USA PRESSURING RUSSIA INTO PASSING UN RESOLUTION ON SYRIA ALLOWING MILITARY FORCE

Photo NY Times

CLOSE RESEMBLANCE TO THE LIBYAN UN RESOLUTION "TRAP", RUSSIA AND CHINA STEPPED IN WHEN APPROVING THE RAID ON LIBYA BY US COALITION FORCES 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVES ON SYRIA. Via RT

The US is pushing RUSSIA into approving a UN resolution that would allow for military intervention in SYRIA, in exchange for AMERICAN support of SYRIA’S accession to OPCW, RUSSIAN Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

“Our AMERICAN partners are starting to blackmail us: ‘If RUSSIA does not support a resolution under Chapter 7, then we will withdraw our support for SYRIA’S entry into the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). This is a complete departure from what I agreed with Secretary of State John Kerry',” RUSSIAN Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Channel 1's Sunday Time program. 

Chapter 7 of the UN charter would allow for potential military intervention in SYRIA. 

WESTERN COUNTRIES BLINDED BY 'ASSAD MUST GO' ATTITUDE 

The head of RUSSIA’S Foreign Ministry went on to say he was surprised by the West’s “negligent” approach to the conflict.

“Our partners are blinded by an ideological mission for regime change,” said Lavrov. “They cannot admit they have made another mistake.”

Slamming the West’s intervention in LIBYA and IRAQ, the foreign minister stated that military intervention could only lead to a catastrophe in the region. Moreover, he stressed that if the West really was interested in a peaceful solution to the conflict that has raged for over two years, they would now be pushing for SYRIA’S entry into the OPCW in the first place, not for the ouster of President Bashar Assad. 

Background Information:

RUSSIA AND CHINA LEFT OUT OF THE LIBYAN EQUATION

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.co.at/2012/09/libya-doomed-from-day-one.html

“I am convinced that the WEST is doing this to demonstrate that they call the shots in the MIDDLE EAST. This is a totally politicized approach,” said Lavrov.  

IF MILITANTS COME TO POWER, SYRIA WILL NO LONGER BE A SECULAR STATE

The RUSSIAN foreign minister pointed out that in the case of a military scenario, militants would come to power and SYRIA would no longer be a secular state. Up to three quarters “of these guys are Jihadists,” including the most radical groups such as Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of IRAQ and LEVANT, who want to create an Islamic Caliphate in SYRIA and in neighboring territories, Lavrov said. 

 “If our western partners think at least two steps ahead, they cannot but understand it,” Lavrov noted.

As to why the West would want that, Moscow has so far received no clear answer, but hears “mantras” on the necessity to promote democracy and protect human rights, said the minister. That is important, but “responsible politicians should be guided not only by that. Not to care about stability in a key world region is absolutely irresponsible,” he added. 

According to Lavrov, some experts alleged that “someone is attempting to create a guided chaos” in the region for their own benefits. However, the foreign minister said he personally sees no possible advantages that Western countries would gain if they were behind moves to stir up instability.

“There’s only an attempt to grasp a straw, and turn a blind eye to the fact that the world is changing and becoming multipolar,” Lavrov concluded. 

'A REPEAT OF GENEVA 2012' 

Lavrov harked back to last year’s Geneva accord which was agreed upon by the international community, including RUSSIA and the US. However, when the resolution went to the Security Council the US demanded that Chapter 7 be included.

“History is repeating itself. Once again in Geneva an agreement has been reached which does not contain any mention of Chapter 7. But the Security Council wants to redo the document in their own way to include it.”

He called on the West to observe international law and stop writing resolutions motivated by their “geopolitical ambitions.”

 

‘BOTH SIDES MUST HAND OVER CHEMICAL WEAPONS’ 

Sergey Lavrov has also insisted that opposition forces take part in the decommissioning of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles.

“The solutions currently being worked out at the OPCW suggest that all stocks of SYRIAN chemical weapons must be brought under control and ultimately destroyed.”

Lavrov further charged that the West was “not telling the whole story” by asserting that chemical weapons are only possessed by the regime, and not the opposition.

He added that the available information provided by the ISRAELIS confirmed that on at least two occasions, the rebels had seized areas in which chemical weapons were stored and those arms might have fallen into their hands. 

