Nir Rosen's reports from Syria

Today, the final installment of Nir Rosen's interview series with al-Jazeera was published.  Rosen, a Lebanon based journalist and the author of two books: "In the Belly of the Green Bird: The triumph of the martyrs in Iraq" and "Aftermath: following the bloodshed of America's Wars in the Muslim World," spent the last two months in Syria, the second extended trip he has made to the embattled state in the past year.
His interviews can be found here:
Part 1: Armed Opposition
Part 2: The Protest Movement
Part 3: Syrian Sectarianism
Part 4: Daily Life in Syria
Part 5: Rosen's predictions
And here is his website, full of his previous reporting from Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East

Some excerpts from each section follow below:

On the Armed Opposition

• The FSA is a name endorsed and signed on to by diverse armed opposition actors throughout the country, who each operate in a similar manner and towards a similar goal, but each with local leadership. Local armed groups have only limited communication with those in neighbouring towns or provinces - and, moreover, they were operating long before the summer.
• While fighters are often portrayed in the media as defectors from the Syrian military, the majority are civilians who have taken up arms. The opposition believes it will have more legitimacy if fighters are dubbed "defectors", and described collectively as the Free Syrian Army.
• In my encounters with armed opposition groups throughout Syria, I was reminded of Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in south Lebanon, Iraqi Sunni and Shia insurgents and resistance groups as well as the Taliban in Afghan villages - not in the religious sense, but in how they were an organic part of the community. 
•  The armed phenomenon began in rural areas, known in Arabic as the reef, and in the working class urban shaabiareas. Men there were more likely to own guns and were known as qabaday - "tough" men more likely to have the courage (and potential for violence) that one needs to respond violently to security forces. 
• From an early stage of the uprising, suspected informants for the regime have been intimidated, expelled and often killed.
• The armed groups generally operate secretly and in small groups, conducting ambushes on targets of opportunity using light arms and, increasingly, improvised explosive devices. For the past few months, insurgents have been using improvised explosive devices such as those found in Iraq, Afghanistan or southern Lebanon. Unlike in Iraq, however, the explosives used in these IEDs are fertiliser-based. These have been used in Idlib, Hama and Homs. In addition, rocket-propelled grenades - such as LAW anti-tank shells - have also more recently been used as shoulder-fired anti-armour missiles. The fighters have access to some sniper rifles as well.
• The Syrian insurgency is not well-armed or well-funded. Fighters purchase their weapons locally on the black market, from arms dealers and smugglers who are profiting from the violence in Syria. I have been with insurgents purchasing weapons and seen how they arrange to do so via smugglers from Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey.
• Many fund their arms purchases by turning to their savings or selling what valuables they have, or the products of their shops or farms. Others borrow money from friends. Much of the financing comes from Syrian businessmen inside or outside the country. Some Syrian opposition activists and politicians in exile are sending money to people inside. In addition, diaspora Syrians tied to Islamist movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, or to conservative clerics in the Gulf, also send money to certain groups.
• The debate over whether or not it is peaceful is not based on empirical research but on propaganda from both sides. The pro-regime media wants to portray the revolutionaries as nothing more than armed criminals and terrorist gangs. In response, opposition supporters have, until recently, denied all violence - fetishising the notion of a peaceful revolution - which has hurt not only their credibility, but the credibility of foreign media which often uncritically report their accounts.
• Every day the opposition gives a death toll, usually without any explanation of the cause of the deaths. Many of those reported killed are in fact dead opposition fighters, but the cause of their death is hidden and they are described in reports as innocent civilians killed by security forces, as if they were all merely protesting or sitting in their homes. Of course, those deaths still happen regularly as well.  And, every day, members of the Syrian army, security agencies and the vague paramilitary and militia phenomenon known as shabiha ["thugs"] are also killed by anti-regime fighters.
• A the fighters I met - in the provinces of Homs, Idlib, Hama, Deraa and the Damascus suburbs - were Sunni Muslims, and most were pious.
• They fight for a multitude of reasons: for their friends, for their neighbourhoods, for their villages, for their province, for revenge, for self-defence, for dignity, for their brethren in other parts of the country who are also fighting. They do not read religious literature or listen to sermons. Their views on Islam are consistent with the general attitudes of Syrian Sunni society, which is conservative and religious.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar openly arming the Syrian opposition

Where the NATO players are still hiding in the shadows, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have come out in the open in their arming of those fighting against the Assad government.  Foreign Policy magazine reports that the Saudi monarchy has been "sending weapons on an ad hoc basis to the Syrian opposition by way of Sunni tribal allies in Iraq and Lebanon.  But in light of recent developments, more weapons are certainly on their way."  At last week "Friends of Syria" conference (or more correctly "enemies of Assad") the Saudi foreign minister was upset that no declaration was made to help arm the opposition, and now it appears the Sauds have moved to the front on the interventionist pack.
       In this venture, Riyadh is possibly being joined by their GCC buddy Qatar, where Prime Minister al-Thani recently said "We should do whatever necessary to help the Syrian opposition, including giving them weapons to defend themselves."

