West is “supporting” Assad – FSA ex-commander

One of the top rebel commanders in Syria has accused "hesitant" American and British policy-makers of effectively backing the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Col. Abdul Jabbar al-Okaidi

Col Abdul Jabbar al-Okaidi said by accepting Assad's offer to scrap his chemical weapons, the United States gave him space to step up conventional attacks.

"The West is supporting the criminal Assad regime," he told Tim Whewell in an interview for BBC Newsnight.

It was his first foreign interview since stepping down this week as head of the Aleppo military council.

The council forms part of the Free Syrian Army, which the West regards as the main moderate grouping on the rebel side.

"When Mr. Obama says chemical weapons are a red line, that gives the green light to conventional weapons," the colonel told the BBC.

"Ballistic missiles, Scud missiles, fighter jets like MIGs and Sukhois, helicopters, rocket launchers and tanks - all these can be used by the regime to kill Syrians. So the Western stance has been very negative towards the Syrian revolution."

He described Britain's approach as "very hesitant."

"They have not provided anything. They didn't stand with the revolution at all.

"If you want to compare the British and French and American position towards [Libya's Moammar] Gaddafi and towards Assad, then the difference is enormous."

Col. Okaidi said Assad has been given space to intensify conventional warfare

"They made a quick decision there by removing the Gaddafi regime and providing help for the Libyan people to remove that dictator -- while here we are about to go into the third year and Britain and the whole world is standing by and watching."

Col Okaidi, a former career officer in the Syrian army, was speaking in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, ahead of a two-day meeting of Syrian opposition politicians in Istanbul starting today.

They will debate whether to attend the so-called "Geneva-2" peace conference.

Western powers and Russia are pushing for the talks to go ahead.

Geneva 'doomed'

But Col Okaidi said he opposed the plan.

"It will not succeed while the regime continues to kill people, bomb them from the air and direct artillery fire at them.

"I don't think under such circumstances anybody can go into negotiations and peace talks with such a criminal regime," he said.

Col. Okaidi warned that the failure of the West to supply weapons to moderate rebel groups was strengthening the hand of the better-armed Islamists.

He said: "In terms of weapons and ammunition we have not received anything at all.

"Some communication kits -- that's all, and some ready meals from the U.S. I don't know how many because my fighters refused to eat them."

The West’s appeasement of Iran

This is an edited translation of excerpts from the weekly think piece of leading American-Lebanese journalist Raghida Dergham for this morning’s edition of the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat:

The West’s ambiguous attitudes towards the Islamic Republic of Iran raise many questions.

For instance, is the collective objective of the United States, Britain and France to allow Iran to thwart a Syrian Opposition victory in Syria?

Or, is their shared aim to push Iran and Hezbollah deeper into the Syria quagmire?

The West is also out to lunch in the run-up to next month’s presidential election in Iran. It chose to get some shuteye when it was supposed to be exposing the establishment’s increasing dogmatism. That’s what the West did in Iran’s 10^th presidential election in 2009, before the reformist movement was crushed.

Unlike in 2009, when it encouraged Iran’s reformist movement, the West made nothing this week when the Guardian Council, a body of theologians and jurists, disqualified reformist ex-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from running and approved only eight conservative candidates to stand for president.

In their on-off nuclear negotiations for a decade, the West continues to give Iran elbowroom to press ahead with its most contentious nuclear work. Here too, the West comes across as appeasing the Mullahs.

As to the regional role to which Tehran lays claim, the West seems content to play a double role. On the one hand, the West appears to give Iran free rein in the Arab countries it covets, chiefly Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

At the same time, Washington, London and Paris give the impression of being pleased to see Sunnis and Shiites crossing swords in Syria’s war of attrition, thus keeping both sides at bay from their cities.

Public acknowledgement of the presence of Iranian forces in Syria leaves the West in a quandary. A UN Security Council resolution (Resolution 1747 of 24 March 2007) bars arms exports by Iran under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

In paragraph 5 of the said resolution, the UN Security Council “Decides that Iran shall not supply, sell or transfer directly or indirectly from its territory or by its nationals or using its flag vessels or aircraft any arms or related materiel…”

Would the West be invoking the breach anytime soon?

The West explicitly warned Hezbollah recently against intervening militarily in Syria. And as a response to the group’s joining the war on the side of Assad’s regime, Europe is hinting it “might” designate Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist entity.

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted this week to pass a bill that will be highly unpopular in Moscow, let alone Damascus.

The “Syrian Transition Support Act” would provide arms to Syrian rebels in support of a regime change.

The bill heads first to the Senate, then to the House and finally to the president.

If the bill is passed, will President Barack Obama sign it?

So far, his policy has been to prevent a victory in Syria either by the armed opposition, which includes not more than five or 10 percent from Jabhat al-Nusra, or by the Iran-Hezbollah-Russia triumvirate.

