{"id":300545,"date":"2024-12-17T07:28:34","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T07:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=300545"},"modified":"2024-12-19T07:42:25","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T07:42:25","slug":"syrias-assad-has-fallen-just-as-the-pentagon-planned-23-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=300545","title":{"rendered":"Syria\u2019s Assad Has Fallen \u2013 Just as the Pentagon Planned 23 Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Jonathan Cook \u2013 jonathancook.net Dec 11, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><strong><em>When westerners see \u2018enemy\u2019 governments fall, or civil wars erupt, they are led to think they are the geopolitical equivalent of a natural event. Nothing could be further from the truth<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The long-harboured aspirations of the US, Turkey and Israel to topple the Syrian government, mainly through their rebranded al-Qaeda allies, succeeded at lightning speed.<\/p>\n<p>Damascus fell days after Hay\u2019at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c0q0w1g8zqvo\">Abu Mohammad al-Jolani<\/a> surprised observers by breaking out of their small north-western enclave in Syria and seizing the country\u2019s second city, Aleppo.<\/p>\n<p>Bashar al-Assad\u2019s government and his army, it turned out, were paper tigers. Or they were, once their chief allies \u2013 Russia, Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon \u2013 had been forced onto the back foot. Preoccupied with troubles closer to home, they could no longer offer the military support Assad depended on.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/topics\/israel-war-lebanon\">Israel\u2019s rampage across Lebanon<\/a> and its military intimidation of Iran \u2013 as well as Nato\u2019s increasing efforts to pin <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/topics\/russia-ukraine-war\">Russia down in Ukraine<\/a> \u2013 unfroze the main battle lines in Syria, arrived at several years ago between Assad\u2019s army, al-Qaeda\u2019s franchise in Syria and Kurdish forces in the north-east.<\/p>\n<p>Backed by Turkey, a member of Nato \u2013 and more covertly by the CIA and MI6 \u2013 HTS and the so-called Syrian National Army (SNA) were able to drive south unhindered.<\/p>\n<p>HTS is proscribed as a terrorist group by both the US and Britain. The CIA has placed <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/Z7jiC\">a $10m bounty<\/a> on Jolani\u2019s head.<\/p>\n<p>Strangely, amid the excitement, the BBC and the rest of the western media forgot to mention HTS\u2019s status as a proscribed organisation \u2013 as they do in kneejerk fashion every time the Palestinian resistance group Hamas is referred to.<\/p>\n<p>Notably, the very western politicians and media now celebrating the \u201cliberation\u201d of Syria by HTS are the same ones insisting that the eradication of the \u201cterrorists\u201d of Hamas in Gaza is so important it justifies the bombing and starvation of the enclave\u2019s two million-plus Palestinian population.<\/p>\n<p>There are difficult questions that any rational observer ought to be pondering right now.<\/p>\n<p>How are we to believe that the same ideological groups who are head-chopping, women-abusing, minority-oppressing terrorists when they operate in US-occupied Iraq, are now \u201cmoderate\u201d, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/JjnQU\">diversity-friendly rebels<\/a>\u201d when they operate next door in Syria?<\/p>\n<p>How are opponents of western complicity in Israel\u2019s \u201cplausible\u201d genocide in Gaza, as the World Court describes it, supposed to feel about the West helping to shatter the \u201caxis of resistance\u201d, which stood alone in offering material support to try to stop it?<\/p>\n<p>Is HTS pursuing a nationalist agenda that is truly about liberating Syrians from western imperialism, or is western imperialism \u2013 wielding both the stick of an Israeli attack dog and the carrot of the rich Gulf lapdogs \u2013 once again in the driving seat in Syria?<\/p>\n<p>How much of what we see is the reality of the situation and how much perception management?<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Iran in cross-hairs<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>There are plenty of clues to help us answer these questions if we go looking for them.<\/p>\n<p>Wesley Clark, a former US Army general, recalled a moment weeks after the 9\/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001 when he visited the Pentagon.<\/p>\n<p>He was <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wikileaks\/status\/1819709215352438921\">shown a classified document<\/a> that set out how the US was going to \u201ctake out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off with Iran\u201d.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FNt7s_Wed_4?si=oRsX2TNgieKTwx5Y\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n&#8212;<\/div>\n<p>None of these states had any obvious connection to the events of 9\/11. The one that did have such a connection \u2013 Saudi Arabia \u2013 was not on the list and has remained one of the United States\u2019 most favoured client states.<\/p>\n<p>The order of targets prioritised by Washington had to be modified \u2013 and the timeline was way off \u2013 but the realisation of that 2001 blueprint is closer than ever.