Foggy Bottom Hawks, Pentagon Doves

Are the American armed services trying to keep us out of another World War, and more importantly, are they failing? Recently, it has been State Department and White House officials, and not military leaders, who have been beating the war drums on Iran and Syria. The Pentagon higher-ups, in fact, have become the diplomats arguing for restraint. One remarkable example is the appearance by General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Fareed Zakaria's Sunday morning CNN show on Feb. 19th. The program began with a long introduction by Zakaria, a former head of the Council on Foreign Relations, who compared Israel's current perception of Iran as an irrational rouge state bent on military domination to American demonization of the USSR in the early years of the Cold War, a view Zakaria paints as incorrect because of the power of deterrence. Then he drops a political bomb, at least for CNN's Sunday morning standards, "And, remember, Israel has 250 nuclear bombs, many on submarines, to ensure that Tehran realizes it would be mutually assured destruction. And while the Iranian regime is often called crazy, it has done much less to merit that term than did a regime such as Mao's China."

       With this political stage set, one where Israel has nuclear weapons and Iran is led by a government that does not want to kill its own citizens, out trotted Dempsey, America's highest ranking military official.  What did the Pentagon's man have to say? Well for one, Iran is a "rational actor" that has "not decided that  they will embark on the effort to weaponize their nuclear capability."  And that "it's not prudent" for Israel to attack Iran.  On the Syrian front, Dempsey emphasized that the Syrian opposition shouldn't be armed because at this point, "I would challenge anyone to clearly identify for me the opposition movement in Syria." He continued on to describe the prospect of intervening in Syria as "very difficult," not least due to the Syrian Army, which he called "very capable." "They have a very sophisticated, integrated air defense system, for example. They have chemical and biological weapons. Now, they haven't demonstrated any interest or any intent to use those, but it is a very different military problem," said Dempsey, not sounding like a General who was eager to lead any march on Damascus.

       In fact, Dempsey was repeating some of the same messages that top military intelligence leaders had just delivered to Congress.  On Feb. 16th Generals James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, and Ronald Burgess, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.  Burgess stated that Iran was "unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict or launch a preemptive attack," and that Syria similar to American ally Yemen, stuck "in a stalemate" between a "cohesive but embattled regime," and a "fractured opposition" that has "yet to either coalesce into forces capable of overthrowing the regime or convince the majority of the population they are a viable alternative."  He also described Syria's military as a "viable, cohesive, and effective force," that is "acquiring sophisticated weapons systems such as advanced surface-to-air and coastal defense missiles," as well as possessing "a stockpile of CW weapons that can be delivered by aircraft or ballistic missiles."  General Clapper, in his testimony, added on that the U.S. intelligence community believes that Al Qaeda in Iraq had "infiltrated the opposition groups" in Syria.  Again, two more top officers who don't sound like they want any part of a Western intervention in Iran or Syria.

      Last November, John H. John, a retired Army general and National Defense University professor, wrote an op-ed of similar theme in The New York Times, calling out the Republican primary candidates, and the war hawks in general, for being over-belligerent on Iran without asking any of needed questions, and without listening to the opionon of the Armed Forces:

The problem with these arguments is that they flatly ignore or reject outright the best advice of America’s national security leadership. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, former congressman Admiral Joe Sestak and former CENTCOM Commander General Anthony Zinni are only a few of the many who have warned us to think carefully about the repercussions of attacking Iran. Two months ago, Sestak put it bluntly: “A military strike, whether it’s by land or air, against Iran would make the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion look like a cakewalk with regard to the impact on the United States’ national security.”

Now, compare this to the any batch of recent statements coming out of the State Department. Concerning the advancement of Iran's civilian nuclear enrichment program, Clinton recently said that it "demonstrates the Iranian regime's blatant disregard for its responsibilities and that the country's growing isolation is self-inflicted (1/11/12)." Concerning the U.S. pullout from Iraq, which was essentially forced by Shia leader and Iranian confidant Moqtada al-Sadr's popularity, Clinton tried to prop up any lingering American claims on Iraq, stating "no one should miscalculate our commitment to Iraq, most particularly Iran (10/23/11)." Are these statements towards a "rational actor" with an IAEA inspected nuclear program, one who is "unlikely to provoke a conflict" in the view of the DIA?  Or are these statements, that as General John put it, "flatly ignore or reject outright the best advice" of the National security leadership?
  

         This phenomenon could have a number of different implications.  For one, the U.S. military has not risked its reputation on even a middle-level military power since perhaps the Korean War.  The Vietnam War was fought against guerillas, albeit one armed from abroad, while the first American invasion of Iraq followed an eight year war between Iraq and Iran that sapped much of Baghdad's military strength.  The bombings in Kosovo in the 1990's were precipitated by the breakup first of the Warsaw Pact and then Yugoslavia, negating any type of state resistance, the post 9/11 invasion of Afghanistan was again against a guerilla force, and by 2003 Iraq was a shell of its former military self, unable to rebuild after the first Gulf War and the subsequent sanctions and no-fly zones.  WMD were famously nowhere to be found.

     The Pentagon's MO is to fight limited wars against far inferior military targets.  The notion of taking on Syria, or shudder to think, Iran, must have the military leadership quaking in their boots.  Both are well armed, backed by foreign powers like Russia (who's only Mediterranean Naval port sits in Syria), and have an army closely allied to the leader.  

