The U.S. is evidently closely coordinating its policy toward the Syrian civil war with Israel.
On May 9, for instance, the Israel lobby group WINEP will hold an annual symposium in Washington. Reports have it here and here that speakers include Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, two commanders of the Free Syrian Army, and Tzipi Livni, an architect of the 2008-09 assault on Gaza. (The WINEP description of its conference appears to have been scrubbed of the information.)
The 2013′ SOREF Symposium will feature many Senior US, Israeli civilian & defense officials, along with representatives of the FSA, namely (in the statement) ‘Colonel Abdul Hamid Zakaria, the commander & spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, and Colonel Abdul-Jabbar Aqidi commander and head of the Military Revolutionary Council in Aleppo. They will attend a special session on “The situation in Syria and the war against the regime of (President Bashar) Assad,”. This session will be off-the record & not for publication.Speaking at the symposium will be U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel & … Israeli Minister Tzipi Livni
WINEP is of course the offspring of the Israel lobby group AIPAC.
More coordination: Here was the New York Times lead on Friday about Israel’s latest round of Syrian strikes:
Israel aircraft bombed a target in Syria overnight Thursday, an Obama administration official said Friday night, as United States officials said they were considering military options, including carrying out their own airstrikes.
Does anyone think that intimately coordinating American policy on Syria with Israel is going to build the credibility of whatever regime replaces Assad? (H/t Annie Robbins and Ira Glunts).
It does not matter in a way; the whole point is to cement US-Israeli interests. The Cable TV news shows like MSNBC on the left, and Fox News on the right, are speaking with one voice to Dick and Jane now, as I type. The message is clear: There’s no sky between the US and Israel’s best interests. PNAC is alive, well, and thriving, even though the neocons are not officially in the liberal Obama regime–they are in fact. The difference is that the right is straightforward on its rubber-stamping of Israel, in this latest case, Israeli bombing Syria regime targets while it is weak, fighting a civil war, while the Obama regime, and the likes of MSNBC, use more coded language, an abstract wordy version of shedding tears while shooting–at anyone, in this case, Assad’s regime, as a means to support Israel’s proxy war against Iran. PNAC is alive and well, with liberal Democrats now on board too.
speaking of Hagel, Livni and Free Syrian Army…specifically the power behind the FSA, which is not a lot, it should go without saying at this juncture. a week ago moa published this:
(b’s bold)
NYT Starts Telling The Truth About Syria
so the cat’s out of the bag when the nyt writes “Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of. “
Its amazing to me that all these PNAC adherents want to execute on their plan no matter the consequences. They don’t realize that they have not endeared themselves to the masses after supporting these dictators for so long and replacing secularists with Islamist will not turn out well for anyone. I cant wait for McCain and Netanyahu and Obama to start supporting islamists in Bahrain Saudi and Jordan next.
RE: “Does anyone think that intimately coordinating American policy on Syria with Israel is going to build the credibility of whatever regime replaces Assad?” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: Building the credibility of whatever regime replaces Assad is just a sales pitch for U.S. military intervention (much like WMDs in Iraq was). It’s not really anything the advocates for intervention really care that much about. Mostly what they really care about is “carrying water” for* Israel.
* REGARDING “CARRYING WATER”, THIS IS FROM word-detective.com:
SOURCE – http://www.word-detective.com/072104.html
A good analysis of current events in Syria from “The Real News” network http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cnpS4shHVFk
“US Syria Policy Promotes Endless Civil War”
Omar Dahi: Daniel Pipes, neo-con and ultra Zionist, spells out US policy towards Syria – let both sides destroy each other
As for any of these people in the Free Syrian Army that Western or Zionist groups meet with, I would think they are pretty much just Syrian versions of Ahmed Chalabi pre-2003. As for who holds actual sway on the ground in Syria among the rebels themselves, the strongest and most effective fighting force by far is the group known as Jabhat Al-Nusra (usually given in English as the Al-Nusra Front) which is known to be significantly linked operationally to the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) aka Al-Qaeda in Iraq and to have officially “signed up” as an Al-Qaeda affiliate with a pledge of loyalty to Ayman al-Zawahiri.