“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.

Gen. Idriss: The post-Qusayr state of play in Syria

Hezbollah's black flag of "Ya Hussein" on a minaret in al-Qusayr

Aljazeera Mubasher aired the following interview with Gen. Salim Idriss, chief of staff of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, today. The translation is my own:

Gen. Idriss being interviewed

Q. General, brief us if you may about Qusayr and the overall military situation

The battle for Qusayr drew a lot of media attention. It was certainly a major and key battle. Fact is that huge numbers of Hezbollah fighters – we’re talking of more than 7,000 fighters – crossed the Lebanese borders into the town’s outlying areas. It is an open secret that these were elite and well-equipped Hezbollah forces.

They crossed the Lebanese-Syrian border under the nose of the Lebanese army. We have information the Lebanese army watched nonchalantly as they crossed the border. The army did absolutely nothing to stop them. In truth, and to put it diplomatically, this is utter complicity.

The fighters went in and were able, after some fierce fighting, to take control of a number of villages in close proximity to the border.

Throughout the fighting, these (Hezbollah) forces were receiving unprecedented air cover from the criminal regime’s warplanes, which dropped all kinds of bombs and medium-range missiles -- including thermobaric bombs and long-range shells -- against our men and villages.

Mechanized regime forces and Hezbollah fighters then used what is called scorched tactics to pulverize Qusayr, one neighborhood after the other, in order to be able to control it.

The number of injured in Qusayr is very high and humanitarian conditions are tough because the criminal regime’s forces and Hezbollah fighters had been blockading Qusayr town for weeks.

With their light weapons, FSA forces were left with two options: hold out and be wiped out altogether, or retreat along with the wounded, who were many.

We, as FSA, acknowledge that we cannot face up to the regime’s regular army when it is in full-strength. Between brackets, the regime has no army left to fight us with. Its army was over and done with a long time ago.

The best way for us to fight this regime is by guerilla warfare or hit and run tactics without holding on to territory. But in Qusayr, we were forced to defend our people’s security.

Displays and manifestations of sectarianism, confessional hatred and fanaticism started as soon as regime forces and Hezbollah fighters went into Qusayr.

First thing they did was to raise a black flag with the (Shiite) cry “Ya (Oh) Hussein” inscribed on it and chant that they are “the sons of Ali.”

This liar, Hassan Nasrallah, used to claim he is a resistance (movement against Israel), which he considered to be Islamic.

These (Hezbollah) people are unrelated to Islam or to Hussein or to Ali or to Zeinab. After all, Hussein is ours and so is Zeinab.

These people are simply carrying out a dirty Iranian scheme.

God willing, the end of the Hezbollah movement will come here on Syrian land.

Syria has an area of 185,000 square kilometers. Her people, her heroes, her freedom fighters have gulped down the criminal regime’s army and are able to gulp down Hassan Nasrallah’s fighters.

Q. Did you set a new strategy for the coming battles, especially after reports that Hezbollah fighters are now massing in Aleppo, Homs and Rif Dimashq?

Certainly, but this not something we would share with the media.

But the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran know – and so does the criminal Bashar – the high figure of casualties they sustained to enter a small town. Can they keep up the momentum and bear such a high casualty toll?

We are 23 million people spread over an area of 185,000 kilometers. We will all be fighting Hezbollah and the other Iraqi Shiite bigots and Iranian fighters who support the regime. We will fight them to the finish.

We assure them, we are aware this is going to be a tough and long-drawn-out war that could last for years. The Lebanese war lasted 17 years.

The fact Hassan Nasrallah acted on Iran’s orders and joined criminal Bashar in this war opened the door to all probabilities. We are prepared for this confrontation. We are ready for this war.

Through your channel, I appeal to my brothers the combatants, fighters and insurgents to raise their alertness condition to “Maximum Readiness” level in order to confront the ongoing sectarian invasion.

After Bashar pioneered sectarianism, which was unbeknown to us, Hassan Nasrallah comes in to hoist black flags on top of our minarets

This is something we will not forget. We believe in tit for tat. We shall fight them, even if the war were to last a thousand years.

Q. How is the situation now in Qusayr? Are there still civilians there?

I can’t discuss the fate of the civilians and wounded, if only because regime warplanes are still chasing the wounded.

