The regime change the US and its allies were looking forward to carrying out in Syria, under the guise of protecting the Syrian people, is not happening. Ever since the painful defeat of the Western-armed anti-Assad forces in Qusayr by the hands of the Syrian army in June, it has become clear that Syria’s destabilisation plan hatched and initiated by the CIA– with more than a helping hand from their regional partners Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar – is failing. Therefore, predictably, now that this fact is becoming evident, various informal spokespersons of the Gulf establishment have begun to panic and pour their concerns on whatever media outlets happen to give them a platform.
One such informal spokesperson is US-educated Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi: having worked in the past as a media aide to a former Saudi ambassador to the US, Khashoggi is more than qualified to spin the right kind of analysis the powers mentioned above would like to see spread all over the mainstream media. Further evidence – if ever was needed – of powerful handlers behind him is provided by the organisation which recently translated and posted one of Khashoggi’s latest articles on the internet, accompanying it with an introductory note: the organisation known as Middle-East Research Institute (MEMRI).
For those unfamiliar with this name, MEMRI, an organisation that poses as an independent media institute, primarily busy “bridging the language gap between the West and the Middle East and South Asia”, has a list of directors and advisers filled to the brim with interventionist enthusiasts, military solution fanatics, pro-zionist apologists, former CIA directors and assorted neocon hawks. Indeed, MEMRI was exposed as far back as 2002 by journalist Brian Whitaker as having been founded by former Mossad colonel Yigal Carmon: it is now a generally conceded fact that, alongside open-source military intelligence websites such as DEBKAfile, MEMRI is in fact one of many Mossad’s fronts out there.
Evidently, MEMRI must have been pleased with what Khashoggi had to say in his article, originally published on the Arab language newspaper Al-Hayat on 15 June, to the point of translating various excerpts and posting them on the website rightsidenews.com on 5 July.
So, what is Khashoggi panicking about in his article?
Pipelines and railways.
That’s right: the senior Saudi journalist warns us that one of his worst nightmares might become true “if Assad wins” (read: if the West cannot topple Assad; interesting choice of words, incidentally, portraying Assad as some kind of world conqueror, bent on declaring wars on other countries, as opposed to a ruler of a sovereign state which is currently being invaded by foreign forces).
Khashoggi’s nightmare would be the formation of the so-called Shi’ite Crescent, leading to the construction of the Iranian Abadan-Tartus oil and gas pipelines, a rail line from Tehran to Damascus or even Beirut (God forbid!) and apparently Bashar al-Assad’s role being reduced to little more than that of a puppet in the hands of Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei.
There you have it. And all this time we thought that these tirades about Assad having to resign were linked with human rights, protecting the Syrian people, and something to do with the evergreen line about the international community having to act because – surely – it could not stand idly by as yet another brutal dictator was murdering his own people in a widespread and systematic fashion, etc, etc.
How wrong we were.
Then again, how could we honestly expect a lecture in human rights by a semi-official spokesperson of a state where slavery is rampant [1], where a group of schoolgirls was once stopped by religious police from leaving a blazing building and left to die because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress [2], where a blogger risks 5 years in prison and a $800.000 fine for criticising the authorities [3], and where a woman who is gang-raped might risk being sentenced to 200 lashes if a judge should rule that she asked for it [4]?
In fact, reporting from the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, it is becoming more and more of a grotesque joke to see representatives of quasi-theocratic Gulf States – ruled by repressive absolute monarchies – take the floor, submit resolutions and rant against Syria’s denying its citizens their inalienable civil and political rights on the basis of some flaws in Syria’s democratic process. Quite a dark joke, really.
