“Saudi-Russian arms deal alive and kicking”

Putin and Abdullah in Riyadh in 2007 and the sort of Russian arms sought by the Saudis

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s phone call to Saudi King Abdullah on Sunday (after the crackup in U.S.-Saudi relations) has revived talk of the oil-rich kingdom offering to buy billions of dollars worth of arms from Moscow.

That’s the view of diplomatic sources quoted by Political Consultant/Analyst Nasr al-Majali, writing today for Elaph news portal.

Saudi businessman, journalist and author Othman al-Omeir, a former editor-in-chief of the Saudi newspaper of records Asharq Alawsat owns Elaph.

A statement by the Kremlin said the Russian President and Saudi monarch on Sunday discussed international issues over the phone.

During the conversation requested by the Russian side, the two leaders focused on the Syrian conflict and Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the statement said without elaborating.

Western countries suspect Iran of using its nuclear program to develop atomic weapons, a claim Iran has consistently denied. Tehran claims it needs atomic technology for producing electricity, although it has some of the world’s largest reserves of oil and gas.

Majali quotes diplomats and various Russian sources as saying the arms deal in the making would include such Russian military hardware for Saudi Arabia as:

• T-90 battle tanks
• Mi-17, Mi-26 and Mi-35 attack helicopters
• BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles
• S-400 surface-to-air missiles
• Pantsir-S1, a short to medium range ground based air defense system, wheeled, tracked or stationary.

According to Simon Henderson, director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at The Washington Institute, if Riyadh concludes a major arms deal with Moscow in return for reduced Russian backing of Syria’s Assad regime, it will come at the expense of U.S. influence in the Middle East and possibly across the world.

Henderson wrote last August:

From the moment it was announced, the July 31 Moscow meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan was clearly of political significance. The "long and serious" discussions between the two reportedly lasted four hours and left the Saudis "in a positive mood."

According to an August 7 Reuters report, Riyadh offered to buy $15 billion worth of weapons from Moscow and avoid threatening Russia's position as the main natural gas supplier to Europe, in return for Russia easing its strong support for the Assad regime and agreeing not to block any future UN Security Council resolution on Syria. According to unidentified diplomats quoted in the story, the Russian response has so far been inconclusive, though Moscow reportedly pressured Damascus to allow [the] visit by a UN mission investigating suspected chemical weapons use.

The Saudi diplomatic push shows Riyadh's determination to force the Assad regime's collapse, which the kingdom hopes will be a strategic defeat for Iran, its regional rival in both diplomatic and religious terms. It also reflects Riyadh's belief, shared by its Gulf Arab allies, that U.S. diplomacy on Syria lacks the necessary imagination, commitment, and energy to succeed…

Obama the Hutu and Putin the Tutsi

File photo of Rwandans escaping the genocide

It is not enough for the UN to organize “funeral wakes and shed crocodile tears” for Syria at the Security Council (see yesterday’s post).

Telling us as it did, that “we have not seen a refugee outflow escalate at such a frightening rate since the Rwandan genocide,” is not helpful either.

Columnist Rajeh el-Khoury, writing today for the independent Beirut daily an-Nahar, says in part:

It is more useful for the UN to do something concrete to stop this infamy, which is worse than the massacres and genocide committed in Rwanda almost 20 years ago.

The Rwandan disaster took place in Africa’s jungles, relatively far from the world’s public eye.

But the daily massacres in Syria are being aired straightaway to every home around the globe.

Still, the Syria “Massacre’s International Department” is keen to see the pace of the killings continue unabated.

American apathy and Russian bigotry are the two faces of one and the same despicable, heinous and criminal policy.

Political solutions were foiled at the Arab League, then by a Russian veto at the UN Security Council, and since at the “Geneva Conference” farce… But the UN finds nothing better than wail the 100,000 Syrian deaths and the estimated killing of another 5,000 every month.

In Rwanda, the Hutus and Tutsis slaughtered each other as Bill Clinton stood idly by and just watched the slaughter.

Using a political metaphor, Obama represents the Hutus and Putin the Tutsis.

Both have no qualms about watching the slaughter until Syria is totally destroyed.

In the process, the largest number of Islamic extremists and jihadists would be killed alongside as many Iranians, Iraqis and Hezbollah Lebanese as possible, which would also wear down Iran.