Whenever they are moved from Qusayr to medical facilities inside or outwith Lebanese territory, regime warplanes and Hezbollah fighters track them.

So I apologize for not being able to share with you any information on the state of the civilians, the wounded, the state of Qusayr or the villages near it.

Q. Did fighting flare up in Rif Dimashq because Hezbollah fighters joined the fray en masse?

Hezbollah fighters are now spread across Syria. They have a presence in Eastern Ghouta alongside Iraqi Shiite extremists belonging to the Mahdi Brigade and ‘Asa’eb al-Haq, Iranian combatants and Shiite volunteers from Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere.

Hezbollah fighters also have a presence in Rif Dimashq’s western and northern sectors. They have a tightly packed presence in Aleppo, Idlib and east Syria. We know their numbers, where they are positioned and where their sleeping quarters are.

For example, we know that some 4,000 Hezbollah fighters are accommodated in the Military Academy west of Aleppo. They are bracing for battle on the Khan Al Asal front.

Q. Can you promise the poorly armed FSA members qualitative weapons anytime soon?

Victory comes from God, faith and the cause we are upholding – namely, to uproot this tyrant who destroyed the country, its people and social fabric.

Weapons are vital and much needed. But the determining factor is faith and the fighter’s belief in the justice of his cause.

They’ve been saying they stifled the revolution for two years and they stifled nothing. They now brought in Hezbollah, their last card – unless of course they call on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to intervene directly.

Q. Will the FSA be intervening in Lebanon to fight Hezbollah there?

Frankly, we did not and will not ask our fighters to go into Lebanon.

We don’t want to fight on Lebanese territory.

Lebanon is a country we respect. We know Lebanese authorities can’t lift a finger against Hezbollah. Hezbollah wreaked havoc in Lebanon and destroyed its social fabric. It totally disregards state authority.

We repeatedly urged the Lebanese president to condemn (Hezbollah’s invasion). But we excuse him because he cannot do that. They (Hezbollah) would create all sorts of problems for him.

The (Lebanese) president is an honorable man and we respect him highly.

The (caretaker) Prime Minister (Najib Mikati) however is an accomplice of Hezbollah -- and so is the Lebanese army, whether willingly or unwillingly.

But we will not fight inside Lebanese territory.

Q. Are you coordinating positions with the Syrian National Coalition in respect of the proposed Geneva-2 conference?

Geneva-2 is the brainchild of the Russians and Americans.

The Russians want to exploit it to tell the world the Syrian opposition is divided.

They are hedging their bets on seeing the opposition represented at the conference by four caucuses: (1) The FSA and other fighters (2) The National Coalition (3) Haytham Manna’ and his loyalists (4) The so-called State-Building Bloc created by Assad…

The Russians want them all to meet with Walid al-Muallem so they can later say the opposition is disjointed and there is no solution other than keeping Assad to restore security and stability in Syria and protect its minorities.

The long and short of our position on Geneva-2 is this:

1. One delegation – with one head – goes to the conference to represent the opposition.
2. The delegation would forthwith table its conditions to negotiate a peaceful solution.
3. The conditions are (a) the criminal Bashar al-Assad resigns instantly and leaves the country he destroyed (b) criminal heads of the security services and commanders of the quisling army are referred to trial (c) a transitional government is formed -- one in which the opposition holds sway.
4. From thereon, we will submit to whatever decisions are taken by the Syrian people.

I want to assure the Syrian people the political and armed wings of the opposition are one in wanting the new Syria to be free and democratic, respectful of all religions, free of any sort of discrimination or acts of revenge, where citizens have equal rights and obligations…

 Q. What’s your reading of the days ahead?

The situation is grave, very grave. We forewarn everyone in the world that massacres and many tragedies are in store for Syria.

To date, 60 to 70 percent of Syria is in ruin.

The country might yet be thoroughly destroyed, which is sad but likely.

Others might not be spared. Bashar, Iran and Hezbollah have no qualms about destroying the whole region.

The greatest danger facing the world today is Iran and its quest to revive Khosru’s Sassanid Empire.

Q. And what about the clashes on the Golan front?

All Syrians are familiar with Bashar’s heroics on the Golan front. As Don Quixote incarnated, he never fought or would fight Israel.