As usual, Britain and France continue to warn on Syria, only to backtrack later. Both have been talking for months about arming the opposition, even at the cost of busting the European Union arms embargo, only to put their moves on hold afterward.

Are Britain and France acquiescing to the war of exhaustion and attrition in Syria, to help their intelligence services -- and the West generally – gather invaluable information on Sunni extremists belonging to al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra and the likes?

By flying to Amman this week for the “Friends of Syria” core group meeting, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry looked more like Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s Geneva-2 salesman.

Whereas Washington was previously calling on Assad to stand down, the Amman closing statement simply said Assad “cannot play a role in the future of Syria.”

Russia wants Iran to be in Geneva-2. And the United States has yet to say no. All Washington said this week in a background briefing on Kerry’s trip to Amman was, “We’ll certainly have to talk to the Russians more, and we’ll have to talk also to the United Nations because they very well will have a big role. So the final attendance list is still under discussion.”

The now-defunct Soviet Union spent decades trying to reach the warm waters of the Mediterranean. Russia reached them via Tartus. Iran is already there via Hezbollah in Lebanon.

All these intertwined elements warrant a rethink. Talk of the Syria war being a quagmire or a Vietnam hemorrhaging Iran and Hezbollah is offset by whispers of a behind-the-scenes grand bargain whereby West and East hand Iran victory in her Vietnam war against Sunni extremists in Syria, plus a say in the regional balance of forces.

Obama still dithers as Syria withers

Cartoon by Patrick Chappatte

I chose this cartoon (right) because I doubt Barack Obama would ever lift a finger against Bashar al-Assad.

The U.S. president will keep dithering, even if Iran produced “the bomb” and nuked a city held by the Syrian president’s opponents.

I reached this conclusion after reading, scrutinizing and pondering Obama’s remarks in the Oval Office going into his bilateral meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

When strong evidence emerged earlier this year that Assad forces were moving chemical weapons, the White House insisted the action did not cross the line Obama set. By “move” the weapons, a White House spokesman said, Obama meant transferring them to a terror group, like Hezbollah.

After the British and French governments wrote to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon saying they had evidence of chemical use in Syria, Obama had his secretary of state and defense secretary say separately the intelligence regarding the attacks remained inconclusive.

Hardly four weeks after Obama’s March visit to Israel, where he said proof of chemical weapons use would be a “game changer,” Israel’s senior military intelligence analyst said the Assad regime had repeatedly used chemical weapons in the last month, and criticized the international community for failing to respond.

With the mounting evidence forcing Obama’s hand, the White House found nothing better in midweek than write letters to congressmen saying, “"Our intelligence community does assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin.”

But the letters added: "Given the stakes involved, and what we have learned from our own recent experiences, intelligence assessments alone are not sufficient -- only credible and corroborated facts that provide us with some degree of certainty will guide our decision-making."

This gets us to last night’s round of dilly-dallying by Obama in the presence of King Abdullah.

The full transcript:

THE PRESIDENT:  I want to welcome to the Oval Office once again King Abdullah.  His Majesty is a great friend of the United States.  Jordan is a great partner to the United States on a whole host of issues.  And obviously, although we just recently saw each other -- and I want to thank again His Majesty for the extraordinary hospitality that he showed during our visit -- there remain a host of very urgent issues in the region that we’re going to have an opportunity to discuss.

First of all, I want to congratulate His Majesty on a series of reforms that he’s initiating inside of Jordan, and we want to find out how we can continue to be supportive and helpful in creating greater economic opportunity and prosperity in the area.

We have been supportive with respect to loan guarantees and other efforts, in part because we’ve also seen King Abdullah take some very important steps to further open democratization and entrepreneurship and economic development inside of Jordan.  We want to encourage that because we think Jordan can be an extraordinary model for effective governance in the region.

We’re also going to have an opportunity to talk about the Middle East peace process.  And the last time I saw King Abdullah, I’d just come out of Israel and the West Bank in consultations with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas. And Jordan, like the United States, has an enormous stake in peace.  And we do think that there’s a window of opportunity that needs to be seized, and so we will both consult in how we can jumpstart serious conversations that could lead to a peaceful settlement and both a secure Israel with normalized relations with its neighbors and a Palestinian state that was sovereign.

Of great urgency right now obviously is the situation in Syria.  Jordan has experienced a huge influx of refugees coming into the country from Syria, people who’ve been displaced.  Jordan historically has maintained open borders and allowed these refugees on a humanitarian basis to come in, but it’s an enormous strain on a small country.  And we are mobilizing international support to help with these refugees, but obviously our goal is to create a stable Syria, where civilians are not at risk. 

And we both agree that at this point, President Assad has lost legitimacy and that we need to find a political transition that allows a multi-sect, democratic transition to take place so that Syria can be a place where all people can live in peace and harmony.