Suspicions of a foul play on Syria also filter through this other think piece on the “Game of Nations” penned by wordsmith Samir Atallah for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat:

Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe in 1989, and two years later in the Soviet Union.

Some read in the two downfalls the End of History; others declared the end of the Cold War.

Russia was a bankrupt nation ruled by an addict called Boris Yeltsin while China’s economy was still predominantly rural.

But the march of history never stops and history variables are unpredictable.

The past decade saw the collapse of the U.S. economy, which was partly pulled down by the Iraq adventure.

It also witnessed the rise of China to economic giant status.

That’s when the Russians sought to take advantage of America’s enfeeblement and Europe’s fatigue and make a comeback on the international stage, using their Soviet forerunners’ wiles: the Cold War.

In a sense, the Cold War means waging hot wars away from your homeland – Vietnam, Angola, Cuba, the Balkans, the Middle East, Indonesia, Lebanon, Korea and scores of other places. That’s what the two sides do, but always covertly.

The Russians perceived in America’s exit from Iraq, her failure in Afghanistan and her financial meltdown a suitable window to recoup the role of equals in a bipolar world.

Realizing the West was shutting them out from Africa after the change in Libya, the Chinese chose to warm up to their traditionally hated partners, the Russians.

A golden opportunity came knocking with the explosion in Syria, an old Moscow lover despite her flings with the Americans in Lebanon and Iraq.

At the UN Security Council, the Russians pulled their veto sword from its sheath in anticipation of a duel.

They were surprised to find a bystander instead of an adversary. They found Obama playing the old Soviet role -- passionate verbosity and hot air.

In this crisscross painting of the battle scene, Putin visited America’s two principal military allies in the region, Israel and Turkey.

People who expected Obama to change tack in his second term saw him replace Hillary Clinton with John Kerry.

American ambulation and cogitation supplanted the ragged Russian footwork.

In the tug-of-war, nuclear Iran played the role of nuclear Cuba with cold, limited and timid Russian backing and American cautioning.

While the Russians and Americans weighed their moves, and China pondered the words of her Security Council representative, 100,000 Syrians were killed and 10 million displaced.

The quintessence of the conflict changed from Hama to Qusayr, the MiGs destroyed a quarter of Syria, the Middle East toppled over and the ultimate peril of sectarian conflict ignited.

The Big Powers don’t change. Everything outside their borders is a “game.”

Putin-Assad twosome comes out on top

G8 Superstar Vladimir Putin

The Vladimir Putin-Bashar al-Assad alliance emphatically won yesterday’s G8 summit finals in Northern Ireland, according to Abdelbari Atwan.

The publisher/editor-in-chief of the London-based pan-Arab newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi writes in Arabic this morning:

Proof the Russian president came out on top at the G8 meeting is corroborated by three peculiarities in the summit’s final statement on Syria, namely:

1. Absence of any explicit and unambiguous call on his partner Assad to stand down as the sine qua non of a political solution to the Syria crisis.
2. Strong endorsement of Geneva-2, where the Syrian regime will be represented by Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem. This translates into recognition of the regime’s legitimacy.
3. A commitment by the G8 leaders to fight and destroy Islamic extremist groups affiliated to al-Qaeda or other Muslim Jihadist organizations.

Thus, after a 26-month uprising and over 100,000 chiefly innocent Syrian fatalities, G8 leaders agree with Assad that he is fighting armed gangs.

This conclusion must have shocked and shaken the armed Syrian opposition, its supporters and its sponsors, especially the Gulf Arab states.

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, one of the most ardent Western advocates of arming the Syrian opposition, said, “Yes, there are elements of the Syrian opposition that are deeply unsavory, that are very dangerous, very extremist, and I want nothing to do with them.

“I'd like them driven out of Syria; they're linked to al-Qaeda. But there are elements of the Syrian opposition who want to see a free, democratic, pluralistic Syria that respects the rights of minorities, including Christians, and we should be working with them...

“We have to learn the lessons of Iraq by ensuring the key institutions of the state are maintained through the transition and there is no vacuum.”

Cameron used two very indicative expressions – drive out Islamic extremists and avoid a political vacuum.