"According to our estimates, there is a strong probability, that in addition to home-grown labs in which militants are trying to cook up harmful and deadly concoctions, the data provided by the ISRAELIS is true,” the Russian FM said. 

“Preparatory work for OPCW inspectors to assume control of chemical weapons storage sites requires that those who fund and sponsor opposition groups –  including extremists –  demand that they hand over the [arms] which have been seized so that they can be destroyed, pursuant to the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.”

 

Lavrov added that RUSSIA was not a guarantor for the disarmament of SYRIA’S chemical weapons, as SYRIA’S commitments fell under the auspices of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which is internationally administered by the OPCW. 

Lavrov said RUSSIA and the US were working out a draft resolution to be submitted to the OPCW, although several points were yet to be agreed upon.

Earlier in September, Moscow said it would submit data to the UNSC proving that the chemical weapons in a Damascus suburb were used by the rebels.  These “purely technical” documents were handed over to RUSSIA by the Bashar Assad government and are being examined by RUSSIAN specialists. This data “is an addition to what we already know and to what is known to…independent experts who give their assessments and confirm that the opposition regularly resort to provocations, attempting to accuse the regime of using chemical weapons” and this way get foreign military support, Lavrov said.  

BRITAIN AND FRANCE QUICK TO JUMP ON THE BANDWAGON 

The UN expert team, who investigated the August 21 attack in SYRIA, presented a report on their findings, in which they described the ammunition and substances they discovered on the scene, but made no conclusions regarding who was behind the incident.

However, the US, along with BRITAIN and FRANCE, moved quickly to repeat their accusations against the SYRIAN government.  “Such an approach is neither scientific, nor professional but rather politicized and ideology-driven,” the RUSSIAN foreign minister stressed. 

According to Lavrov, it was no secret that they did not need any report. Long before the document was prepared, they stated that they already knew everything from their intelligence findings – which have never been presented to the public in full, the RUSSIAN minister noted.

“What they did show to us does not convince that the [SYRIAN] regime is linked to the episode with the use of chemical weapons,” Lavrov said.

US PLAYS MONOPOLY, RUSSIA PLAYS CHESS

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US AND RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST 

AMERICANS see individual pieces of geopolitical real estate in isolation, like hotels on the Monopoly board, while the RUSSIANS look at the interaction of all their spheres of interest around the globe.

SYRIA is of no real strategic interest to RUSSIA, nor to anyone else for that matter. It is a broken wreck of a country, with an irreparably damaged economy, without the energy, water, or food to maintain long-term economic viability.

The multiethnic melange left in place by BRITISH and FRENCH cartographers after the First World War has broken down irreparably into a war of mutual extermination, whose only result can be depopulation or partition on the YUGOSLAV model.

Background Information:

FRANCES "COLONIAL AMBITIONS" IN SYRIA

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.co.at/2013/08/france-eager-to-engage-in-syra-why.html

THE SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.co.at/2013/09/historic-facts-about-syria.html

SYRIA only has importance in so far as its crisis threatens to spill over into surrounding territories which have more strategic importance. As a Petri dish for jihadist movements, it threatens to become the training ground for a new generation of terrorists, serving the same role that AFGHANISTAN did during the 1990s and 2000s.

SYRIA AN INCUBATOR FOR NATIONAL MOVEMENTS 

As a testing ground for the use of weapons of mass destruction, it provides a diplomatic laboratory to gauge the response of world powers to atrocious actions with comparatively little risk to the participants. It is an incubator of national movements, in which, for example, the newfound freedom of action for the country’s 2 million KURDS constitutes a means of destabilizing TURKEY and other countries with substantial Kurdish minorities. Most important, as the cockpit of confessional war between SUNNIS and SHI’ITE, SYRIA may become the springboard for a larger conflict engulfing IRAQ and possibly other states in the region.

Background Information: THE KURDISH INDEPENDENCE GAMBLE

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.co.at/2012/08/double-dealing-in-iraq-and-syria.html

RUSSIA’S GOAL: RESTORATION OF GREAT POWER STATUS

It is difficult to understand what Putin wants in SYRIA. And in most likelihood the RUSSIA’S president himself does not know what he wants in SYRIA, either. A strong chess player engaging an inferior opponent will create complications without an immediate strategic objective, in order to provoke blunders from the other side and take opportunistic advantage. There are many things that Putin wants. But he wants one big thing above all, namely, the restoration of RUSSIA’S great power status. RUSSIA’S leading diplomatic role in SYRIA opens several options to further this goal.

