Flexing more muscle in Syria, 63-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin fired Cruise missiles at Saudi-U.S.-Turkey-backed rebel groups in Aleppo, where forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad mounted a new offensive. Secretary of State John Kerry asked 69-yuear-old Geneva-based U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura to press for another urgent ceasefire now that U.S.-backed rebel forces face elimination. Fighting a Saudi-U.S.-Turkey-funded proxy war since March 11, 2011, Putin decided Sept. 30, 2015 to give al-Assad air support once 53-year-old U.S.-educated Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir promised no peace unless al-Assad leaves Damascus. Heading the Saudi-controlled “High Negotiation Commission,” al-Jubeir has insisted that al-Assad must step down before the Saudis end the war. Al-Jubeir makes no bones of the Saudi’s effort to outs al-Assad.
Considered a skilled diplomat, the polyglot Swede de Mistura can’t summon the courage to tell al-Jubeir to end the six-year-old Saudi proxy war, killing 290,000 Syrians, displacing 11 million more to neighboring countries and Europe, causing the largest humanitarian Crisis since WWII. De Mistura has never asked al-Jubeir or Kerry what gives them the right to topple a U.N.-member state. President Barack Obama and Kerry have tried to convince Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to toss al-Assad under the bus. Putin’s Sept. 30, 2015 decision to bombing Saudi-U.S.-Turkey-backed rebel forces turned the Saudi-funded proxy war on its head. Obama and Kerry complain about Putin targeting air strikes on Saudi-U.S.-Turkey-backed rebel forces, not the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] or al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra, now called Jabhat al-Sham.
Calling Saudi-U.S.-Turkey-backed rebel forces seeking to topple al-Assad Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF], replacing former Brig. Gen. Salim Idris’s Free Syrian Army, once backed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John John McCain (R-Az.). Once ISIS decimated the Free Syrian Army, confiscating its U.S. military hardware, ISIS went on a rampage in 2014 seizing some 30% of Iraq and Syria’s sovereign land. Putin’ s Aug. 17 decision to fire Cruise missiles at SDF forces holed up in Southern Aleppo upped the ante. Firing Cruise missiles and flying bombing sorties from Iran’s Hamadan Air Base, Putin puts the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Turkey on notice that he’s not selling out al-Assad. Obama and Kerry haven’t accepted reality that Putin isn’t going to join the Saudi-U.S.-Turkey proxy. U.S. Syrian policy is currently aligned with ISIS and al-Nusra’s al-Sham forces.
When you consider the U.S.-backed SDF in Syria are comprised of Kurdish Peshmerga Peoples Protect Units [YPG], it hurts the U.S. effort against ISIS to oppose Putin in Iran and Syria. If the U.S. goal is the return from ISIS Iraq’s Mosul and Syria’s Raqqa, it can’t be help the Kurds carve out of Iraq and Syria and independent state. Pentagon officials use the Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK] and YPG as the main on-the-ground fighting forces against ISIS. Turkey announced today it would play a more active role in Syria. Already divided into Kurdish and pro-al-Assad zones, Turkey now sees Hasaka as the next battleground. Syrian government air strikes against the YPG in Hasaka presents problems for the U.S., since the U.S. and Turkey still act like allies. Since Turkey’s July 16 failed coup, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has shifted his alliance from the U.S. to Moscow.
Aligning his Syrian war policy with the Saudis, Obama has pitted the U.S. against Russia, tossing out 60 years of U.S.-Russian diplomacy. Obama and Kerry can’t explain why the U.S. Syrian policy aligns itself with ISIS and Jabhat al Nursra both committed to toppling al-Assad. Instead of mending feces with Moscow, Obama chooses to back the Saudis, stubbornly insisting that al-Assad must leave Damascus. Obama’s had plenty chances to change his policy, hinting strongly that he’s got his own agenda in Syria. There’s simply no logical reason for U.S. foreign policy to back the Saudi proxy war unless the Saudis have paid off U.S. officials. Russia’s relationship to the U.S. is far more important in the scheme of things to global diplomacy than that of Saudi Arabia. Letting Turkey intervene in Syria to weaken the YPG or PKK defeats the current U.S. strategy to defeat ISIS.
Watching competing groups battle it out in Syria does nothing to deal with ISIS or other Islamic terror groups seeking to topple al-Assad. Watching the U.S.-backed SDF attack Assad’s forces in Aleppo shows precisely why the Saudi-U.S.-Turkey-funded proxy war has only created more chaos. If Obama decided tomorrow to stop battling al-Assad, he’d send a loud signal to King Salman in Riyadh that the proxy war must stop. If the U.S. called back SDF, the proxy war could end quickly, sparing countless lives and ending the refugee crisis that drove the U.K out of the European Union June. 23. Obama’s blind backing of the six-year-old Saudi proxy war raises disturbing questions about U.S. foreign policy, especially allowing U.S.-Russian relations to deteriorate to Cold Wars lows. Ending the Saudi proxy war in Syria requires Obama to stand up to Riyadh and mend fences with Putin.