He says he will choose the time end place to fight Israel. The time and place will never come.

Bashar and Israel have an undeclared alliance. He is the best neighbor Israel could have. That’s why Israel does not want to see him fall.

Q. Any message you would like to convey to the Syrians?

To all men on all fronts, I would say: Make sure to raise your alertness condition to “Maximum Readiness” level.

To all other Syrians in every city, town, village or rural area, I would say: Take up arms to defend your homeland against a foreign invasion. I ask everyone short of a rifle to sell his clothes and buy one.

Ex Hezbollah chief: Syria war coming to Lebanon

Giselle Khoury interviewing Subhi al-Tufayli in Baalbek the day after Qusayr

Former Hezbollah leader Subhi al-Tufayli says Iran has opened the door to an inevitable spillover of the Syria war into Lebanon and provoked 1.3 billion Muslim Sunnis by ordering the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement to help out Bashar al-Assad’s army.

He made the accusation in a 25-minute interview with Giselle Khoury for Alarabiya TV news channel.

The interview took place in Baalbek within 24 hours of the fall of the Syrian town of Qusayr to Syrian government troops backed by Hezbollah fighters. 

Tufayli, who spent nine years studying theology in Najaf was spokesman for Hezbollah between 1985 and 1989, and became the militant Shiite group’s first Secretary-General from 1989 until 1991.

I excerpted and paraphrased from the interview these remarks by Tufayli on the fallout from Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria:

Lebanon is bound for war – a war worse than any Lebanon has seen to date.

Regrettably -- regrettably again -- the war will be between Sunnis and Shiites who embraced the initiative of invading Syria.

We (Shiites) have alienated Lebanon’s Sunnis, the Free Syrian Army and Sunnis worldwide. We provoked everyone.

When we -- (a reference to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah specifically) – declare openly, “Whoever does not share our view can come and fight us in Syria,” we are effectively provoking the world’s 1.3 billion Muslim Sunnis and not only the Sunnis of Lebanon, Syria and the Arab world.

Time will show that talk of a Hezbollah victory on the home front in the 7 May 2008 conflict in Lebanon is haywire.

At times, certain countries – in this case America – have an interest to see Hezbollah come out on top in a confrontation, such as happened in Beirut on May 7, 2008.

Talk of a Hezbollah victory in Qusayr is also a big lie.

I think Hezbollah suffered its worst defeat in Qusayr.

Qusayr is a small town. It was besieged. Some of its people were very poorly armed. It was blockaded and pounded by all sorts of shells, bombs and missiles from the air and the ground. It held out for a some time. When its defenders ran out of ammunitions, they were able to pull out and leave the town.

What I am saying is that Hezbollah defeated no one. The people in Qusayr held out as long as their weapons permitted. When they had the means to defend themselves, neither Hezbollah nor anyone else could overrun the town.

And I know the high number of fatalities suffered by the attackers of Qusayr, not to speak of the wounded.

The attackers did not go into Qusayr before the defenders completed their withdrawal.

All the boastful statements about changing the Middle East map evaporated at Qusayr’s doorstep. The empty rhetoric reminds me of Gamal Abdel-Nasser bragging about his al-Kaher and al-Zafer missiles.

Nothing is in store for us after Qusayr except catastrophes, especially if the Syrians (fighting Assad) manage to get qualitative weapons.

Let’s wait and see if (Hezbollah) won Hermel peace and stability or brimstone and fire.

Hezbollah was founded as a party to resist Israel, to defend and uphold the Ummah (Muslims throughout the world).

All this melted away in Qusayr.  Even the rank and file members of Hezbollah know we are no more a resistance party, a party to resist Israelis. We’ve been turned into a party to fight Muslims whether in Beirut or Qusayr, and now Damascus and then Homs.

Can you imagine Hezbollah joining a sectarian war?

The foolish step by Iran, ordering Hezbollah to intervene militarily in Syria, laid the ground for a chapter of killings, wars, bloodshed, harming children and women and desecrating the Ummah.

Is it a case of self-defense when Hezbollah attacks women and children in Qusayr?

States always boss the sides they finance. Iran vis-à-vis Hezbollah is no exception.

Blame the fire that will unquestionably scorch Lebanon on Iran and Iran only.