WORLDS ENERGY BROKER 

As the world’s largest energy producer, RUSSIA wants to enhance its leverage over WESTERN EUROPE for which it is the principle energy supplier. It wants to influence the marketing of natural gas produced by ISRAEL and other countries in the EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN. It wants to make other energy producers in the region dependent on its good graces for the security of their energy exports. It wants to enhance its role as a supplier of military equipment, challenging the AMERICAN F-35 and F-22 with the new Sukhoi T-50 stealth fighter among other things. It wants a free hand in dealing with terrorism among its Muslim minority in the CAUCASUS. And it wants to maintain influence in its so-called near abroad in CENTRAL ASIA.

Background Information: RUSSIA’S GAZPROM

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.com.ar/2012/07/turkey-and-russia.html

AMERICAN commentators reacted with surprise and in some cases dismay to RUSSIA’S emergence as the arbiter of the SYRIA crisis. In fact, RUSSIA’S emerging role in the region was already evident when the chief of SAUDI intelligence, Prince Bandar, flew to Moscow during the first week of August to meet with Putin. The RUSSIANS and SAUDIS announced that they would collaborate to stabilize the new military government in EGYPT, in direct opposition to the Obama administration. In effect RUSSIA offered to sell EGYPT any weapons that the UNITED STATES declined to sell, while SAUDI ARABIA offered to pay for them.

Background Information: RUSSIA AND SAUDI ARABIA

http://geopoliticsrst.blogspot.co.at/2013/08/russia-and-saudi-arabia.html

RUSSIA’S GENIUS CHESSBOARD MOVE OVER EGYPT

That was a diplomatic revolution without clear precedent. It is not only that the RUSSIANS have returned to Egypt 40 years after they were expelled in the context of the real world war; they have done so in tactical alliance with SAUDI ARABIA, historically RUSSIA’S nemesis in the region.

SAUDI ARABIA has an urgent interest in stabilizing EGYPT, and in suppressing the Muslim Brotherhood, which the SAUDI monarchy nightly views as a risk to its legitimacy. SAUDI support for the EGYPTIAN military against the Brotherhood is not surprising; what is most surprising is that the SAUDI’S felt to involve RUSSIA.

Although there are a number of obvious reasons for the SAUDI’S and RUSSIANS to collaborate, for example controlling the jihadists in the SYRIAN opposition, we do not yet understand the full implications of their rapprochement. The SAUDIS leaked news that they had offered to buy $15 billion worth of RUSSIAN weapons in return for RUSSIAN help with Assad. Rumors of this kind should not be read at face value. They might be misdirection — but misdirection towards what? 

Putin’s chessboard encompasses the globe. It includes such things as the security of energy exports from the PERSIAN GULF; the transmission of oil and gas through CENTRAL ASIA; the market for RUSSIAN arms exports; energy negotiations now underway between RUSSIA and CHINA; the vulnerability of EUROPE’S energy supplies; and the internal stability of countries on or near RUSSIA’S borders, including TURKEY, IRAQ and IRAN.

RUSSIA’S GREATER CAPACITY TO INFLUENCE EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

For AMERICAN analysts, most of this chessboard might as well be on the dark side of the moon. We see only what the RUSSIANS permit us to see. For example, Moscow first promised to provide SYRIA with the S-300 air defense system and then withdrew its offer. SAUDI ARABIA in early August let it be known that it was prepared to buy $15 billion of RUSSIAN weapons in return for considerations in SYRIA. A negotiation of some kind is underway, but we have no idea what kind of carrots and sticks might be involved.

What we may surmise is that RUSSIA now has much greater capacity to influence events in the MIDDLE EAST, including the security of energy resources which it had at any time since the Yom Kippur War of 1973. For the time being, it is in RUSSIA’S interest to keep its interlocutory guessing, and to enhance its future strategic options. RUSSIA in effect has placed the burden of uncertainty on the rest of the world, especially upon major economies dependent on PERSIAN GULF energy exports.

