Πέμπτη 14 Μαΐου 2020

May, Thursday 14th., 2020 "My Job Is To Make Syria A Quagmire For The Russians": CIA Doctrine Made Official Policy


"My Job Is To Make Syria A Quagmire For The Russians": CIA Doctrine Made Official Policy
Once only 'covert policy' within the CIA, it's now the official mission...
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  • May 13, 2020 8:05 PM

    "My Job Is To Make Syria A Quagmire For The Russians": CIA Doctrine Made Official Policy

    Like with the disastrous Iraq quagmire years before the US war machine came to Syria under Obama, Washington's rationale and justification for occupying the Syrian Arab Republic has shifted and changed drastically multiple times over.
    When ultimately what started as US covert regime change efforts targeting Assad failed (based ostensibly in "protecting civilians"), the official mission then conveniently switched to 'defeating terrorism' — though of course this meant turning on the very jihadists the US armed and trained in the first place. Then the Kurds became the proxy flavor of the month, which also happened to have control of all the major oil and gas fields in the country's east ("secure the oil!" - Trump has repeatedly echoed of late).
    At least 100 Russian soldiers have been killed in Syria since September 2015. Image source: Reuters
     When the Islamic State collapsed and became just another underground insurgency like its al Qaeda cousin, the ever-hawkish national security state establishment argued that Trump must not pull troops out because of 'Iranian expansion'.
    But now that the myth that somehow Assad and the Syrians just want to hand their sovereign country over to their allies the Iranians has also largely fallen away (remember that Baathist Syria is a secular Arab and multi-confessional state, while Iran is a hardline Shia Islamic theocracy), a new official - and it might be added, provocative - US administration rationale has been concocted.
    Washington now says it's all about defeating the Russians. While it's not the first time this has been thrown around in policy circles (recall that a year after Russia's 2015 entry into Syria at Assad's invitation, former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell admitted in a TV interview he views that the US should be in the business of "killing Russians and Iranians covertly").
    And now the top US special envoy to region, James Jeffrey, has this to say on US troops in Syria:
    “My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians.”
    Ironically, Jeffrey's official title has been Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIL, but apparently the mission is now to essentially "give the Russians hell".
    US envoy to Syria, Ambassador James Jeffrey, file image.
    His comments were made Tuesday during a video conference hosted by the neocon Hudson Institute:
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