<\/p>\n<p>The invasion of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/opinion\/us-iraq-war-disastrous-learned-nothing\">Iraq in 2003<\/a> by the US and UK, on false pretences, led to the removal of dictator Saddam Hussein <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/longform\/2023\/4\/5\/iraq-war-20-years-on-visualising-the-impact-of-the-invasion\">and the collapse<\/a> of the Iraqi state. The country was plunged into a devastating sectarian war from which it is still struggling to recover.<\/p>\n<p>Nato meddling in Libya, again on false pretences, led to the removal of dictator <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/tags\/muammar-gaddafi-1625158893\">Muammar Gaddafi<\/a> and the collapse of the Libyan state in 2011. It has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.declassifieduk.org\/why-the-media-arent-telling-the-whole-story-of-libyas-floods\/\">a failed state<\/a> run by warlords ever since.<\/p>\n<p>Sudan and Somalia \u2013 the latter subject to a US-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2007 \u2013 are both basket cases, riven by all-consuming, horrifying civil wars that the US helped to stoke rather than resolve.<\/p>\n<p>The destruction of these various states created the space for new ultra-violent, intolerant Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) group to flourish.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey\u2019s open backing of the rebels in Syria \u2013 plus more concealed support from the CIA and MI6 \u2013 led to the removal of Syrian dictator Assad at the weekend and the collapse of what was left of the Syrian state. It is hard to imagine a unified authority emerging there.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the terms of surrender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/news\/israel-fires-deadly-strikes-south-lebanon-apparent-breach-ceasefire-agreement\">foisted on Beirut<\/a> to end Israel\u2019s savage bombing of Lebanon do not look designed to hold. The already fragile sectarian arrangements barely glueing the Lebanese state together are almost certain to come unstuck in the coming months.<\/p>\n<p>Iran, the last target on the Pentagon\u2019s list, is now fully in the cross-hairs. Deprived of allies in Syria, and now largely cut off from its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon, Tehran is as vulnerable as it has ever been.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Bigger picture<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>None of this is accidental.<\/p>\n<p>Were western publics not so deeply influenced by years of disinformation from their politicians and media, they might by now be starting to see a bigger picture gradually coming into focus.<\/p>\n<p>One in which the fates of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Iran hang in the balance together. One in which the western powers, led from Washington, are once again meddling, in violation of international law, to destroy the territorial integrity of each of them. One in which Israel and the West\u2019s geostrategic interests are paramount, not the freedoms or welfare of the region\u2019s people.<\/p>\n<p>Dictators are bad. Killing civilians is bad. But these truisms, selectively prioritised by our feckless media class, have been weaponised to obscure the wider picture.<\/p>\n<p>When westerners see \u201cenemy\u201d governments fall, as Assad\u2019s has just done, or civil wars break out in far-off lands, they are led to assume that these are the geopolitical equivalent of a natural event.<\/p>\n<p>The unexamined premise is that the world is ultimately heading, in fits and starts, towards a liberal democratic order. That is why HTS is repackaging itself, ably assisted by the western media, as newly pragmatic and moderate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cModerate\u201d, presumably, in the sense that Saudi Arabia is considered \u201cmoderate\u201d in western coverage.<\/p>\n<p>When the West intervenes, so this narrative goes, it is simply to assist the laggards on their path to a final utopia: something akin to the United States, but without Donald Trump, gun crime, opioid and mental health crises, and nearly half of working-age adults deprived of proper healthcare.<\/p>\n<p>Such changes of power, westerners are encouraged to believe, only ever rise from the bottom up, signalling a dictator\u2019s illegitimacy, or maybe the incremental trajectory of political systems from backwardness to greater enlightenment.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, world events \u2013 especially in circumstances where there is only one military superpower, the US, with some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2021\/9\/10\/infographic-us-military-presence-around-the-world-interactive\">750 bases around the globe<\/a> \u2013 rarely follow such a straightforward path.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Access to oil<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The 2001 Pentagon memo shown to Clark was, in fact, a reworking of a military blueprint for the Middle East that had been circulating in Washington for even longer \u2013 and had nothing to do with responding to 9\/11 or terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>It was all about securing Israel\u2019s place as a forward base for US interests in the oil-rich region.<\/p>\n<p>The champions of this idea were an increasingly influential group called the neoconservatives \u2013 or neocons for short.