US TO FOCUS INCREASINGLY ON DOMESTIC AGENDAS 

President Obama evidently considers this arrangement beneficial to his own agenda. The president has no interest whatever in enhancing AMERICA’S strategic position in the world; his intent may be to diminish it, as Norman Podhoretz charged in the Wall Street Journal. Obama is focused on his domestic agenda.

From that standpoint, handing over responsibility for the SYRIAN mess is a riskless exercise. AMERICAN popular revulsion over foreign military intervention is so intense that the voters will welcome any measure that reduces AMERICAN responsibility for foreign problems. Although the elite of the Democratic Party are liberal internationalists, Obama’s voting support has scant interest in SYRIA.

Public commentary on foreign policy is an exercise in frustration under the circumstances. Because AMERICA is a democracy, and substantial commitment of resources requires at least some degree of consensus, diplomacy was exceptionally transparent so long as AMERICA dominated the field. Think tanks, academia and the media served as a sounding board for any significant initiatives, so that important decisions were taken at least in part in the view of the public. That is no longer the case on Vladimir Putin’s chessboard. RUSSIA will pursue a set of strategic trade-offs, but we in the West will not know what they are until well after the fact, if ever.

Further dimensions of complexity will arise from the eventual response of other prospective players, in particular CHINA, but also including JAPAN. The self-shrinkage of AMERICA’S strategic position eliminates the constraint for RUSSIA to choose a particular option. On the contrary, RUSSIA can accumulate positional advantages to employ for particular strategic objectives at its leisure. And Putin will sit silent on his side of the chessboard and let the clock run against his opponent.

STRATEGIC INSANITY 

Putin may think that he is pre-empting a similar strategy on the part of the West.

From RUSSIAN leadership’s point of view, the IRAQ War now looks like the beginning of the accelerated destruction of regional and global stability, undermining the last principles of sustainable world order. Everything that’s happened since — including flirting with Islamists during the Arab Spring, US policies in LIBYA and its current policies in SYRIA — serve as evidence of strategic insanity that has taken over the last remaining superpower.

PAYBACK TIME FOR BEING LEFT OUT OF THE LIBYAN EQUATION 

As mentioned numerous times on this Blog, RUSSIA and CHINA felt that they were left out of the equation regarding the LIBYAN operation instigated by the USA, FRANCE and BRITAIN. CHINA and RUSSIA invested heavily in LIBYA prior to the toppling of the LIBYAN regime, only to find out that they were kept completely out of the picture regarding the true intentions the Western coalition force had in mind with LIBYA once the regime was removed, namely to share the cake of oil extraction between themselves.

Subsequently RUSSIA and CHINA learned their lesson and thus vowed not make the same mistake regarding SYRIA, permitting LIBYAN style intervention by WESTERN and GULF STATES coalition forces. No matter that SYRIA lacks oil reserves or other natural resources worth fighting over, their veto was more of a symbolic gesture telling WESTERN and GULF STATES coalition forces: that’s how far you can go this time around, but no further. See also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya

 RUSSIA’S persistence on the SYRIAN issue is the product of this perception. The issue is not sympathy for SYRIA’S dictator, or commercial interests, or naval bases in Tartus. Moscow is certain that if continued crushing of secular authoritarian regimes is allowed because AMERICA and the West support “democracy”, it will lead to such destabilization that will overwhelm all, including RUSSIA. It’s therefore necessary for RUSSIA to resist, especially as the West and the UNITED STATES themselves experience increasing doubts.

 

RUSSIANS typically assume that AMERICANS think the way they do; gauging every move by the way it affects the overall position on the board. The notion that incompetence rather than conspiracy explains the vast majority of AMERICAN actions is foreign to RUSSIAN thinking. Whatever the RUSSIAN leader thinks, though, he will keep to himself.

The Obama administration has handed the strategic initiative to countries whose policy-making proceeds behind a wall of opacity. 

Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from David P. Goldman who is Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. Via crethiplethi.com. Originally published in The Asian Times

UK AND FRANCE ABOUT TO INK NEW DEFENCE PACT?

CREATION OF FRENCH BRITISH JOINT EXPEDITIONARY FORCE (CJEF)

BRITAIN is forging ahead on military co-operation with FRANCE, while warning about EU “interference” on defence.