      Another interesting problem is to think of this in relation the drive to war against against Iraq in 2002-2003.  Then, many of the conspirators were in the Pentagon, notably at the top civilian leadership positions, while it was the State Department that was thought to have nominal opposition, or to have been bureaucratically left out of the loop.  During that time, few Pentagon officials, whether in uniform or not, tried to throw any obstacles in the way of the war path.  It was not until the later Bush years that the military began to put roadblocks between Cheney and his fantasies of world wide regime change.
     Now, with the Pentagon's global reach pulled taut by a flailing stalemate of a war in Afghanistan, a retreat from Iraq, and a repositioning of forces in Asia, they are loathe to plan and wage another war against a strong military power with stronger allies.  But it seems the blue sky thinking has just moved across town to Foggy Bottom.

Real News interview with Bassam Haddad

Paul Jay, the lead editor of the Real News Network, keeps up his excellent coverage of the Syria situation.  His most recent interview is with Bassam Haddad, the director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Mason University.  The 18 minute interview covers the nuances of the different international and regional positions in regard to Syria, as well as the problematic question facing the American left of how to oppose dictatorial regimes while also opposing militarization and violence.  Concerning the latter, Hassad breaks down the problem as such:

If you are trying to emphasize the role of external players, then you are basically being unfair to the question of the repression of the legitimate protest and the killing of people in that regard. And if you try to emphasize only the importance of fighting the dictatorship no matter who is doing the fighting, no matter what happens down the line in terms of NATO intervention, you're also not paying enough attention to the number of people that are likely to be affected, which would be much larger than what we are seeing today. Unfortunately, this cold analysis is actually reprehensible, but this is the reality today. And then whatever position one takes will be infringing upon some rights, some value that many of us actually hold dear.  

Full transcript here

Josh Landis breaks down the Syrian opposition in 3 minutes

  Today, Reuters Decoder program features Oklahoma University Professor and Syria expert Joshua Landis speaking about the Syrian opposition.  He says that the "Free Syrian Army" is not a centralized body, and instead there are many different militia made up of "young men from the countryside."  He predicts that the eventual leadership of the opposition will form out of the fighters on the ground who are challenging the Army, as opposed to exile spokesmen.

Andrew Bacevich: Scoring the Global War on Terror

Earlier this week, Andrew Bacevich, a retired army colonel and professor at Boston University, wrote a very good piece for TomDispatch entitled "Scoring the Global War on Terror: from liberation to assassination in three quick rounds."  Here, Bacevich attempts to separate American foreign policy post 9/11--that is the Global War on Terror, and as the author calls it "the war formerly known as the global war on terrorism" or "WFKATGWOT"--into three distinct phases.
      The first phase, which Bacevich calls "Liberation," was dominated by the ideology and presence of Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary from 2001-2006.  During this phase, "a high tech American version of blitzkrieg" was the modus operandi, with Rumsfeld insisting that "U.S. forces were smarter and more agile than any adversary," and "to employ them in ways which took advantage of those qualities was to guarantee victory."  This view, called "shock and awe" by the media, led President Bush to hope he could "liberate (and of course dominate) the Islamic world through a series of short, quick thrusts."  Rumsfeld's ideology, however, was flawed, and after initial success in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the military found themselves mired in dual occupations and their assorted problems, because in neither case "were they able to finish off their opponent or even, in reality, sort out just who their opponent might be."
        The second phase, which Bacevich calls "Pacification," was dominated by Army General David Patreus and his counter insurgency, or COIN, doctrine.  COIN, "rather than trying to defeat the enemy," sought "the emergence of a viable and stable nation state."  After being applied to Iraq, in Bush's 2006 "surge," the Patreus method was trumpeted far and wide by the media, and inspired an ideology that global counter insurgency, or "GCOIN," should be the basis of U.S. National Security. Now, "rather than  employing "shock and awe" to liberate the Islamic World, U.S. forces would apply counterinsurgency doctrine to pacify it."
         When President Obama came in to office and turned to Afghanistan, the COIN ideology was in full force, and Patreus, now head of CENTCOM, advocated for a full counter-insurgency effort in Southwest Asia.  Despite hesitation on Obama's part, the troop levels in Afghanistan were significantly ramped up in 2009, most significantly at the end of the year, when the White House signed on to his own mini surge of 30,000 troops.  In Bob Woodward's book "Obama's Wars," this decision was portrayed as one made after a period of great frustration with Patreus and ilk from the President, who felt that he was being forced into a nation building mission that he didn't want.  But in the end, Obama signed off on the December 2009 troop increase, treating the Pentagon as just another political constituency that he had to appease.
         Since that time, however, any prospect of a successful "COIN" strategy in Afghanistan has fallen by the way side, victim of corruption in the Afghan power structure, regional turmoil in regards to Pakistan and Iran, and an over reliance on heavy-handed violence by the NATO forces.  
        The failure of the COIN doctrine in Afghanistan gives way to Bacevich's third, and current, phase, "Assassination."  He writes that this phase has been personified by Michael Vickers, the Pentagon's Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.  Quiet and absent from the media lens, Vickers is a former CIA operative, and with Robert Gates' retirement, the Pentagon's last remaining holdover from the Bush administration.  Bacevich writes:

Even during the Bush era, Vickers never subscribed to expectations that the United States could liberate or pacify the Islamic world.  His preferred approach to the WFKATGWOT has been simplicity itself. “I just want to kill those guys,” he says -- “those guys” referring to members of al-Qaeda. Kill the people who want to kill Americans and don’t stop until they are all dead: this defines the Vickers strategy, which over the course of the Obama presidency has supplanted COIN as the latest variant of U.S. strategy.

