Brotherhood are circling the skies. There is chaos, looting, fear, and a terrible passion for revenge scalds the blood. Street executions are rife. HTS and its factions have already descended into factional fighting. The Syrian ‘state’ dissolved in the middle of the night; the police and army went home, leaving weapons depots open for the Shebab to loot. The prison doors were flung open. Some, no doubt, were political prisoners; but many were not. Some of the most vicious inmates now roam the streets.

Two Possible Fates

Syria is now the plaything of a complex of vaguely aligned state interests. None have Syria’s interests as a strong, unified state high on their list. In such circumstances, Israel’s priority will be to promote sectarian divisions and stop a central authority from emerging to replace Assad. This has been Israel’s plan stretching back decades, and has shaped the thinking of the dominant foreign policy elite in Washington since the rise of the so-called neoconservatives under President George W Bush in the early 2000s. The aim has been to subjugate/destroy any state in the Middle East that refuses to submit to Israeli and US hegemony.

Israel cares only that Syria is riven by internal feuding and power-plays. In this regard, Syria’s fate is being modelled on that of the Palestinians. Syria’s future under HTS will come in two flavors only. Either submit and collude like the West Bank, or end up wrecked like Gaza. Now Israel is piling on more pressure to make sure any newcomer faces an even harder task. This is the proper context for answering the question of what comes next. There may be a choice but it will come in no more than two flavors. Syria can become the West Bank, or it can become Gaza. So far, the indications are that Israel is gunning for the Gaza option. Washington and Europe appear to prefer the West Bank route, which is why they have been focusing on the rehabilitation of HTS. In the Gaza scenario, Israel keeps pounding Syria, depriving the HTS faction or any other group of the ability to run the country’s affairs. Instability and chaos reign.

With Assad’s legacy of secular rule destroyed, bitter sectarian rivalries dominate, cementing Syria into separate regions. Feuding warlords, militias and crime families battle it out for local dominance.

There would be nothing new about this outcome for Syria in the worldview shared by Israel and the neocons. It draws on lessons Israel believes it learnt in both Gaza and Lebanon.

Israeli generals spoke of returning Gaza “to the Stone Age” long before they were in a position to realize that goal with the current genocide there. Those same generals first tested their ideas on a more limited scale in Lebanon, pummeling the country’s infrastructure under the so-called “Dahiya” doctrine. Israel believed such indiscriminate wrecking sprees offered a double benefit. Overwhelming destruction forced the local population to concentrate on basic survival rather than organize resistance. And longer term, the targeted population would understand that, given the severity of the punishment, any future resistance to Israel should be avoided at all costs. Their attention is directed inwards, towards strengthening their rule against rivals, not outwards towards Israel. Israel wants any central authority in Damascus had to be destroyed. The reasoning: “Centralized governments throughout the Arab world are the primary fulminators of Arab hatred of Israel.” Notably, both Syria and Libya – along with Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon and Iran – were on a list drawn up in Washington in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 by US officials close to Israel. All but Iran are now failed or failing states.

Security Contractor

The other possible outcome is that Syria becomes a larger version of the West Bank. In that scenario, HTS and Jolani are able to convince the US and Europe that they are so supine, so ready to do whatever they are told, that Israel has nothing to fear from them. Their rule would be modelled on that of Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the much-reviled Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. His powers are little greater than those of the head of a municipal council, overseeing schools and collecting the rubbish. His security forces are lightly armed – effectively a police force – used for internal repression and incapable of challenging Israel’s illegal occupation. Abbas has described as “sacred” his service to Israel in preventing Palestinians from resisting their decades-long oppression.

The Palestinian Authority’s active collusion was on show again at the weekend when its security forces a resistance leader in Jenin wanted by Israel. Jolani could similarly be cultivated as a security contractor. Largely thanks to Israel, Syria now has no army, navy or air force. It has only lightly armed factions such as HTS, other rebel militias like the misnamed Syrian National Army, and Kurdish groups. Under CIA and Turkish tutelage, HTS could be strengthened, but only enough to repress dissent in Syria. HTS would have powers but on license. Its survival would depend on keeping things quiet for Israel, both through a reign of intimidation against other Syrian groups, including the Palestinian refugee population, who threaten to fight Israel, and by keeping out other regional actors resisting Israel, such as Iran and Hezbollah.

And as with Abbas, Jolani’s rule in Syria would be territorially limited. The Palestinian leader has to contend with the fact that large swaths of the West Bank have been carved out as Jewish settlements under Israeli rule, and that he has no access to critical resources, including aquifers, agricultural land and quarries. Off-limits to HTS would likely be Kurdish areas policed by Turkey and the US, where much of the country’s oil is located, as well as a swath of territory in Syria’s south-west that Israel has invaded over the past two weeks. It is widely assumed Israel will annex these Syrian lands to extend its illegal occupation of the Golan, which it took from Syria in 1967. And it gets worse.

