THE VAGARIES OF "LEGAL RIGHT"

Syria is experiencing a defining moment in the civil war which has now dragged on for almost two years. Israel launched a number of powerful air strikes on Syrian territory and this leaves no doubt that the USA, which pulls the strings of the Jewish state, is already losing patience in its desire to get rid of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The Israeli air force struck at military targets near Damascus, in the regions of Jamraya, Qadasiya, El-Kham and al-Sabur. About 300 servicemen were killed and hundreds of people injured. Syrian President Bashar Assad has warned that Israel's latest aggression would bring an "immediate response". The Syrian Foreign Ministry, for its part, has expressed confidence that "Israel's blatant aggression is aimed at providing direct military support to the terrorist groups" fighting the Syrian government. Israel itself explains its air strikes against Syria as considerations for its own security, and specifically the need to destroy Iranian-made Fateh-110 missile depots near Damascus which, Tel Aviv claims, are intended for the Lebanese radical "Hezbollah" group. 

However, one should be in no doubt that the underlying reason for the Israeli air attacks is not only and perhaps not so much the intention to prevent some kind of a deal between Tehran, Damascus and the "Hezbollah" movement as to bring nearer a solution to a whole number of tasks pursued by the USA and the West in general with regard to Syria itself. It is also evident that the Israeli air strikes on Syria were carried out with the USA's knowledge. One can arrive at this conclusion not only because of the fact that Washington, in responding to Tel Aviv's actions, has in essence justified them, referring to "Israel's legal right to protect itself from arms supplies to terrorist organizations". By all accounts, Israel regards the shelling of Syria as a kind of prelude to a strike against Iran. Washington, meanwhile, is not averse to using Tel Aviv's "independent action" to provoke Tehran into intervening in the Syrian conflict, after which the USA will have no alternative other than to give Iran a "symmetrical response" (to wit, striking against military and industrial facilities in the Islamic Republic).

At the same time, the immediate objective of the Israeli strikes against Syria is, of course, to weaken the incumbent regime. One's attention is drawn to the fact that the target of the bombing raid was two brigades of the presidential guard noted for their great devotion to President Assad. This calculation is based on the fact that the destruction of the elite section of the Syrian army would hasten the fall of the country's government. The recent successes of the Syrian army were a factor which prompted Israel and its US' backers into taking decisive action. Until recently the situation in the inter-Syrian armed confrontation had become deadlocked - the president did not have sufficient resources to suppress the pockets of resistance of the irreconcilable opposition on the borders with Turkey and Iraq, from which the flow of mercenaries, equipment and arms emanates, and the rebels have been unable to drive government troops out of the central and coastal areas. However, in April the situation began to alter radically in favour of the government forces. At the end of last month the Syrian army took control of al-Otaibah, which is of strategic importance due to the highway here that links Damascus with the capital's international airport. At the beginning of May the Syrian army ousted the rebels from the strategically important town of Khirbet al-Ghazaleh in Dara'a province in the south of the country.

Such a development of events was clearly not part of the plans of the foreign masterminds of the "Syrian Revolution". It was therefore decided to take resolute measures to achieve a breakthrough in the civil war in Syria. And here one should not rule out the fact that purely "American-made" air strikes will soon be carried out to finally break down the Assad government.

In any event, a whole number of influential US politicians regard the future prospects for the anti-Assad campaign in precisely these terms. For example, Senator John McCain has expressed his satisfaction by the following circumstance: the Israeli attacks lead one to doubt that Syria's air defence is a serious obstacle in the path of foreign intervention into the country. It was precisely worries about Syria's air-defence strength that were put forward by US President Barack Obama's administration as an argument preventing the USA from freeing its hands of Syria. In McCain's opinion, the US would be able to render Syria's air defences inoperative by using cruise missiles - they could "blast holes in their airfields where, incidentally, all these supplies come in from Iran and Russia".

Furthermore, the "hawks" in Washington believe that as a consequence of the Israeli air strikes they will be able to put more pressure on the Obama administration and force it to immediately create an air defence restricted area in Syria and start arms supplies to the opposition forces. As far as the latter task is concerned, the White House makes no secret of the fact that it would have decided on supplies long ago, but this desire has been restrained by the "presence of so many Jihadists" in the Syrian opposition ranks. Barack Obama is wary of the fact that American weapons supplied to Syria will eventually end up in the hands of extremists who will then start using them against the US and its allies.

And he has every reason to be wary. In the lair of the Syrian opposition the initiative is specifically with the "Jabhat al-Nusra" group, which is linked to the "al-Qa'eda" international terrorist network. Nevertheless, the objective of the overthrow of the Assad regime eclipses all restrictive arguments and therefore the American leadership is finally drawn towards the opinion of the need for supplies. It is true that the US Congress, which is now preparing the relevant legislation, qualifies this task by the need for these weapons only to be sent to those detachments of the Syrian opposition which adhere to pro-western views and are not part of terrorist organizations. However, precisely how the Americans will succeed in carrying out their intentions, and especially find among militants in the opposition camp, who are mainly religious fanatics, people with pro-western views, remains a closely guarded secret.

However, as has already been noted, the minds of the American leaders are occupied, first and foremost, with thoughts about how to "bring the fall of the Bashar Assad regime nearer and, as a consequence, prevent bloodshed in Syria". It is precisely for this purpose, according to Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel, that the US is prepared to embark on a step such as providing arms to the Syrian opposition.

At the same time there is also the subject of the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Despite the US' assurance that the Assad regime used chemical weapons in December of last year in Homs and in March this year in Aleppo, an independent UN commission received evidence that the Syrian opposition was using these weapons. A member of the commission, Carla del Ponte, said that the nerve gas sarin was being used. "The gas was used by the opposition and not government troops," del Ponte stated. However, this failed to convince the US which still believes that it was the Assad regime that could have used chemical weapons in Syria. Thereby Washington once again demonstrates that as far as it is concerned there is no case for casting any doubt on the expediency of crushing the Syrian government as soon as possible. There is not even any validity in the argument that it is Assad who is trying to restrain the establishment in Syria of "Islamist terror" which threatens to spread "al-Qa'eda's" influence to all the remaining secular Muslim countries. And this circumstance, like nothing else, directly points to the fact that Washington itself is not averse to using infamous Islamists for its own super-power interests. Just as it uses the oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and others - to provide the financial boosting of the "Arab Revolution" and the further spread of its "ideals", the main exponents of which are, at the end of the day, the adherents of the current of Salafism under whose banner the theoriticians and practicians of the same "al-Qa'eda" parade. 

The motivation for such a dubious reliance by the USA on "terrorist elements" is understandable. These forces are still incapable of creating a lasting, effective and creative form of authority, although they are rather good at creating an atmosphere of intimidation, destruction and chaos. In other words, everything capable of leading to the death of the state and regimes that do not comply with the upkeep of the age of globalism.

A whole stack of guilty verdicts was brought by the West with regard to the recalcitrant Bashar Assad long before Syria was seized by a frenzy of terrorism. And Assad, according to the will of Washington, must go even if it means the collapse or destruction of the Syrian state itself, and its transformation into some kind of formal structure, the like of which for many years now has learnt to its own cost all the "delights" of the external intervention of countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya…