Abdelbari Atwan, publisher and editor-in-chief of the
London-based pan-Arab daily al-Quds
al-Arabi, today says he hears
through the grapevine that the die is cast for a Syria war finale in June.
He elaborates:
My unimpeachable Arab sources suggest the United
States has already passed on the information -- which was understandably short
on details -- to trusted regional allies.
What gives credence to their anticipation is this:
1. The
majority of the Arab region’s wars and invasions took place in the summer
months, mostly June. They include the 1948 War,
the 1967 Six-Day War,
the 1982 Invasion of
Lebanon, the 2006 Lebanon
War and the 1990 Invasion
of Kuwait. The revolutions of 1952 in Egypt and 1958 in Iraq also took
place in the summer month of July.
2. Last week’s
report
in The Times of London that a soil sample taken out from a neighborhood on
the outskirts of Damascus, and smuggled out of Syria in a secret British
operation, appeared to provide the first forensic evidence of chemical weapons
being used in the ongoing fighting. The sample could not indicate whether regime
forces or rebel fighters fired the chemical.
3. A report
by CNN last week saying that under pressure from Democrats and Republicans,
the Joint Staff of the Pentagon and the U.S. Central Command have updated potential
military options for intervention in Syria.
4. Reports
that the intensive training in Turkey and Jordan of small, CIA-vetted groups of
FSA fighters by special American and British forces will conclude around
mid-May.
5. The European
Union’s embargo on the shipment of arms to Syria will expire end-May, allowing
Britain and France to supply antiaircraft and antitank weapons to Syrian
opposition forces.
6. The impasse
over terms of the UN deploying a chemical weapons inspection team in Syria. Damascus has asked for the UN team
to investigate what it says was a poison attack by rebels in Aleppo’s Khan
al-Assal last month. But Damascus has rejected demands by the opposition that
the inspectors also be sent to investigate other locations where rebels say
government forces used chemical munitions.
The
leak about British Ministry of Defense scientists establishing conclusive proof
that chemical munitions are used in Syria was not meant to ascertain freedom of
expression or The Times’ credentials. It was meant to serve another purpose, which
we know little about for the moment.
But
the disclosure does evoke the story of Farzad Bazoft, the Iranian-born
British journalist who was sent to Baghdad in 1989 to fetch a soil sample from
near a nonconventional weapons complex. Months after the incident, Iraq was
isolated – and the rest is history.
Some
six months ago, U.S. President Barack Obama started warning that Syria’s use of
chemical weapons would cross a red line and could change his calculus about
intervention.
Last
week, foreign ministers from the G8 nations ended a two-day meeting in London echoing
his repeated warnings since. They reaffirmed in their closing statement their
view that “any use of chemical weapons would demand a serious international
response.”
Significantly,
Syrian opposition leaders Moaz al-Khatib and Ghassan Hitto met with several of
the G8 ministers on the sidelines of the London talks.
This
shows we’re inching closer to the scenario of the Iraq invasion coming in the
wake of the Iraq sanctions and embargo.
The
Iraq scenario kicked off with the March 1988 use of poison gas against the
Kurdish town of Halabja
that killed 5,000 people.
The
Homs neighborhood of al-Bayyada
could well become Syria’s Halabja and Bashar al-Assad could in turn become the
new Saddam Hussein.
The
evidence-gathering process is gaining pace in Syria to justify and legitimize
military action that seems imminent.
The
pressing question is: Will the military action start with no-fly zones and the
qualitative arming of the opposition in order to induce a bigger involvement by
Iran? Or will it start in the framework of a joint American-Israeli-Arab war
against Iran and Syria together?
Iran
is in the frame because Israel believes the Islamic Republic will have the bomb
by year’s end.
The
big difference between the Iraq and Syria scenarios is that when it faced the
embargo, the Saddam regime stood alone. Mikhail Gorbachev’s Russia was broke
and in a state of transition and China was building up it economic muscle.
In
contrast, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia and its four BRICS partners – namely, China
India, Brazil and South Africa – are standing behind the Assad regime.
Ironically,
the hot summer month of June comes this year some 40 days ahead Ramadan. I won’t be surprised
if it turned out to be the most incendiary in the Arabs’ history.