BRITAIN AND FRANCE ARE THE EU’S LEADING MILITARY POWERS.

They spent €92 billion on defence last year (more than GERMANY, ITALY, the NETHERLANDS, POLAND and SPAIN put together), according to SWEDISH NGO Sipri. They are also the most hawkish. They took the lead in wars in LIBYA and MALI and they were keen to join US strikes on SYRIA.

“As shown from our joint operations in LIBYA and MALI, the UK and FRANCE are natural partners and have a key role to play in leading and shaping the defence and security of EUROPE,” a BRITISH defence ministry spokesman told EUobserver.

SOME BRITISH NAVAL OFFICERS SERVE FULL TIME ON FRENCH AIRCRAFT CARRIER CHARLES DE GAULLE.

In line with the 2010 Lancaster House Treaties, the BRITISH and FRENCH army, navy and air force regularly train together and some BRITISH officers serve full time on the FRENCH aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle.

They are “on track” to create a Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF) with FRANCE by 2016 and they plan to test the CJEF’s air component next month in an operation called Exercise Joint Venture.

For its part, the EU also has “battlegroups,” or rapid reaction battalions put together by two or three states. But they have never seen action. The EUROPEAN UNION is aiming to agree on joint procurement of some military hardware at a defence summit in December. But here, FRANCE and the UK are also streets ahead.

They are already building a “Future Combat Air System,” due in 2030, with manufacturers to send in proposals this month.

UNITED KINGDOM’S PREFERENCE OF BILATERAL COOPERATION OVER EU – LEVEL ACTION

“Our defence co-operation has grown both in importance and scope since then [the 2010 treaties],” the BRITISH spokesman said. He declined to say whether BRITAIN favours bilateral co-operation over EU-level action.

The UK’s official line is that BRITISH-FRENCH military integration will help to win wars whether they fight them together or as part of EU or NATO structures.

Some FRENCH officers are more outspoken, however.

Colonel Michel Goya, a teacher at the Institut de Recherche Strategique de l’Ecole Militaire in Paris, told EUobserver at the time of the Mali conflict: “If you have to react quickly to events, it’s better to do it at a national or bi-national level.”

Meanwhile, with BRITAIN to potentially quit the EU in a referendum in 2017, it is hard to imagine that it will endorse a far-reaching military deal at the EU’s December summit.

British defence minister Philip Hammond criticised the EUROPEAN Commission’s ideas on defence reforms earlier this month. Speaking to arms firms at an event in London, he said he backs the commission on “improving competition in the [EU] internal defence market, and supporting SMEs.”

BRITAIN WILL CAREFUL MONITOR POTENTIAL INTERFERENCE FROM BRUSSELS ON DEFENCE EQUIPMENT EXPORT RESTRICTIONS

But he added: “Interference in the export of defence equipment and government-to-government defence sales; or the creation of … ‘specific EUROPEAN standards for military products’ represent a significant potential extension of the commission’s role and are not necessarily in the UK defence industry’s best interests – and we will resist them.”

He promised to keep “a very careful eye on potential interference from Brussels” and to “protect” firms from EU “bureaucratic burdens.”

FRANCE aside, Hammond also asked: “Should BRITISH industry, in fact, be looking across the Atlantic, to our closest ally, for our future industrial partnerships?”

A failed merger last year shows the limits of EU fellowship when it comes to jobs and national politics. The UK, FRANCE and GERMANY in 2012 came within a hair’s breadth of merging the UK’s BAE Systems with FRANCO-GERMAN firm Eads to create a EUROPEAN military-industrial giant. But GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel blocked the deal, in part because FRANCE declined to locate the new HQ in GERMANY.

According to the Carnegie Endowment foundation the bottom line was that Merkel feared losing GERMAN defence jobs in the run-up to GERMAN elections.

Amid BRITAIN’S euroscepticism GERMANY seems also a spoiler on EU defence. Of all the more recent GERMAN Chancellors, Angela Merkel is probably the one with the least interest in defence and security policy. Having no security strategy of its own, GERMANY has discouraged the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton from drawing up a new security strategy for EUROPE which defeats any attempts within NATO or the EU to pool and share military resources in order to face ever-growing financial pressure.

 Source: EUObserver