The question that begs an answer is this: Who would drive out the extremists and how? The Free Syrian Army under the command of Chief of Staff Gen. Salim Idriss, who was picked by the U.S, and the West as sole conduit of arms aid to opposition forces? Given the arms and funds, the man is presumably prepared to do the job. Gulf countries can chip in and provide both.

Cameron’s suggestion of ridding Syria of extremists is easier said than done, if not impossible in the foreseeable future. The Jihadists groups already have a pervasive presence in Syrian opposition ranks.

Assad told the German premier daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview published on the eve of the G8 summit: “My current term ends in 2014. When the country is in a crisis, the president is expected to shoulder the burden of responsibility and resolve the situation, not abandon his duties and leave.

“I often use the analogy of a captain navigating a ship hit by a storm; just imagine the captain jumping ship and escaping in a lifeboat!

“If I decide to leave now, I would be committing treason. If on the other hand, the public decided I should step down, that would be another issue. And this can only be determined through elections or a referendum.”

A Russian president like Putin, who keeps saying he won’t allow a no-fly zone over Syria and he will continue arms shipment to Damascus, backs Assad.

An American president with trembling knees, who was stung by two defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan and half or quarter of a victory in Libya, backs the Syrian opposition.

Isn’t Assad justified to relax and stretch his legs?

For the nth time, their Western and Arab “friends” have duped the Syrian people.

Obama and Putin: We remain at odds on Syria

Chilly body language on display

Prospects of agreement between the American and Russian presidents on how to end the Syria war dimmed dramatically at the G8 meeting in Northern Ireland.

Speaking after their face-to-face talks, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin said they failed to find common ground on Syria.

Correspondents say both leaders looked tense as they addressed journalists afterwards, with Putin staring at the floor as he spoke about Syria and Obama only glancing occasionally at the Russian leader.

Putin said:

"We also spoke about problem spots on the planet, including Syria. And, of course, our opinions do not coincide, but all of us have the intention to stop the violence in Syria, to stop the growth of victims, and to solve the situation peacefully, including by bringing the parties to the negotiations table in Geneva. We agreed to push the parties to the negotiations table."

In Obama's words:

"With respect to Syria, we do have differing perspectives on the problem, but we share an interest in reducing the violence; securing chemical weapons and ensuring that they're neither used nor are they subject to proliferation; and that we want to try to resolve the issue through political means, if possible. And so we have instructed our teams to continue to work on the potential of a Geneva follow-up to the first meeting."

The chilly bilateral meeting between the two leaders ended with a stiff exchange of diplomatic pleasantries.

Obama tried to lighten the mood by joking about their favorite sports. He cited Putin's expertise in judo and "my declining skills in basketball." Then he added, "And we both agree that as you get older, it takes more time to recover."

Putin cracked a brief smile before adding an awkward admission of the tension: "The president wants to relax me with his statement."

In a sign of the tensions, the French president, François Hollande, criticized Russia for sending weapons to Assad's forces and considering deliveries of a sophisticated missile system. "How can we allow that Russia continues to deliver arms to the Assad regime when the opposition receives very few – and is being massacred?" he asked.

BBC News posted today two excellent eye-openers on the G8 meeting and Syria.

Mark Mardell, the BBC’s North America editor, writing just as Obama and Putin prepared to meet, had this comment:

This was a tale of two President Barack Obamas, the one with high dreams and the one who must deal with grubby realities.

In the Belfast hall there was some of the old excitement. As the crowd waited for Mr. Obama to appear, the rather staid dignitaries in the upper gallery performed a Mexican wave, to the delight of the school children in the audience.

Here, he still has some lingering rock star status. His words were lofty, serious and inspirational. He told the young people that many around the world looked to Northern Ireland as an example of how to make peace.

He urged them not to rest there but to break down more walls, heal more wounds. There is a feeling here that peace has become so entrenched, so normal that many are content to accept the gains and not try to improve the two communities.

This is the president as the inspirer-in-chief.

It reminded me of his speech in Israel. That was a more important moment, but similar in that he was exhorting young people to reach for their better selves over the heads of bickering politicians, using his own background and America's civil rights struggle as an example of what can be achieved.

It is where cynics think, "What a president he would make! Oh, hang on, he already is."

For this was surely an opportunity missed.