Hezbollah celebrates winning the battle for Qusayr

Hezbollah flags, placards and sweets in Beirut's southern suburbs to mark Qusayr's fall

The Qusayr boy with missing limbs

Hadi el-Abdullah (top right) and some of the injured trapped in Qusayr

Syria's army has overrun the strategic border town of Qusayr in Homs province after a blistering offensive spearheaded by thousands of fighters from Iran’s Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah movement.

Rebels said they had pulled out of Qusayr, which lies on a cross-border supply route with neighboring Lebanon and where they had fought fierce battles with government forces and Hezbollah guerrillas for some three weeks.

One Hezbollah fighter told Reuters they took the town in a rapid overnight offensive.

Hezbollah and Syrian forces fought hard to seize Qusayr, which had been in rebel hands for over a year, to reassert control of a corridor through the central province of Homs which links Damascus to the coastal heartland of President Bashar al-Assad's minority Alawite Shiites.

Hezbollah supporters in Beirut's southern suburbs celebrated the fall of Qusayr with gunfire, fireworks and placards and by handing out sweets and candy to passersby.

Iran, which is Hezbollah’s overlord and Assad’s key regional ally promptly congratulated Damascus on retaking Qusayr, according to Iran's Press TV.

A video uploaded to YouTube today by the Qusayr Media Center headed by citizen journalist Hadi el-Abdullah shows some of the hundreds of injured trapped in the town, including a boy with missing limbs.

Some are shown being moved from makeshift field clinics onto the back of pickup trucks.

Over the weekend the UN said it was “extremely alarmed” by reports there were as many as 1,500 wounded people in Qusayr.

Doctors had appealed for the Red Cross to be allowed in to treat the wounded, but Syrian officials said this would only be permitted once the rebels had been defeated.

Civilians who had managed to flee Qusayr described it as "a ghost town, heavily damaged and filled with the sound of bombs," the UN refugee agency UNHCR said yesterday.

Those who had escaped were mainly women and children, because men risked being killed at checkpoints, said spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.

“From the handful of interviews we have done so far, it appears that a new route for displaced people has opened up from the Qusayr area towards Arsal in Lebanon, about 100 kilometers away,” Ms. Fleming noted. She also said that some people flee to Lebanon while others are displaced internally.

The refugees -- mostly women and children -- said the difficult journey to the border has to be made by foot.

“Fighters are said to be targeting people as they try to flee. No route out of Qusayr is considered safe, and there are continued reports of between 700 and 1,500 injured civilians being trapped in Qusayr,” Ms. Fleming said.

“Those we have spoken to say it is unsafe to flee with men, who are at heightened risk of being arrested or killed at checkpoints along the way. None of the refugees was able or willing to identify those who are manning the checkpoints,” the spokesperson said.

She noted that one woman had told UNHCR staff that people in Qusayr were faced with a stark choice, “You leave and risk being killed . . . or you stay and face a certainty of being killed.”

NO GAME-CHANGER

The fall of Qusayr doesn’t change the strategic stalemate in Syria, according to Michael Hanna, senior fellow at Century Foundation think-tank

Speaking to The Guardian, he said:

It is obviously a big blow, not just tactically but psychologically, for the rebels. But we have seen these tactical ebbs and flows before ... People have made far-reaching conclusions that have assumed that these temporary shifts in momentum signify the beginning of the end for either side. I think that is simply premature.

There are still huge swaths of Syrian territory that, I think, are permanently out of control of central government. There are places in the country that are never going to be reclaimed. So I think it’s hard to think of a scenario whereby we can talk about Assad winning. These limitations are going to carry on into the foreseeable future.

It’s hard to see how this becomes a model for reclaiming control of the entire country.

Asked about Hezbollah's role in the battle, Hanna said:

Clearly having Hezbollah engaged in an open and dedicated fashion, not only infused new numbers into the fight, but also well-trained and disciplined fighters. Obviously they did make a very big difference in Qusayr, as has Iranian technical, logistical, and planning support.

Hanna was also pessimistic about the possibility of a diplomatic breakthrough at the Geneva-2 conference.

We are at a strategic stalemate and this is something that could go on for years. I imagine there is going to be a political settlement to this war at some point, but I don’t think that is in the near term ... There is not going to be any resolution or progress at Geneva, if the talks happen.