This will be difficult to accomplish.  And yesterday, some of you saw that I asked my people to brief Congress about the fact that we now have some evidence that chemical weapons have been used on the populations in Syria.  Now, these are preliminary assessments; they’re based on our intelligence gathering.  We have varying degrees of confidence about the actual use, but there are a range of questions around how, when, where these weapons may have been used. 

So we’re going to be pursuing a very vigorous investigation ourselves, and we’re going to be consulting with our partners in the region as well as the international community and the United Nations to make sure that we are investigating this as effectively and as quickly as we can.

But I meant what I’d said, and I will repeat that it’s, obviously, horrific as it is when mortars are being fired on civilians and people are being indiscriminately killed.  To use potential weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line with respect to international norms and international law.  And that is going to be a game changer. 

We have to act prudently.  We have to make these assessments deliberately.  But I think all of us, not just in the United States but around the world, recognize how we cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations. 

So this is going to be something that we’ll be paying a lot of attention to -- trying to confirm, and mobilize the international community around those issues.

But in everything that we do, we very much appreciate the kinds of support, advice, counsel, and partnership that we have with His Majesty and the people of Jordan.  And we look forward to a fruitful consultation this afternoon.

HIS MAJESTY KING ABDULLAH:  Mr. President, thank you very much.  We’re delighted to be back here again.  And may I first start off by expressing, on behalf of myself and the delegation and people of Jordan, our heartfelt condolences on the tremendous tragedies both in Boston for the bombings, as well as that of Texas -- especially that of Boston.  We've always stood together in our fight against terrorism, and this is an issue that we will always be strong partners there.

As you've mentioned, sir, on the issue of the peace process, when you were in Jordan, we had mentioned this is the homework stage.  Jordan will continue to work very closely with the Israelis and the Palestinians, obviously with our American allies to see how we can bring both sides closer together.

But one of the major concerns that brings us here to Washington together, as you alluded to, is obviously the challenge with Syria, the fragmentation of Syrian society, which is becoming more and more alarming. 

Since your last visit to Jordan five weeks ago, we've had over 60,000 refugees -- up to over half a million, so we're at 10 percent of an increase of our population.  We're so grateful to the support that you and the American people have given to our country.  You couldn’t do more, quite honestly, and we're so grateful.  I just wanted to express our appreciation on behalf of myself and the Jordanian people for that.

I think, sir, that we are both working very hard to look for a political solution for a Syria that is one that is, as you mentioned, inclusive so that we're bringing everybody together, which is sort of our last hope to -- as we're now seeing the surge of the second threat appear, which is that of militant terrorist organizations that have risen over the past several months.

But I am confident, with your leadership and with meetings that we will have today, that we can find a mechanism to bring a solution -- to an end as quickly as possible. 

Lastly, sir, you had the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, who is one of our strongest strategic allies.  And I know that is his position with the United States, as well as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia -- the three of us are working very hard in cooperation with the United States to try to find a quick and just solution to the Syrian crisis. 

So I look forward to our discussions later this afternoon, and I hope that together we will be able to alleviate the suffering.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Okay. 

Q. Mr. President, why has the red line been crossed --

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  You guys all have the same question?

Q. Yes.

Q. You know that they are --

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Hold on a second, miss --  one at a time. 

What we have right now is an intelligence assessment.  And as I said, knowing that potentially chemical weapons have been used inside of Syria doesn’t tell us when they were used, how they were used.  Obtaining confirmation and strong evidence, all of those things we have to make sure that we work on with the international community.  And we ourselves are going to be putting a lot of resources into focusing on this. 

And I think that, in many ways, a line has been crossed when we see tens of thousands of innocent people being killed by a regime.  But the use of chemical weapons and the dangers that poses to the international community, to neighbors of Syria, the potential for chemical weapons to get into the hands of terrorists -- all of those things add increased urgency to what is already a significant security problem and humanitarian problem in the region. 

So we're going to be working with countries like Jordan to try to obtain more direct evidence and confirmation of this potential use.  In the meantime, I've been very clear publicly, but also privately, that for the Syrian government to utilize chemical weapons on its people crosses a line that will change my calculus and how the United States approaches these issues. 

So this is not an on or off switch.  This is an ongoing challenge that all of us have to be concerned about.  And we're going to be working with the international community and our partners to keep our eyes on what's happening on the ground, to gather any evidence of potential chemical weapon use and, at the same time, to continue to help with a moderate and inclusive opposition to help bring about the day when the Syrian people can once again focus on living their lives, raising their children, starting businesses, and obtaining basic freedom and human rights. 

This is going to be a long-term proposition.  This is not going to be something that is solved easily overnight.  But I know that King Abdullah is committed to trying to find these kinds of solutions.  So am I. 

Thank you everybody.

D-Day over Syria chemicals is set for June

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.