He was talking about ending conflict and bringing peace, yet he still has not talked about the biggest conflict in the world today -- Syria.

He has made no attempt to explain his shift in policy. That is not to claim there are easy, glib answers, but he's good at complexity and this is a serious issue that needs grown-up debate.

He wants to avoid getting embroiled in another Middle East war and to avoid the U.S. dictating outcomes in the region, but he doesn't want Syria to spiral further into chaos or President Bashar al-Assad to continue in power.

His meeting with Vladimir Putin will be interesting, because the Russian president knows what he wants and says it.

At the moment the U.S. and the UK look irresolute -- talking about increasing help to the rebels without spelling out what they are doing, talking about a diplomatic solution when none is in sight.

Russia, on the other hand, appears firm, arguing a no-fly zone would be illegal, and that backing the legitimate government and selling arms to them should be behavior beyond reproach.

The president's rhetoric may inspire school children, but it is unlikely to melt Mr. Putin.

Nick Robinson, the BBC's political editor, wrote earlier:

What we used to call the West finds itself in a pretty strange place when it comes to Syria and Vladimir Putin knows it.

Speaking at Downing Street the Russian president was completely unapologetic for arming the Syrian government -- it was quite legal he said -- and looked unimpressed when his host, the prime minister, called President Assad a "murderous dictator".

The renewed talk of arming the rebels was meant to put pressure on Putin so that he would, in turn, pressurize the Syrian regime to agree to peace talks. Here's why that strategy may not work.

The U.S. president talks of supplying the rebels with arms but shows little sign of wanting to do so whilst the British prime minister sounds positively enthusiastic about sending weapons but cannot persuade his own government, let alone parliament, to do so.

There is a stark contrast in the way the U.S. and the UK have talked about this issue. Last week it fell to a relatively lowly U.S. figure to announce America's change of policy.

He did it in words so vague and ambiguous that some in the U.S. administration briefed that it might mean a no-fly zone and the supply of anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles whilst others suggested it meant only small arms and ammunition. We still don't know the answer. We still haven't heard from the president himself.

Compare that with the words of David Cameron almost two weeks ago. Speaking to the House of Commons on 3rd June the prime minister condemned "those who argue against ... doing more to support the opposition" as "making some of the same arguments used in the Bosnian conflict 20 years ago."

He went on "we were told then, as we are now, that taking action would have bad consequences, but not taking action is a decision too, and in Bosnia it led to the slaughter of up to 200,000 people and did not stop the growth of extremism and radicalization, but increased it. We should be clear, however, about the nature of what is happening in Syria today. It is not just a tragedy for Syria; it could end up being a tragedy for us, too, if we do not handle it properly."

For months Cameron has been trying to do to Obama what Tony Blair did to Bill Clinton over Bosnia in the late 90s -- to persuade America that it must intervene and that there can be no hope for peace talks if it doesn't.

The prime minister sees Bashar Assad as a modern day equivalent of Slobodan Milosevic -- in other words a dictator who must be shown that "he cannot fight his way to victory or use the talks to buy more time to slaughter (people) in their own homes and on their streets."

The irony is that Cameron, unlike Blair, cannot deliver military support himself. That's why the prime minister found himself having to strike a very different tone when he told SKY News: "I think where we can actually give the greatest assistance to the official proper Syrian opposition, is advice, is training and is technical support" - and not weapons.

His deputy Nick Clegg made the coalition's position plain when he told the BBC that "we don't believe it (arming the rebels) is the right thing to do at the moment."

No wonder the Russian president is not budging. He faces a British prime minister who cannot do what he believes in and an American president who doesn't show much sign of believing in what he's apparently committed to doing.

U.S. to arm Syria rebels, set no-fly zone near Jordan

Hot on the heels of U.S. President Barack Obama’s push into Syria, Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz is said to have cut short his private visit to Morocco to return to the kingdom overnight.

The monarch and his entourage have already left Morocco, according to Naharnet news portal.

The news follows reports of the Saudi military command ordering an “above normal defense readiness” at the kingdom’s largest air force base in Tabouk, close to the Jordan-Saudi border.

Observers associate the developments to the Syria war.

Two senior Western diplomats in Turkey told Reuters today the United States is studying setting up a limited no-fly zone in Syria close to the southern border with Jordan.