At this point, it is worth quoting Bacevich at length on the state of current U.S. policy under Obama:

Round three of the WFKATGWOT is all about bending, breaking, and reinventing rules in ways thought to be advantageous to the United States.  Much as COIN supplanted “shock and awe,” a broad-gauged program of targeted assassination has now displaced COIN as the prevailing expression of the American way of war. 

The United States is finished with the business of sending large land armies to invade and occupy countries on the Eurasian mainland.  Robert Gates, when still Secretary of Defense, made the definitive statement on that subject.  The United States is now in the business of using missile-armed drones and special operations forces to eliminate anyone (not excluding U.S. citizens) the president of the United States decides has become an intolerable annoyance.  Under President Obama, such attacks have proliferated. 

This is America’s new MO.  Paraphrasing a warning issued by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Washington Post dispatch succinctly summarized what it implied: “The United States reserved the right to attack anyone who it determined posed a direct threat to U.S. national security, anywhere in the world.”  

There are many important strands to draw out of Bacevich's writing.  One is the comparison to John F. Kennedy, who, like Obama, signed off on troop increases for a war he was hesitant about, and who, like Obama, was enamored by Green Beret's and targeted killings.  Another is the total disregard for diplomacy as a solution to geopolitical conflicts under Obama.  When the Secretary of State is boasting of an "attack anybody, anytime" mentality, you know diplomatic tracks are not being heavily pushed.  
      

From Covert to Overt War

Yesterday, following a Washington meeting with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, President Obama ratcheted up the pressure on the Assad government yet again, declaring "it is absolutely imperative for the international community to rally, and send a clear message to President Assad that it is time for a transition, it is time for that regime to move on," and that "it's important that we not be bystanders during these extraordinary event." 

        The backdrop of Obama's statement was the "Friends of Syria" meeting that took place in Tunis,  attended by Secretary of State Clinton.  The meeting, which was attended by 60 countries as well as the exile-dominated Syrian National Council, was ostensibly organized to facilitate a "humanitarian" response, however the topic of increasing the violence in Syria by arming an opposition force was on the forefront of discussions.  While the U.S. has not yet openly endorsed the idea, they are making sure to leave the option on the table.  Speaking in London enroute to the conference, Clinton spoke of the "increasing capability" of the armed resistance in Syria. "They will, from somewhere, somehow, find the means to defend themselves, as well as begin offensive measures," she added.  At the conference, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia openly called for arms to be provided to the Syrian rebels, and at the conference's conclusion, a statement was released calling for "a political solution" in Syria, leaving the option of a military intervention on the table.  According to the New York Times, this wording was favored by the U.S. over less the bellicose phrasing of "a peaceful, nonmilitary solution," that was endorsed by some countries. 

           It appears that the Obama administrations is signaling that an overt military intervention in Syria is on the Pentagon's drawing boards.  However, the question then becomes is this just another rhetorical blast in the game of diplomatic chicken being played between the NATO powers and Syria, or are the Obamanistas seriously considering starting another Middle East war nine months before a general election.  If the prior is true, my guess is Obama is praying for a military coup within Syria, that some faction of the Syrian security regime will decide that Assad is expendable for the sake of preserving the power structure and avoiding a lengthy battle with western-backed fighters.  This would take Obama off the hook for declaring that Assad must go and justify the covert war on Syria that has been waged over the past 10 months.

            However if the latter is true, and war plans are being sent to the Oval Office, then Obama has a whole other set of questions facing him.  How long to keep up intelligence and weapon support to the rebels without air cover?  Armed resistance of some form has been ongoing since late last spring, and it does not seem close to breaking the Syrian army, which is large and supplied by Russia and Iran.  And if airpower doesn't work right away, when do the Marines get called in?  

            Obama also faces the political question of whether the American people, and specifically the Democratic electorate he is hoping will give him another term later this year, are willing to spend blood and treasure on yet another military adventure in the Middle East.  They probably are not, especially when he has already led a very hawkish first term.  And then there is the entire sphere of legality, both domestically in regards to the War Powers Act as well as internationally in regards to the UN.  While it is one thing to wage a covert war, an overt one has far more dilemmas to consider.

           The date looming over the entire discussion is May 18th, when Chicago will host both the annual G8 summit as well as a NATO meeting.  Certainly Obama does not want to bring a failing Syria policy to the table at these meetings, which are being held in his political base of Chicago.  However, he probably also has no desire to add extra spark to the protests that are sure to take place by starting another NATO war.  Once again, Obama has backed himself into a corner in his foreign policy, and does not seem to have a way out. 

Debate between Josh Landis and Karam Nachar

U.S. Drones in Syria, also in U.S.

Earlier this week, Jim Miklaszewski at NBC news broke the story that "a good number" of unmanned U.S. military and intelligence aircraft are operating in Syrian airspace, according to unnamed Defense officials. These sources tell Miklaszewski that the drones are being used for surveillance purposes, as "the Obama administration hopes to use the overhead visual evidence and intercepts of Syrian government and military communications in an effort to make the case for a widespread international response."