Israel has annexed the Al-Wahda dam in the basin of the Yarmouk River, close to the city of Al-Qusayr in the Dara’a governorate, and near the Jordanian border. This dam provides at least 30% of Syria’s water and 40% of Jordan’s water.

‘Love’ for Israel

Jolani understands only too well the options ahead of him. Perhaps not surprisingly, he appears far keener to become a Syrian Abbas than a Syrian Yahiya Sinwar. Jolani’s commanders have lost no time explaining that they have no beef with Israel and do not want to provoke hostilities with it. There were even declarations of “love” for Israel. “We do not want any conflict, whether with Israel or anyone else, and we will not let Syria be used as a Launchpad for attacks against Israel,” he told the London Times- a Rothschild paper.

A Channel 4 reporter who tried last week to press an HTS spokesman Arnaout, into addressing Israel’s attacks on Syria was startled by the response. Asked how HTS viewed the attacks on its sovereignty by Israel, Arnaout would only “Our priority is to restore security and services, revive civilian life and institutions and care for newly liberated cities. There are many urgent parts of day-to-day life to restore: bakeries, electricity, water, communications, so our priority is to provide those services to the people.”

It seems HTS is unwilling even to offer rhetorical opposition to Israeli war crimes on Syrian soil.

Wider Ambitions

All of this leaves Israel in a strong position to entrench its gains and widen its regional ambitions.

Israel has plans to double the number of Jewish settlers living illegally on occupied Syrian territory in the Golan.

Meanwhile, Syrian communities newly under Israeli military rule – in areas Israel has invaded since Assad’s fall – have requested their nominal government in Damascus and other Arab states to persuade Israel to withdraw. With good reason, they fear they face permanent occupation. Predictably, the same western elites so incensed by Russia’s violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity have raised not a peep of concern at Israel’s ever deepening violations of Syria’s territorial integrity. Once again, it is one rule for Israel, another for anyone Washington views as an enemy. With Syria’s air defenses out of the way, Israel now has a free run to Iran – either by itself or with US assistance – to attack the last target on the neocons’ seven-country hit list from 2001. The narrative of Syria’s “liberation” currently dominates western coverage. But so far the takeover of Damascus by HTS appears only to have liberated Israel, leaving it freer to bully and terrorize its neighbors into submission. Predictably, there’s not a peep across the NATO sphere about Tel Aviv’s feral, indiscriminate bombing and snatching of sovereign Syrian territory. That represents a glaring illustration of the “rules-based international order” in action.

Collective West is in rapture. Chatham House preaches a Syrian rebuilding in this “watershed moment” led by the U.S., EU, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, capable of “forging a consensus around Syria” that “could serve as the foundation for a new regional order.” The rabidly anti-BRICS Center for a New American Security (CNAS) demands “expelling Russia’s military presence” from Syria and “to close the country as an avenue for Iran’s power projection.” The Axis of Resistance is being mourned across the spectrum. Not so fast. The deeper meaning of the “ceasefire” between Israel and Hezbollah is that Israel for all practical purposes was defeated, even if they wreaked horrendous havoc on southern Lebanon and Beirut’s suburbs. Yet the real nitty-gritty starts now, even as the partition of Syria is already in effect. The partition will proceed along three other major vectors. Hegemon-controlled land and military bases – which might be used to attack Iraq. Forget about a fake sovereign Syria recovering their oil fields. Turkey-annexed land which will inevitably lead to the full absorption of Aleppo (already proclaimed by the Sultan on the record). As for Jolani, real name Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sha’a, for all his woke rebranding, he was Zarqawi’s lieutenant and Emir of Nineveh during the al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI, later reconverted as ISIS) rampage in Mesopotamia. There’s no way Baghdad will have political relations with a jihadi who is on Iraq’s most wanted list. Zarqawi became a CIA asset.

Meanwhile, the Empire of Chaos will continue its plunder – in conjunction with Israel. The Syrian oil stolen by the Americans is sold by the Kurds to Israel in Erbil with a huge discount. After all, this oil is “free” – as in stolen. At least 40% of Israel’s oil comes from the Erbil racket. Everything is so predictable: what the NATO/Israel combo really wants is an amputated, disaggregated, vulnerable Syria. The only thing that matters for the two families, when it comes to the disintegration of Syria, is the window of opportunity ahead for Israel to attack Iran. The Times of Israel is in rapture: while previously the “IAF would not fly directly over Damascus when carrying out strikes on Iran-linked targets in the capital, it now can.” Our next article is titled – “Syria- aftermath & consequences of the Coup “.