<\/p>\n<p>By 1996, they had formalised their plan for \u201cremaking\u201d the Middle East into a document called <em><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20140125123844\/http:\/\/www.iasps.org\/strat1.htm\">A Clean Break<\/a><\/em>. It proposed that Israel should tear up the Oslo Accords and any moves towards peacemaking with the Palestinians \u2013 the title\u2019s \u201cclean break\u201d \u2013 and instead go on the offensive against its regional foes, with US backing.<\/p>\n<p>What did that mean? Israel had to be helped to begin \u201cweakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria\u201d, observed the authors, and then \u201cremoving Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq\u201d. The next stage would be to \u201cwean the south Lebanese Shia away from Hizballah, Iran and Syria\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Four years before <em>A Clean Break<\/em>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/merip.org\/2007\/06\/the-israel-lobby-in-perspective\/\">neocons explained<\/a> that the primary aim of US foreign policy in the Middle East was to \u201cpreserve US and western access to the region\u2019s oil\u201d. A close second was easing Israel\u2019s path to ridding itself of the so-called \u201cPalestinian problem\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Later, in a document published in 2000 titled <em><a href=\"https:\/\/resistir.info\/livros\/rebuilding_americas_defenses.pdf\">Rebuilding America\u2019s Defenses<\/a><\/em>, they clarified that the US must ensure it retained \u201cforward-based forces\u201d in the Middle East to maintain military dominance there \u201cgiven the longstanding American interests in the region\u201d. Those interests primarily being, of course, oil.<\/p>\n<p>The ultimate concern, the paper explained, was stopping China from developing closer ties to key oil states such as Iran.<\/p>\n<p>The authors of these documents would soon be holding key positions in the George W Bush administration that took office in January 2001.<\/p>\n<p>Ensconced in the Pentagon and State Department, they were only too ready to exploit 9\/11 as the pretext to fast-track their pre-existing agenda, as Clark understood from the Pentagon memo.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Bloody nose<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Syria was viewed by the neocons and Israel as the lynchpin, the supply line, between Iran and Hezbollah, Tehran\u2019s critically important military ally in Lebanon. Severing that link was a priority.<\/p>\n<p>It was chiefly Hezbollah\u2019s well-fortified and concealed positions in south Lebanon, as well as its large stockpile of rockets delivered by Iran, that kept Israel in check militarily.<\/p>\n<p>Israel received an unexpected, bloody nose when it tried to reoccupy south Lebanon in 2006. It was forced to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/video\/dahiyeh-doctrine-why-israel-lost-2006-lebanon-war\">beat a hasty retreat<\/a> within weeks. Israel also had to abandon plans to expand that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ynetnews.com\/articles\/0,7340,L-3340750,00.html\">same war into Syria<\/a> \u2013 a failure that infuriated Washington\u2019s neocons at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Hezbollah\u2019s rocket arsenal was also a brake on Israel\u2019s ambitions to ethnically cleanse \u2013 or worse \u2013 the Palestinians from their lands in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as current events have demonstrated.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, Israel realised there was no way to complete its genocide of Gaza without neutralising Hezbollah and Syria, and containing Iran.<\/p>\n<p>So how involved in practice was Washington in Assad\u2019s fall?<\/p>\n<p>There are plenty of clues marking the way.<\/p>\n<p>After Israel\u2019s 2006 failure, the US looked for a new route to reach the same destination. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Timber_Sycamore\">Operation Timber Sycamore<\/a> was born in secret shortly after the Arab Spring erupted in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>This covert military operation was designed to work in conjunction with an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hart-uk.org\/blog\/six-things-you-need-to-know-about-sanctions-on-syria\/\">increasingly draconian sanctions regime<\/a> to throttle the Syrian economy.<\/p>\n<p>The CIA, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markcurtis.info\/2018\/04\/26\/how-britain-engaged-in-a-covert-operation-to-overthrow-assad\/\">supported by Britain\u2019s MI6<\/a>, began working in secret to topple Assad. Saudi Arabia was intimately involved too, presumably because of its deep ties to extreme jihadist groups across the region, including al-Qaeda and Islamic State, that would soon become central to the regime-change operation.<\/p>\n<p>Jake Sullivan, now Joe Biden\u2019s national security adviser, was clear about who was going to help. In an email in late 2012, as Timber Sycamore was being put together, <a href=\"https:\/\/wikileaks.org\/clinton-emails\/emailid\/23225\">he wrote<\/a> to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to avoid any confusion about Washington\u2019s allies: \u201cAQ [al-Qaeda] are on our side in Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An email sent to Clinton earlier, in spring 2012, had laid out <a href=\"https:\/\/wikileaks.org\/clinton-emails\/emailid\/18328\">the emerging thinking<\/a> in the State Department.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUS diplomats and Pentagon can start strengthening the opposition. It will take time,\u201d the email asserted. \u201cThe payoff will be substantial.