In other drone related news, a Predator drone was used by a Nelson County, North Dakota police force to help make an arrest last December. The story is that Sherriff Kelly Janke, armed with a warrant, went looking for missing cows on a farm, but was chased away by a group of armed men.  And so the next-morning he called in the predator drones to help find the men on the 3,000 acre farm.  It was the first time police had arrested US citizens with help from a drone.

Syrian Violence Increases, Iraq Violence decreases

Sahar Issa, at McClatchy Newspaper's Baghdad bureau, writes that according to the Iraqi government, terrorist related violence in Iraq has sharply decreased over the past few months, especially in the northern province of Ninewah, which has a long border with Syria.  This is widely attributed to a migration of al-Qaeda-esque foot soldiers to Syria, where Assad's army has been facing battles with armed fighters since the early summer of 2011.  The prominence of al-Qaeda style attacks within Syria has grown greatly in recent months, with car bombings in Syria's two largest cities, first on the morning of December 23rd, when two cars exploded outside of government security buildings in Damascus, killing 40, then on February 10th, when an Aleppo police station was hit by another two car bombs, killing 28.  Only two days after the Aleppo attacks, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of al-Qaeda, released a video calling for Muslim's across the region to go fight against the Assad regime.    
     In northwest Iraq and its capital of Mosul, the result of this is a new found freedom from terrorist bombings.  Only last year Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, was home to as many as 800 al-Qaeda fighters, according to US government officials.  A Ninewah-based Iraqi officer interviewed by McClatchy claims that now "Violence is down in Mosul, maybe one or two operations per day, sometimes none," and that in the rest of the province  "violence is down more than 50 percent since autumn of 2011, and much more than that if compared with an earlier date, like autumn of 2010."  

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/20/139408/iraq-officials-violence-drops.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/20/139408/iraq-officials-violence-drops.html#storylink=cpy

Interview with Sharmine Narwani

The Real News Network held a very informative interview with Sharmine Narwani, a senior associate at Oxford's St. Antony's College.  Narwani visited Damascus in early January, and gives her views on both her trip and the Syrian situation in general.

Who's making State Department policy

Helpful Articles:
The Consequentialist: How the Arab Spring remade Obama's foreign policy - Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker, 5/2/11
How Obama turned on a dime towards war - Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy: The Cable, 3/18/11

Recently, i have begun to do a little bit of research into who is actually crafting the Obama administrations foreign policy.  As an explanation, i will refer to my original title--"Is the State Department full of Neocons?--because that seemed to be the hypothesis that first jumped out at me.  However, upon digging a little deeper, the answer is murky.   At first glance, none of the prominent "neocon" officials who were instrumental in crafting post 9/11 foreign policy are serving in the Obama administration.  Men like Paul Wolfowitz are Elliot Abrams are ensconced in various think-tanks, while others have entered private business.  However, a good number of their appointees are still holding posts.
          One thing that becomes clear upon looking at the State Department leadership page is that there has been a large amount of turnover in 2011.  The post of Deputy Secretary of State, second in command at Foggy Bottom, was held by James B. Stienberg from the time of Obama's appointment through June 24th, 2011.  Stienberg had worked in the NSC leadership during the Clinton Administration, and worked at the Brookings Institute and the LBJ school during the Bush years.
         When Stienberg left, his post was filled by William J. Burns, a career diplomat who progressed up the State Department ranks under Bush.  He served as head of Near Eastern Affairs from 2001-2005, ostensibly in charge of all Middle East Policy, after which he was made ambassador to Russia--the specialty of then Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice.  In the last year of the Bush administration he was promoted again, to undersecretary for political affairs, 3rd in command at the Department.  He maintained this post through the first three years of the Obama Administration, until his latest promotion last summer.
         Burn's post as Undersecretary for Political Affairs was filled in turn by Wendy Sherman, like Stienberg a veteran of the Clinton Administration who did not serve in government during the Bush years.  Sherman was a founding partner of Albright associates, a private consulting firm, where she most recently served as Vice Chair from 2008-2011.  She was also an advisor to the 2008 Clinton Campaign, as well as serving on Obama's State Department transition team.    