Their comments, confirmed by a third regional diplomat, came after the White House said overnight it would step up military assistance to rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad in response to proof of chemical weapons use by Assad forces.

"Washington is considering a no-fly zone to help Assad's opponents," one diplomat told Reuters. He said it would be limited "time-wise and area-wise, possibly near the Jordanian border," without giving details.

U.S. military planners, responding to a request by the White House to develop options for Syria, recommended the limited no-fly zone along the Syrian border to protect rebels and refugees inside Jordan.

The plan, according to the Wall Street Journal, would create what one official called a "no fighting zone" that would stretch up to 25 miles into Syrian territory along the Jordanian border, preventing Assad forces from launching attacks against the rebels and refugees and protecting U.S. personnel involved in distributing weapons and providing training.

Under this plan, the U.S. and its allies would enforce the zone using aircraft flown from Jordanian bases and flying inside the kingdom, according to U.S. officials.

Jordan has been inundated by a flood of refugees Jordanian and U.S. officials say is a growing threat to the kingdom, a key U.S. ally in the region.

The U.S. has already moved Patriot air defense batteries and F-16 fighter planes to Jordan, which could be integral to any no-fly zone if President Obama approves the military proposal.

Proponents of the proposal think a no-fly zone could be imposed without a UN Security Council resolution, since the U.S. would not regularly enter Syrian airspace and wouldn't hold Syrian territory.

U.S. warplanes have air-to-air missiles that could destroy Syrian planes from long ranges.

The U.S. is to supply direct military aid to the Syrian opposition for the first time, the White House announced overnight.

Ben Rhodes, spokesman for President Obama, did not give details about the military aid other than to say it would be "different in scope and scale to what we have provided before".

He said, "I can't go through an inventory of the type of assistance we are providing but suffice to say it's going to be substantively different from what we were providing."

The U.S. had warned any use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line.”

The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says the White House announcement is one the Syrian opposition has been pushing and praying for for months.

The Syrian opposition’s clamoring for U.S. arms peaked after thousands of guerillas from Iran’s Lebanese Hezbollah movement crossed into Syria last month to fight alongside Assad’s troops.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen welcomed Washington’s “clear” statement.

"Urgent that Syria regime should let UN investigate all reports of chemical weapons use," he said on his official Twitter feed.

Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Obama, said the U.S. intelligence community believed the "Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times over the last year".

He said intelligence officials had a "high confidence" in their assessment, and also estimated that 100 to 150 people had died from chemical weapons attacks, "however, casualty data is likely incomplete".

"We have consistently said the use of chemical weapons violates international norms and crosses red lines that have existed in the international community for decades," Rhodes said.

He highlighted four instances in which the U.S. believes chemical weapons were used: on March 19 in the Aleppo suburb of Khan Al-Asal; April 13 in the Aleppo neighborhood of Sheikh Maksoud; May 14, in Qasr Abu Samra, which is north of Homs; and on May 23 in an attack in eastern Damascus.

Rhodes said President Obama had made the decision to increase assistance, including "military support", to the Supreme Military Council (SMC) and Syrian Opposition Coalition.

He did not give details of the aid, but U.S. media quoted administration officials as saying it will most likely include sending small arms and ammunition.

The New York Times quoted U.S. officials as saying Washington could provide anti-tank weapons.

Syria's rebels have been calling for both anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry.

The Wall Street Journal said Washington is also considering a no-fly zone inside Syria, possibly near the border with Jordan, which would protect refugees and rebels who are training there.

When asked whether Obama would back a no-fly zone over Syria, Rhodes said one would not make a "huge difference" on the ground -- but would be costly.

He said further actions would be taken "on our own timeline."

The CIA is expected to co-ordinate delivery of the military equipment and to train the rebel soldiers on how to use it.

Until now, the U.S. has limited its help to rebel forces by providing food rations and medical supplies.

Rhodes said the White House hoped the increased support would bolster the effectiveness and legitimacy of both the political and military arms of Syria's rebels, and said the U.S. was "comfortable" working with SMC chief Gen. Salim Idriss.

"It's been important to work through them while aiming to isolate some of the more extremist elements of the opposition, such as (Jabhat) al-Nusra," he said.