As for Khashoggi’s article, MEMRI could not have picked a better time to publish it (after all, it is not run by intelligence operatives for nothing): the day after the appearance of Khashoggi’s analysis on the internet we witnessed the resignation of yet another leader of the clunkily-named National Coalition for Syrian Opposition and Revolutionary Forces – a so-called “coalition” that is so divided as to change its leadership like you and I change shirts. This time, it was the turn of Ghassan Hitto, the so-called “Prime Minister in waiting” of the Syrian Opposition Coalition to resign from his post. For months the imperialist powers tried to convince the world that Hitto was indeed the right choice to represent the Syrian people and to lead the government poised to take over post-Assad Syria: because, surely, nothing says “democratic process” and “representation of the Syrian people” quite like a leader practically handpicked by the US and Qatar, who also happens to be a US citizen. Predictably, the farce could not last long, and Hitto kept his post for little more than three months, after which he was replaced by its successor Ahmed Assi al-Jarba.
Now, if Hitto was Qatar’s ideal choice, Jarba can be said to be the trait d’union between the Saudis and this Istanbul-based government in exile, which the US and the Gulf States are impatient to impose on Syria – when and if they get rid of Bashar al-Assad. Indeed, on this one point even the mainstream media seem to be unanimous: Jarba represents Saudi Arabia in this Western-approved “Syrian” opposition.
Who knows, is it possible that senior Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, with all the inside sources one expects him to have, might have had prior knowledge of this outcome, hence the article he wrote for Al-Hayat? We cannot tell for sure at this point.
What is certain is that Khashoggi’s piece does seem to read like an open letter to the faction most attuned to Saudi economic and strategic interests within the Western-friendly “Syrian” opposition.
At some point Khashoggi informs us that “Saudi Arabia must form a coalition to prevent this scenario [Assad retaining power in Syria] – with or without the U.S.”; as if such a coalition had not already been around for nine years, since the 2004 inception of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which took place in Istanbul, coincidentally.
The GCC is of course pretty much a Gulf chapter of NATO:the NATO website reports: “ICI [Istanbul Cooperation Initiative] focuses on practical cooperation in areas where NATO can add value, notably in the security field. Six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council were initially invited to participate. To date, four of these — Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates — have joined. Saudi Arabia and Oman have also shown an interest in the Initiative”. In other words, even in the Gulf area, much like GUAM, or the Mediterranean Dialogue in Europe, NATO has long installed its own subsidiary branch with a native façade, complete with such accessories as a US Navy fleet (currently stationed in Bahrain) and a US mercenary force (Xe Services, or Academi – formerly known as Blackwater USA – which operates out of the UAE).
Therefore, analyists and thinkers like Khashoggi need not worry: this Gulf coalition is already a reality, and it has been active since 2011, when the planned construction of an Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline was announced.
That, to be sure, is what Western (and Gulf States’) intervention ultimately aims to prevent – hence the ubiquity of Istanbul in the Syrian crisis: Turkey’s plan to remain the primary energy corridor between the Middle East and Europe is hardly a secret. Nor is it really a question of a “coalition” having to be formed “with or without the U.S.”: in fact, U.S. global planners have long been working towards the construction of a rival gas pipeline, named Nabucco. If built, the Nabucco pipeline would compete against the Iran-Iraq-Syria corridor, and give Turkey (a major NATO power in the region) precisely that level of control on Europe’s energy supply. Therefore, neutralising Syria fits perfectly with US plans, and that is why the United States keeps “leading from behind”.
These facts, often omitted in mainstream media, are crucial to understand the real motives for Western and Gulf States’ fanning the flames of the “Syrian uprising”, through the arming of rebel forces, propping up a fictitious opposition coalition, pouring mercenaries in the country, and ultimately causing tens of thousands of casualties and displacements.
[1] Kibiwott Koross and Anthony Kitimo: Saudi throws Kenyan maid out of top floor window, The Daily Nation, 16 January 2010
[2] Saudi police ‘stopped’ fire rescue, available here:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/1874471.stm
[3] Saudi Arabia: Travel ban against blogger Mr Raif Badawi for criticising religious police, available here:http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/2281
[4] Richard Pendlebury: My harrowing story, by the teenage girl who was sentenced to 200 lashes after being gang raped in Saudi Arabia, The Daily Mail, 30 November 2007