      In the bureau of Near-Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman has served as the Assistant Secretary for the entirety of the Obama presidency.  Like Burns, Feltman progressed up the ranks of the State Department during the Bush administration.  He worked in the State Department's Jerusalem Bureau from 2001-2003, then with Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, heading its Irbil office in the north of the country.  In 2005, he was made Ambassador to Lebanon, where he served until February of 2008, when he was moved back to Washington DC to be the PDAS of NEA, then promoted to acting Assistant Secretary in December 2008.  He maintained this post under the Obama administration.  Within Near Eastern Affairs, a number of Ambassadors were also holdovers from Bush's State Department.
         In Iraq, James F. Jeffrey sits in the massive US Embassy in the Green Zone.  He had done extensive work in Iraq following the 2003 invasion, as well as serving in Ankara as the Ambassador in Turkey from 2008-2010.  Between these two postings, Jeffrey worked at the Near Eastern Affairs bureau, as the PDAS, where he worked with Elizabeth Cheney on Iran policy.  In this position, Jeffrey was heavily involved in the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group, a controversial office led by Cheney and Elliot Abrams that was accused of pushing for regime change in Iran and Syria.
        In Syria, Robert Ford was finally approved to to the post in Damascus in January 2011.    He had served as ambassador to Bahrain from 2001-2004, and then moved to Baghdad's Green Zone, as a political counselor from 2004-2006 working under John Negroponte, then as deputy chief of mission in 2008-2009.  Between his two postings in Iraq, he was the ambassador to Algeria.  Michael Chudovsky, an emeritus professor at the University of Ottawa and the founder of the Center for Research on Globalization, has accused Ford of implementing many of the same "death squad" policies in Syria that were witnessed in Iraq, policies that were developed during the Reagan years in the Nicaraguan Civil War by Negroponte, Abrams, and Oliver North, etc..., a scandal known by the general name of Iran-Contra.
        In the Libyan situation, Ambassador Gene Cretz played a very interesting role.  A longtime Foreign Service Officer, he moved around the Middle East during the Bush Administration, first in Eygpt and Syria, before being promoted in 2004 to Deputy Chief of Mission in Tel-Aviv.  In July 2007, President Bush nominated him to be ambassador to Libya.  While Cretz was awaiting Senate Confirmation, he went back to the NEA bureau in Foggy Bottom, where he worked under AS David Welch.  It was during this time, in August 2008, that the "U.S. Libya-Comprehensive Claims Settlement" was signed, restoring full diplomatic ties between Washington and Tripoli by settling  claims against Libya stemming from the Lockerbie bombing at $1.5 billion, as well as claims against the U.S. for two bombing raids in 1986 at $300 million.  Four months after the signing, which allowed for a US embassy in Tripoli, Cretz was approved as Ambassador by the Senate.  At the same time, Welch resigned as AS and became a senior executive at the engineering goliath Bechtel, heading the Middle East and Africa divisions.
         Moving forward to 2011, Ambassador Cretz was recalled back to Washington in January, ostensibly being labeled the first "bureaucratic casualty" of the Wikileaks State Department cable dump.  At the time, much hoopla was made in the press about cables Cretz had authored remarking on Gadhaffi's "voluptous Ukrania nurse" and other health details and eccentricites, and it was even thought that Cretz, a career diplomat and the first full ambassador to Libya in 38 years, may lose his job.  However, taking into consideration further events, it could be suspected the Cretz's trip to Washington were for other reasons, as the Libyan embassy was closed in February.  Cretz, kept his job, and returned to the country for the reopening of the US embassy in Tripoli in September 2011, three weeks after rebel forces took Tripoli. In his speech at the openings, he made reference to oil as the "jewel in the crown" of Libyan resources and getting "American companies here on a fairly big scale, which we will try to do everything we can to do that, then this will redound to improve the situation in the United States with respect to our own jobs." However, in January 2012, it was announced that Cretz was being replaced by Chris Stevens, who had served as the State Department envoy to the Benghazi forces starting in April 2011.




More coming tomorrow...

Links for 2/12/11

Former CIA officer questions EU motives in Syria - EUobserver.com, 6/23/11
          This piece relays the opinion of Robert Baer, a former CIA operative stationed in Syria turned author and pundit, who sees the Syria situation as one of regional political warfare, with the Arab Gulf states, Israel, and Turkey pitted against Iran, Syria, and the Hezbollah faction in Lebanon.

"We've taken sides in the Middle East. We've taken sides with Israel and with the Sunnis, from the US to the Dutch and the French. It's part of our cultural and historical background," he said.

Baer added that France, the former colonial power in Lebanon and Syria, is mainly interested in protecting its old friends, the Maronite Christians in Lebanon: "They don't want to see the roof blown off Lebanon because they still feel responsible for the Maronites. They are tightly wrapped up in Lebanon."

He noted that Turkey is also trying to weaken the Shia alliance in order to become the pre-eminent power in the region. "I'm still talking to my Syrian contacts and they are quite convinced that weapons are coming in [to the opposition] not just from the Sunnis in Lebanon and through Iraq but also from Turkey."

The EUobserver article also adds reporting from an unnamed EU diplomat in Brussels, who stated, "We have reports that Wahhabists [radical Sunni Islamists], who are not necessarily controlled by any state, are coming into Syria from Iraq and from Saudi Arabia to create chaos. Inside Syria, there are snipers shooting at demonstrators who are not controlled by Assad but by the deep state, and other snipers who are shooting at both demonstrators and police."

Syrian Population Numbers

Found these two charts today in the archives of Syria Comment, the excellent blog run by Dr. Joshua Landis.  The first is the Syrian population graphed according to age and gender.  The second is a breakdown of populations figures in Syrian cities based on a 2008  national census.  Keep in mind that the million plus refugees living in Syria are probably not counted in these figures:

Governate	Population* ( in millions)
Damscus (City)	1.648
Damscus (Subrubs)	1.711
Aleppo	5.315
Homs	1.977
Hama	1.938
Latakia	1.161
Deir ElZor	1.511
Hasaka	1.445
Raquah	0.903
Swaydaa	0.46
Daraa	1.011
Tartous	1.011
Qunaytira	0.904
Tartous	0.446
Idlib	1.865
Total	23.306
Population Under 15 years of age**	40%
Population over 65 years of Age**	3.30%
Popoulation between 15 & 65**	56.70%
*(2008) National census Office
** (2004)National census Office

