Berlin, FRG (Weltexpress). What began in 2011 as a secret CIA operation to smuggle weapons and jihadists from Libya to Syria has now been crowned with another disgusting example of Western double standards and hypocrisy by publicly condemning terrorism and at the same time supporting it through secret channels.
The terrorist chief Jaulani, the new master of Syria, has made his way to Damascus via the detours of Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Inspired by September 11, he originally joined Al-Qaeda to fight against the USA in the Iraq war. He was a close ally of Al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and founded the Al-Qaeda splinter group in Syria in collaboration with ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
As more and more Americans learned about the secret CIA operation in Syria supporting the Islamist cutthroats, Jaulani followed the advice of his Western advisors. In order to conceal the Al-Qaeda and later Al-Nusra origins of his organization, he renamed it, first to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and finally to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS). This made it easier for the disinformers in the Western media to portray the fighters of the “new” HTS organization as “moderate” rebels or opposition members.
But HTS was and is anything but a moderate group. After the collapse of Baghdadi’s ISIS caliphate, Jaulani successfully focused on absorbing the “unemployed” ISIS fighters in his HTS and bringing them under his control. The US State Department was not fooled by Jaulani’s charade of changing names, however, and in 2017 published an international wanted poster offering a $10 million reward for his capture.
Meanwhile, under the protection of Washington’s NATO ally Turkey, Jaulani had ruled the Idlib province in northwestern Syria on the border with Turkey as a brutal Islamist autocrat for the past 10 years. Without the Turkish bases surrounding Jaulani’s territory, Syria and its allies, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, could have eliminated the persistent jihadist threat. However, the opposite was the case, as during this time, Jaulani’s province of Idlib was the largest and safest haven for jihadists on the planet, attracting terrorists from all directions.
Since Baghdadi’s ISIS caliphate was smashed, the front lines in the Syrian war were largely frozen. Nevertheless, Washington and its allies from the Western community of values continued their relentless attacks on Damascus. Turkey protected the jihadists on Syria’s northern border, who were terrorizing the Kurds there. Israel carried out weekly attacks on Assad and his allies, even targeting civilian and diplomatic targets in Damascus in recent years. Tel Aviv bombed Aleppo airport even after a major earthquake to prevent aid deliveries to desperate citizens.
In violation of international law, the USA occupied the eastern quarter of Syria, where it plundered the country’s most valuable resources, as this region is not only rich in oil and gas, but also in grain. The Syrian people were deprived of all this. Instead, the United States allowed the Kurds to exercise power over the local Arabs. Which resulted, among other things, in the marauding Kurdish “Syrian Defense Forces” (SDF) operating a huge torture prison, known as Al-Hol Camp, in the occupied Arab region to suppress the protesting local population.
At the same time, Washington waged a brutal economic war against Syria with all-encompassing sanctions, deliberately aimed at preventing Damascus from rebuilding its war-damaged infrastructure. The US also bombed Assad’s allies near the border between Iraq and Syria. In addition, Turkey and Ukraine strengthened the HTS troops in Idlib during this time.
The long-frozen conflict quickly thawed again in the last two weeks. In line with the ceasefire announcement in Lebanon, Jaulani’s forces marched out, first conquering Aleppo in a very short time and using advanced drones to soon overwhelm all Syrian forces. Last Sunday, Jaulani entered Damascus and declared that the “mujahideen” had won the war. And Washington celebrated, as did Berlin and other US vassal governments.
“Syria is free. The rebels have won. The people have freed themselves from tyranny. Freedom has won. Russia, Iran, Hezbollah & Assad have lost. Historic! The road ahead in Syria will not be easy. But it will be better than the past. The world should celebrate the liberation of Syria and help make it a success,” wrote Josh Rogin of the Washington Post on X.
The well-known neo-conservative columnist Max Boot wrote: “Assad, after a quarter of a century of ruthless rule, has left the country. Syria is finally free.”
And his no less well-known neo-conservative colleague Bill Kristol cheered on X: “The fall of Assad. Some days you can believe that even though the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward the good.”
Of course, what is happening in Syria is not about the Syrians. Washington’s real aim was to weaken Damascus because they believed that this would in turn weaken Moscow and Tehran, especially as it cut the overland link between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran.
What happens next in Syria is unlikely to be good, especially for the many minorities who had enjoyed protection from religious fanatics of all stripes under Assad. But Washington and its allies are swooping down on the remnants of Syria like hungry vultures.
Shortly after Assad left Damascus, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in Tel Aviv that Israel would occupy a “buffer zone” in south-western Syria so that the HTS terrorists could not fire on Israel from there. You have to let that roll off your tongue: After the Zionists, together with Turkey, helped the HTS terrorists to victory in Syria, the Zionist land grabbers are now using the advance of the HTS as a pretext to seize more land in Syria. Turkey also took advantage of the power vacuum in Syria and carried out airstrikes on a Kurdish-held town in northern Syria.
No doubt we will be hearing a lot more from the hawks in Washington in the coming days as they celebrate their triumph in Syria. In the White House, Biden’s staff is no doubt discussing how best to exploit the fall of Assad. This no doubt includes considerations and attempts to drive Russia out of its military bases on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
The biggest loser in Syria is the Syrian people, who have been subjected to a brutal and complex war for almost a decade and a half, with no end in sight. The Syrians were bombed endlessly by a number of Western countries, by planes from the US, Turkey, France, England, Holland and regularly by Israel. All had their own geopolitical interests. The Syrian people were deliberately starved and impoverished by the US to bring about the overthrow of Assad, only for the terrorist Jaulani, who is still wanted by the US State Department, to establish an Islamist tyranny in the country.
Now a dyed-in-the-wool al-Qaeda terrorist sits on the throne in Damascus, and Washington’s support for Tel Aviv’s genocide in Gaza has provided him with an inexhaustible source of anti-American hatred from which to draw future fighters. In contrast, Assad’s Syria posed no threat to the United States. And that is why the US population is one of the losers of the upheaval in Syria. More American lives and resources will be wasted to overthrow the dictator Jaulani in Syria. But the US military-industrial complex can breathe a sigh of relief, because it will have a new field of activity.