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIran would be strategically isolated, unable to exert its influence in the Middle East\u2026 Hezbollah in Lebanon would be cut off from its Iranian sponsors since Syria would no longer be a transit point for Iranian training, assistance and missiles.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The chief beneficiary was clear too: \u201cAmerica can and should help them [Syrian rebels] \u2013 and by doing so help Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Building the rebels<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>According to US officials, the CIA had <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/Octkl\">trained and equipped<\/a> nearly 10,000 fighters by summer 2015, at an annual cost of $100,000 per rebel.<\/p>\n<p>Riyadh supplied yet more money and weapons, drawing in Islamist fighters and mercenaries from the wider region. Jordan hosted the training bases. The CIA and the Saudis jointly supplied the rebels with the intelligence needed to guide their operations in Syria.<\/p>\n<p>Israel, which had long been lobbying Washington for such a covert programme against the Syrian government, took a leading role, too. It <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/idf-chief-acknowledges-long-claimed-weapons-supply-to-syrian-rebels\/\">supplied weapons<\/a>, and dropped <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/arab-israeli-conflict\/syrian-unhrc-envoy-israel-aiding-al-qaida-linked-terrorists-484676\">thousands of bombs<\/a> on Syrian infrastructure to keep Assad under pressure.<\/p>\n<p>It supplied its own intelligence to the rebels and offered medical facilities to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/idf-medics-seen-treating-syrian-rebels-in-new-video\/\">treat wounded fighters<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In 2012, Ehud Barak, then Israeli defence minister, explained <a href=\"https:\/\/wikileaks.org\/clinton-emails\/emailid\/18328\">Israel\u2019s thinking to CNN<\/a>: \u201cThe toppling down of Assad will be a major blow to the radical axis, major blow to Iran\u2026 and it will weaken dramatically both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After the CIA operation finally came to light in 2016, Washington formally shut it down.<\/p>\n<p>But the effectiveness of Operation Timber Sycamore had already been severely hampered by the Russian military entering Syria in late 2015, at Assad\u2019s invitation.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually the battle fronts hardened into stalemate.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u2018We love Israel\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Now, years later, the battle lines have suddenly come undone. As Washington envisioned 23 years ago, Assad is the latest Middle Eastern dictator not to Israel\u2019s liking to be overthrown.<\/p>\n<p>HTS is eager to reassure Washington that it poses no threat to Israel \u2013 or its continuing genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>Interviews on Israeli TV showed rebel commanders <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/syria-rebels-appear-to-credit-israeli-strikes-on-hezbollah-with-aiding-shock-advance\/\">praising Israel\u2019s air strikes<\/a> on Syria, citing them as among the factors in helping the rapid advances made by HTS.<\/p>\n<p>Channel 12 interviewed an unnamed commander who also noted Israel\u2019s ceasefire with Hezbollah had been critical to the timing of the HTS attack on Aleppo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe looked at the [ceasefire] agreement with Hezbollah and understood that this is the time to liberate our lands,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cWe will not let Hezbollah fight in our areas and we will not let the Iranians take root there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a separate interview with Israel\u2019s Kan TV, a fighter said: \u201cWe love Israel and we were never its enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Both the US and Britain, caught by surprise by the speed of the rebels\u2019 success, are <a href=\"https:\/\/thecradle.co\/articles-id\/28005\">scurrying to remove<\/a> the $10m CIA bounty off Jolani\u2019s head and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cz7qenxy8r2o\">take HTS off<\/a> their terror lists.<\/p>\n<p>Israel lost no time overrunning \u2013 and effectively annexing \u2013 swaths of Syrian territory to add to the areas of the Golan it seized in violation of international law in 1967. Contrast the West\u2019s muted response to this Israeli invasion of Syria with the West\u2019s outrage at Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time Israel launched hundreds of air strikes across Syria, bombing the country\u2019s military infrastructure to ensure the next government \u2013 if such a government ever emerges \u2013 will have no means to defend itself. Israel wants Syria as impotent and vulnerable as Palestine, where it is committing a genocide.<\/p>\n<p>According to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel is \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2024\/12\/10\/middleeast\/israel-syria-assad-strikes-intl\/index.html\">changing the face<\/a> of the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>The giant chessboard<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Rather than viewing the world in simplistic terms as a battle between good and evil \u2013 one in which the evil ones suddenly become good guys, if the BBC says so \u2013 analysts of international affairs have traditionally used a different framework.