Syria Links for 2/10/12

A review of Assad's first term in in office - Ehsani, Syria Comment, 5/18/07
NATO ships drop anchor in Tunisia - Tunisialive, 2/10/12

Militarizing the Conflict

        Earlier this year, London's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on plans being developed within the U.S. State and Defense Departments to militarily intervene in Syria, independent of the UN, through a "Friends of Syria" coalition. They state that an unnamed State Department official has revealed "the debate in Washington has shifted away from diplomacy and towards more robust action," and that Central Command "has begun a preliminary internal review of US military capabilities in the region." They quote the same official as saying: "The decision-makers have not determined we are at a point of no return...There is still a window, it is just that that window is closing...We definitely don’t want to militarise the situation. If it’s avoidable we are going to avoid it. But increasingly it looks like it may not be avoidable."  This bureaucratic move towards militarization had also taken place in London, where it was reported that the Ministry of Defense and National Security Council were making plans for a NATO sponsored "No Fly Zone" over Syria.
         


       This reporting is the latest and most in depth on the Obama administrations contingency plans for regime change in Syria, a scenario that has been on the White House docket since last April.  On the 29th of the month, Obama issued an executive order  leveling personal sanctions against three prominent Syrian officials, one of whom was the brother of President Assad. Concerning the Syrian leader, an unnamed White House Official stated at the time "Don’t think for a second Bashar is not on our radar, and that if these abuses continue we won’t sanction him."
         Obama's bellicosity was backed up by a gaggle of prominent Senate hawks, most notably Joe Lieberman, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham.  One day prior to the White House sanctions announcement, the three Senators released a joint statement, calling on the President to "take tangible diplomatic and economic measures to isolate and pressure the Assad regime, including through targeted sanctions against Assad himself and other regime officials who are responsible for gross human rights abuses." While their statement also asked Obama to call for Assad to step down, it was clear that the Obama administration and the Senate hawks were close to lockstep in their thinking on Syria.  Reporting on this new Syrian policy was Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy's blog, The Cable. He wrote that in the past two weeks a White House "mood shift" on Syria had occurred, with President Assad no longer being seen as likely to reform. Then, "after a series of deliberations, culminating in a Deputies Committee meeting at the National Security Council last week, a new policy course was set."


           This new policy course revealed itself as summer began.  In mid-May, another round of economic sanctions was leveled against top Syrian officials, this time including President Assad, as well as six of his top aides.  Just as before, Obama's Congressional flank was protected by the Senate hawks, led by Marco Rubio, a republican Senator from Florida and a members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  One week prior to the second round of sanctions, Rubio sponsored a resolution urging President Obama to issue more sanctions against Syria, this time targeting the very top leadership.  Rubio's resolution was cosponsored by Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Ben Cardin.  Internationally, the White House policy was buttressed by the European Union, which also issued sanctions against the Syrian government.  At the same time, the rhetorical pressure against the Assad regime began to reflect this new policy, with Obama stating in a speech on May 17th that the Syrian people have demanded a transition to democracy, and Assad was faced with a choice, to "lead that transition, or get out of the way."  Speaking to reporters at the State Department, Secretary of State Clinton added that: "Every day that goes by, the position of the government becomes less tenable and the demands of the Syrian people for change only grow stronger."  
        As the summer heated up, so did Washington's designs for Damascus.  In June, reports began to come out that the Syrian army and populous were facing a battle with foreign fighters.  An unnamed EU diplomat told the EUObserver that, "we have reports that Wahhabists [radical Sunni Islamists], who are not necessarily controlled by any state, are coming into Syria from Iraq and from Saudi Arabia to create chaos. Inside Syria, there are snipers shooting at demonstrators who are not controlled by Assad but by the deep state, and other snipers who are shooting at both demonstrators and police."  There was also a claim, made months later, that beginning in April-May 2011, the NATO airbase at Incirlik, Turkey was being used as an arms-smuggling hub for Syrian opposition fighters, run by a defected Syrian army colonel, Riad al-Assad.  This story was broken by FBI whistleblower-turned activist Sibel Edmonds, who is a native of Turkey.  While her reporting was not picked up by the mainstream U.S. press, she quotes her high-level source as to why "Who said we didn’t go to [Mainstream Media] first? We got them the info back in October. First they were interested and drooling. At least the reporters. Then, they disappeared. We sat and waited for a few weeks, and no one followed up. It is Turkey. It is NATO. It is our CIA guys. The media hot shots would not touch those cases without State Department sanction attached."
        By early July, the State Department was openly courting the Syrian opposition, with Ambassador Robert Ford taking a much publicized visit, accompanied by the French Ambassador, to meet anti-government protesters in Hama on July 7th.  A great deal of tension resulted from this visit, as it triggered a pro-Assad demonstration at the American and French embassies in Damascus, where windows were broken, flags torn down. and walls besmirched with graffiti.  Back in Washington, Secretary of State Clinton upped the ante once again, telling reporters "President Assad is not indispensable, and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power."  For his part, Ambassador Ford relayed his thoughts on the ordeal through a Facebook post (perhaps to posture himself as a protester and not a government man) where he wrote "And how ironic that the Syrian government lets an anti-U.S. demonstration proceed freely while their security thugs beat down olive branch-carrying peaceful protesters elsewhere."  By early August, Secretary of State Clinton was holding official meetings in Washington D.C. with Syrian opposition figures.  Herbert London, the president of the Hudson Institute, characterized the State Department as "betraying" the pro-Democracy forces within the opposition, writing: "Most of those invited, however, have links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Missing from the invitations are Kurdish leaders, Sunni liberals, Assyrians and Christian spokesmen. According to various reports the State Department made a deal with Turkey and Muslim Brotherhood representatives either to share power with Assad to stabilize the government, or replace him if this effort fails."
         