A senior pro-Kremlin politician in Russia -- the Damascus government’s chief ally and arms supplier -- said U.S. claims of the Assad government's use of chemical weapons were "fabricated.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin's senior foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said information provided by the United States to Russia over suspected use of chemical weapons by President Assad's forces "does not look convincing.”

Obama and Putin will hold a one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of the summit of eight leading industrial nations early next week in Northern Ireland.

The White House announcement immediately shook up the ongoing debate in Washington DC over how the U.S. might provide assistance to the rebels.

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who have been particularly strident in their calls for military aid, said the finding must change US policy in Syria. They called for further action, saying US credibility was on the line.

"A decision to provide lethal assistance, especially ammunition and heavy weapons, to opposition forces in Syria is long overdue, and we hope the president will take this urgently needed step," they said in a joint statement.

"But providing arms alone is not sufficient. The president must rally an international coalition to take military actions to degrade Assad's ability to use airpower and ballistic missiles and to move and resupply his forces around the battlefield by air."

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, was also pleased with the decision and had a call for further action.

"It is long past time to bring the Assad regime's bloodshed in Syria to an end," said Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck. "As President Obama examines his options, it is our hope he will properly consult with Congress before taking any action."

And House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., released a statement saying, "I am pleased that President Obama's Administration has joined the growing international chorus declaring that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons in Syria, crossing the red line drawn by the president last August."

But Rogers doesn’t want the assistance to stop there: “As I called for in a USA Today op-ed earlier this week," Rogers said, "the United States should assist the Turks and our Arab League partners to create safe zones in Syria from which the U.S. and our allies can train, arm, and equip vetted opposition forces."

“The Amateur” Obama weighs his Syria options

Would U.S. President Barack Obama -- who former President Bill Clinton dismissed as an incompetent “amateur” who “doesn’t know how the world works” – approve arming Syrian opposition forces this week?

I doubt very much, though I hope he proves me wrong.

The Obama administration ordered strategy sessions on Syria after thousands of Iran’s Lebanese Hezbollah militiamen poured into the country to help regime forces capture the border town of Qusayr last week and press on with a campaign to clear rebels across the heart of Syria.

Top aides from the State and Defense Departments, the CIA, and other agencies gathered for a ‘‘deputies meeting’’ at the White House yesterday, with officials saying a decision on arming beleaguered rebels could happen later this week.

They were seeking to lay the groundwork for a meeting that President Obama will hold with his senior national security staff, reportedly planned for tomorrow, Wednesday.

Secretary of State John Kerry postponed a planned Middle East trip to participate in the White House discussions.

While nothing has been concretely decided, U.S. officials said President Obama was leaning closer toward signing off on sending weapons to vetted, moderate rebel units.

Obama already has ruled out any intervention that would require U.S. military boots on the ground.

Other options such as deploying American air power to ground the regime's jets, gunships and other aerial assets are now being more seriously debated, the officials said, while cautioning that a no-fly zone or any other action involving U.S. military deployments in Syria were far less likely right now.

The president also has declared chemical weapons use by the Assad regime a "redline" for more forceful U.S. action.

American allies, including France and Britain, determined with near certitude that Syrian forces have used low levels of sarin in several attacks, but the administration is still studying the evidence. The U.S. officials said responses that will be mulled over in this week's meetings concern the deteriorating situation on the ground in Syria, independent of final confirmation of possible chemical weapons use.

Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said the Obama administration was continually looking at ways to strengthen the opposition but had nothing new to announce.

"At the president's direction, his national security team continues to consider all possible options that would accomplish our objectives of helping the Syrian opposition serve the essential needs of the Syrian people and hastening a political transition to a post-Assad Syria," she said.

"We have prepared a wide range of options for the president's consideration, and internal meetings to discuss the situation in Syria are routine," she said. "The United States will continue to look for ways to strengthen the capabilities of the Syrian opposition, though we have no new announcements at this time."

One reason why I expect the president to continue slow walking on Syria is his upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the June 17-18 G8 summit in Northern Ireland’s Lough Erne.

I can’t imagine him burying the planned Geneva-2 peace conference agreed with Russia by announcing any time soon an overt and unequivocal measure to shore up the Syrian opposition.