<\/p>\n<p>They understand world affairs as taking place on a global, geostrategic chessboard, in which the great powers of the day try to checkmate their rivals, or avoid being checkmated.<\/p>\n<p>Surprises happen, as they do in chess, when a player doesn\u2019t foresee, or can\u2019t evade, the next move of its opponent.<\/p>\n<p>Syria, very obviously, is not a great power. It is a pawn. But a critically useful one, nonetheless. As critically useful as Ukraine. The battlefields may look separate, but they are, of course, on the same chessboard.<\/p>\n<p>And the players \u2013 the US, Russia and China, and to a lesser extent Iran, Israel and Turkey \u2013 must each use these pawns wisely to advance their strategic goals.<\/p>\n<p>Ordinary people have agency. But the job of great powers is to limit, tame, and recruit that agency to advance their own interests and damage the interests of rivals.<\/p>\n<p>Israel is the big winner of this round. Syria emerges broken from its long years of a proxy civil war and western sanctions. Either it will collapse into further sectarian discord, consuming all its energies \u2013 Israel can readily meddle to inflame such tensions \u2013 or its new government will seek rehabilitation from the West. A peace accord with Israel would doubtless be the entry requirement.<\/p>\n<p>With Syria removed from the \u201caxis of resistance\u201d, Hezbollah in Lebanon has been severed from Iran, leaving both Israel\u2019s surviving, main regional foes isolated and weaker. And in the process, Israel has opened the way to completing its genocide of the Palestinian people undisturbed.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey\u2019s interests in Syria do not conflict with Israel\u2019s or Washington\u2019s. It wants to return to Syria the millions of refugees it currently hosts and to eliminate any base for Kurdish factions in Syria to ally with, and assist, its own Kurdish resistance groups.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Avoiding checkmate<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The losing side will now have to rethink their strategy.<\/p>\n<p>Stripped of its Syrian ally, Russia is now more exposed on the chessboard. Unless it can win over the new government in Damascus, it risks losing its strategically important Mediterrranean naval port at Tartus, on the Syrian coast.<\/p>\n<p>Washington will be aggressively arm-twisting whoever leads Syria to force Russia out.<\/p>\n<p>It was the threatened loss of its other warm-water naval port, on the Black Sea, at Sebastapol in Crimea \u2013 after Washington\u2019s meddling to help overthrow Ukraine\u2019s Moscow-friendly government in 2014 \u2013 that led to Russia annexing the peninsula.<\/p>\n<p>It was Washington\u2019s tearing up of missile treaties and the threat of Ukraine being recruited into Nato\u2019s fold so that the West\u2019s nuclear arsenal could be placed on Moscow\u2019s doorstep that led to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/opinion\/russia-ukraine-us-invasion-paved-how\">Russia\u2019s invasion in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The events of the last few days in Syria underscore how much the western narrative about Russia\u2019s actions being entirely \u201cunprovoked\u201d is self-serving rather than explanatory.<\/p>\n<p>Nato is working behind the scenes to move its pieces. And so is Russia to avoid a checkmate.<\/p>\n<p>In this \u201cgame\u201d, there are no good guys. There are only power plays. And the US has far more pieces on the board: 750 military bases encircling the globe to impose by force a policy of \u201cfull-spectrum dominance\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Russia\u2019s new advanced missile systems, the hoped-for deterrence of its nuclear arsenal, its alliances of convenience with others threatened by the undeclared US empire \u2013 chiefly China and Iran \u2013 are its remaining strengths.<\/p>\n<p>Iran, now isolated from allies in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon, will have to think what other resources it can bring to the game. The voices calling for it to forego religious scruples and develop a nuclear weapon, to neutralise Israel\u2019s existing arsenal, will grow much louder.<\/p>\n<p>And, finally, China is only too aware that, in seeking to weaken and isolate Russia and Iran, the US is ultimately gunning for it. There can be no \u201cfull-spectrum global dominance\u201d until China is cornered \u2013 until Washington can declare, \u201ccheckmate\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/supporting-jonathan\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Support Jonathan\u2019s work<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/2024-12-11\/syria-assad-pentagon-plan\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Were western publics not so deeply influenced by years of disinformation from their politicians and media, they might see a bigger picture gradually coming into focus in recent events in Syria, writes Jonathan Cook. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-syria"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300545"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":300548,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300545\/revisions\/300548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}