        Then, on August 18th, Obama and his NATO compatriots in London, Paris, and Berlin stated their desires bluntly, that Assad must step down. "For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside," read a White House press release.  Washington backed up its rhetoric by issuing yet another round of economic sanctions against Syria, this time very broad dictates that seized all Syrian assets under U.S. jurisdiction, banned imports of Syrian oil, and banned any contact by American citizens with the Syrian government.  Similar sanctions were also adopted the European Union.  The New York Times described this bout of hard-edged diplomacy as the culmination of a months long debate, one that moved the administration "from discussing whether to call for Mr. Assad’s ouster to discussing how to help bring it about, and what to do after that." In short, it had become U.S. policy to destabilize the Syrian government.
          It is at this juncture that the Obama administration crossed the rubicon on the Syria situation.  How long could it allow Assad to continue sitting in Damascus without committing military might to the problem?  How strong were the words of the NATO alliance without the firepower of their fighter-squadrons and special forces?  "Saving Face" has a long tradition in American politics, and it takes a very strong leader, perhaps stronger than Obama, to go back on his word and allow Assad to stay in power, if that is how the situation in Damascus resolves.  While Obama may give his new policy of destabilization time to play out, what would his deadline be before he turns to his National Security Advisor and says "protocol and law be damned, lets go get this guy?"  If it is September 2012, and the President is facing an immanent election, can he withstand criticism that he went back on his word and "abandoned the people of Syria?"  Being more bellicose than the Democrats has been a plank of the GOP for the past decade, and due to the Obama administrations war-happy nature, Syria could be the only talking point where a Republican candidate could really hammer down on the "dovish" president.  It appears that by calling for Assad's ouster, the Obama administration backed itself into a corner, with the only way out being to machine the fall of the Syrian government through one means or another.


          Throughout the fall of 2011, groundwork was laid for the new policy of "helping to bring about" the fall of the Assad government.  A semi-respectable opposition group was established, the Syrian National Council, led by a Paris based exile, as well as an opposition militia, the Free Syrian Army.  These group are established as much for their public-relations worth as their diplomatic value.  Press, especially those relying on second-hand reports, need a good and evil dichotomy to report on, a brigade of "freedom fighters" to support against the brutal government thugs, and an "opposition leader" to quote on the political sanctity of whoever would replace Assad.
         By the end of November, it was time to kick the policy into action.  Reports began to filter out that NATO governments had set up three training camps for Syrian opposition fighters, one in Turkey, one in Jordan, and one in the Lebanese town of Tripoli.  The Turkish camp was located in the coastal town of Iskenderun, in Turkey's Hatay province, less than 60 miles from Aleppo, Syria's largest city.  The Jordanian camp was located in the town al-Mafraq, seven miles from the Syrian border.  Reports indicated that when U.S. troops were departing en masse from Iraq, some planes went to Jordan, where they set up at the al-Mafraq airbase, long a center for Jordanian plots against their northern neighbor.  Additionally, 600 Libyan fighters fresh from their march on Tripoli were sent to Turkey, commanded by former al-Qaeda leader turned Libyan rebel commando Abdulhakim Belhadj.  This came on top of reports from Milliyet, the Turkish daily, that France, Britain, and Turkey "had reached an agreement to send arms into Syria," and that the U.S. had been notified of the decision.
          Concerning the halls of Washington D.C., Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer turned journalist, revealed in early December that two new "intelligence findings" had been signed in the White House, authorizing stepped up covert action against Damascus and Tehran.  Later that month, Foreign Policy magazine described a NSC working group designed to aid the Syrian opposition that was put into action, led by NSC senior direction Steve Simon and State Department official Frederic C. Hof.  Then as 2012 began, out come the two reports mentioned at the beginning of this article, indicating that plans to "militarize" the situation were being put into place in the State and Defense Departments and their London counterparts.


          Where does this leave the Obama administration?  While rhetorically threatening a military intervention is one thing, implementing one is far different, without even considering the sphere of the UN and international law, where Assad seems to have the backing of Russia and China.  Perhaps Obama is content to keep sponsoring a proxy war of destabilization through Syria's neighbors, although this does not seem to be effective in bringing down Assad.  As discussed earlier, it would be very difficult for Obama to go back on his word and allow Assad to remain in power, especially now that the bureaucratic structures of the National Security State have been streamlined for destabilization.  
           It appears that Syria has become a crucial fulcrum for the White House, with the tantalizing option of overt military intervention on one side, and a continuation of diplomacy and covert action on the other.  But as Obama is trying to stay balanced in the middle, he seems to be slipping closer towards militarization with every day that Assad remains in power.  Will he sacrifice America's strategic interest in staying out of another Middle East War for his own political gain?  Or will he fall on the realist sword and leave the Assad government in place, perhaps in the process giving up his own shot at a second term in the White House.