Robert Parry: Official Washington’s Syrian ‘Fantasy’

[marmar]

from Consortium News:


Official Washington’s Syrian ‘Fantasy’
October 1, 2014

Exclusive: It is perhaps not news that the U.S. government bases wars on illusions, such as the nonexistent WMD in Iraq, but it is rare when there is a broad consensus before the conflict begins that a war’s success rests on a “fantasy” like the chimera of “moderate” Syrian rebels, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry


What does it say when the capital of the world’s most powerful nation anchors a major decision about war in what every thinking person acknowledges is a “fantasy” – even the principal policymaker and a top advocate for foreign interventions?

It might suggest that the U.S. government has completely lost its bearings or that political opportunism now so overwhelms rationality that shortsighted expediency determines life-or-death military strategies. Either way, it is hard to see how the current U.S. policy toward Iraq, Syria and the larger Middle East can serve American national interests or translate into anything but more misery for the people of the region.

Official Washington’s most treasured “fantasy” today is the notion that a viable “moderate opposition” exists in Syria or could somehow be created. That wish-upon-a-star belief was the centerpiece of congressional action last month on a $500 million plan by President Barack Obama to train and arm these “moderate” rebels to combat Islamic State terrorists who have been plundering large swaths of Syria and Iraq — and also take on the Syrian army.

Yet, as recently as August, President Barack Obama publicly declared that trust in these “moderates” was a “fantasy” that was “never in the cards” as a workable strategy. Then, on Wednesday, David Ignatius, national security columnist for the neoconservative Washington Post and a prominent booster of U.S. interventionism, reported from a rebel staging area in Reyhanli, Turkey, the same reality in nearly the same language. ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2014/10/01/official-washingtons-syrian-fantasy/

[leftstreet]

1. DURec

[malthaussen]

2. Well, if you believe David Halberstam...

... the Johnson administration started bombing North Vietnam even though everyone in the government knew it wouldn't work. It's really not uncommon for governments to do "stupid stuff," because they place more value on being perceived to be "doing something" than on being perceived as inactive. Even here on DU, a common conversation-stopper to posts that suggest a proposed course of action won't work is "So we should just do nothing, then?" Few people have the courage to answer "Yes."

-- Mal

[malaise]

3. K & R

Give thanks for Parry

[Purveyor]

4. kick. Thanks for posting. +1 eom

[eridani]

5. Couple of more paragraphs

Ignatius quoted Syrian rebel commander Hamza al-Shamali, a top recipient of American support including anti-tank missiles, as saying, “At some point, the Syrian street lost trust in the Free Syrian Army,” the U.S.-backed rebel force that was the armed wing of the supposedly “moderate opposition” to President Bashar al-Assad. Ignatius added:

“Shamali explains that many rebel commanders aren’t disciplined, their fighters aren’t well-trained and the loose umbrella organization of the FSA lacks command and control. The extremists of the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra have filled the vacuum. Now, he says, ‘the question every Syrian has for the opposition is: Are you going to bring chaos or order?’”