Editorially, columnist Elias Harfouche, writing today for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, says:

The Syrians did not need the Qusayr tragedy to ascertain the depth of the Obama Administration’s treachery and deceit.

Obama told them time and again Assad’s days are numbered, the use of chemical weapons is a redline and the massacre of civilians is unacceptable.

All the Syrians got from these empty promises and farcical warnings was more killings, massacres and sarin gas attacks by the Syrian regime…

The Syrians never asked the Obama Administration to put U.S. boots on the ground and fight the regime on their behalf. All they asked for was a modicum of power balance on the ground.

They appealed to the United States not to prevent her allies from putting their shoulder to the wheel of the opposition, at a time when President Bashar al-Assad’s regime was being fully armed and funded by Iran and having its military arsenal ceaselessly replenished by Russia.

Bill Clinton was not dramatizing when he dismissed Obama as inept, saying, “Obama doesn't know how to be president. He doesn't know how the world works. He's incompetent. He's an amateur!”

The bystander president is not only undermining America’s national interests, but also our region’s confessional and social stability.

His ill thought withdrawal of U.S. troops presented Iraq to Iran on a silver platter. His spineless response to Iran and Hezbollah’s brazen intervention in the Syria fighting was an expression of “concern.”

Obama has proved to be ignorant of the region’s history and sensitivities by allowing Iraq and Syria – once cradles of the two most important empires in Arab history – to fall into the lap of Iran, the Arab world’s strategic rival for power and influence…

Russia on Golan

Separately, Israel has given Russia an official reply to its offer to send peacekeepers to the Golan Heights, but does not want to make that reply public, an Israeli deputy foreign minister told RIA Novosti yesterday. Other Israeli officials have revealed contradictory feelings about the offer.

“Israel’s position was expressed openly and unambiguously during a conversation between the two countries’ leaders. Sometimes there are things that are best left on that level,” Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin said, referring to a telephone conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Putin.

Putin on Friday said Russia was ready to deploy troops to the Golan Heights to replace nearly 400 Austrian peacekeepers being pulled out of a UN monitoring mission due to intense fighting in Syria.

Although Elkin was tightlipped about Israel’s reply to Putin’s offer, other officials have revealed conflicting views about Russian troops in the area.

Israeli Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirshenbaum, currently on a visit to Moscow, said Monday she thought Israel would not oppose the deployment of Russian peacekeepers.

“If President Putin has decided to deploy his forces there, I don’t think Israel will oppose that. We always want somebody to be there to monitor the situation,” she told Ekho Moskvy radio. “We would like any forces that could assume responsibility. Those can be Russian, Austrian or Australian. That doesn’t make any difference to us at all.”

Yuval Steinitz, Israeli minister of international, intelligence and strategic affairs, said Friday that Putin’s idea of sending Russian peacekeepers to the Golan Heights to replace the Austrian contingent was “unrealistic.”

In Beirut, Rosanna Boumounsef, in her column today for the independent daily an-Nahar, notes that the Syrian army has asked the IDF not to hit its tanks in the Golan and that contrary to its 1974 Disengagement Agreement with Syria, Israel is allowing Assad’s army to keep a military presence in the area of separation of forces.

She quotes from UN Report this part of a note submitted to the Security Council last Friday by UN Undersecretary General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous:

During the (June 6) clashes, SAAF (Syrian Arab Armed Forces) reinforced its presence in the area of separation with five main battle tanks and five armored personnel carriers, moving in the direction of Quneitra. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) informed the UNDOF (UN Disengagement Observe Force) Force Commander that should the movement of SAAF tanks continue, the IDF would take action. Subsequently, the UNDOF Force Commander conveyed the message to the Senior Syrian Arab Delegate (SSAD), UNDOF’s main interlocutor on the Bravo side. The SSAD informed the UNDOF Force Commander that the presence of the tanks was solely for the purpose of fighting the armed members of the opposition and asked that the IDF not take action. Also, during the fighting, armed members of the opposition took control temporarily of the Bravo Gate. After several hours of clashes between the SAAF and the armed members of the opposition, the SAAF regained control of the Bravo Gate and fighting in the area had subsided. Currently, four main battle tanks and three armored personnel carriers remain in the area of separation, in violation of the Disengagement Agreement.