Syria : The West has really screwed up : « It has been a spectacular failure. »

/syria-west-has-really-screwed-up-it-has

  • (Assieds-toi) Jeffrey Sachs publie un texte sur la Syrie et qualifie carrément la révolution syrienne d’« opération de changement de régime organisée par la CIA », pour le compte de « l’Arabie séoudite, de la Turquie et d’Israël », et déclare Hillary Clinton très largement responsable du carnage.

    Ce genre de discours te classerait illico, en France, parmi les pires complotistes et serait plus ou moins impubliable (ici, le billet semble s’inscrire plus directement dans la campagne présidentielle américaine – contre Hillary Clinton spécifiquement – que dans une analyse savante de la géopolitique de la région).

    Hillary Clinton and the Syrian Bloodbath - Jeffrey Sachs
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/hillary-clinton-and-the-s_b_9231190.html

    In 2012, Clinton was the obstacle, not the solution, to a ceasefire being negotiated by UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan. It was US intransigence - Clinton’s intransigence - that led to the failure of Annan’s peace efforts in the spring of 2012, a point well known among diplomats. Despite Clinton’s insinuation in the Milwaukee debate, there was (of course) no 2012 ceasefire, only escalating carnage. Clinton bears heavy responsibility for that carnage, which has by now displaced more than 10 million Syrians and left more than 250,000 dead.

    As every knowledgeable observer understands, the Syrian War is not mostly about Bashar al-Assad, or even about Syria itself. It is mostly a proxy war, about Iran. And the bloodbath is doubly tragic and misguided for that reason.

    Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the leading Sunni powers in the Middle East, view Iran, the leading Shia power, as a regional rival for power and influence. Right-wing Israelis view Iran as an implacable foe that controls Hezbollah, a Shi’a militant group operating in Lebanon, a border state of Israel. Thus, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel have all clamored to remove Iran’s influence in Syria.

    This idea is incredibly naïve. Iran has been around as a regional power for a long time—in fact, for about 2,700 years. And Shia Islam is not going away. There is no way, and no reason, to “defeat” Iran. The regional powers need to forge a geopolitical equilibrium that recognizes the mutual and balancing roles of the Gulf Arabs, Turkey, and Iran. And Israeli right-wingers are naïve, and deeply ignorant of history, to regard Iran as their implacable foe, especially when that mistaken view pushes Israel to side with Sunni jihadists.

    Yet Clinton did not pursue that route. Instead she joined Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and right-wing Israelis to try to isolate, even defeat, Iran. In 2010, she supported secret negotiations between Israel and Syria to attempt to wrest Syria from Iran’s influence. Those talks failed. Then the CIA and Clinton pressed successfully for Plan B: to overthrow Assad.

    When the unrest of the Arab Spring broke out in early 2011, the CIA and the anti-Iran front of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey saw an opportunity to topple Assad quickly and thereby to gain a geopolitical victory. Clinton became the leading proponent of the CIA-led effort at Syrian regime change.

    • En écho, mais atténué, l’interview du 16/02 de Joshua Landis au journal suisse germanophone la « Neue Zürcher Zeitung ». Il y invite à dresser le bilan désastreux des opérations de changement de régime et de promotion de la démocratie :
      http://www.nzz.ch/nzzas/nzz-am-sonntag/syrien-der-westen-ist-spektakulaer-gescheitert-ld.5406
      Interview traduite en anglais par un site pro-russe :
      http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/02/syria-west-has-really-screwed-up-it-has.html

      How do you assess the US Syria policy?
      Over the last 15 years the West has been trying to bring democracy to the Near East and so to eliminate dictatorship and oppression. After the attack of 9/11 the US occupied Afghanistan and then they invaded Iraq. Later on there came the knockout blow to the regime in Libya and the ejection of the Yemenite dictator. And now, the regime change in Syria. But bringing in democracy by force of arms doesn’t work. The attempts of the US to bring on regime change have led to the collapse of countries and the nourishing of extremist Islamic groups.
      [...]
      Bashar al-Asad and his father Hafez before him were “Strong Man” of Syria. They wrought immeasurable grief to their people. Can Syria get back to freedom and stability under Assad?
      We don’t know. At the start of the war in Syria, President Obama, the British, the French, and also the Germans excommunicated Bashar al-Assad. They insisted they would join the Syrian opposition, they would separate the Moderates from the Extremists, and build up the Moderates. And these were then going to eliminate Assad and the Syrian Army and the Extremists. The West worked on this model for five years. It has been a spectacular failure. Today the three most powerful forces are Assad, the Islamic State, and the Nusa-Front, plus the Syrian al Qaida affiliates.

      Landis s’oppose ensuite à l’idée qu’en soutenant militairement avec plus d’intensité les rebelles modérés les USA auraient pu éviter la situation actuelle :

      So Obama was therefore correct, in doing little.
      Yes. But he did more than we think, because he has inspired the rebellion. We were betting that Assad would fall in the first months. Every western Intelligence service was exaggerating the power in being, and misunderstoanding the strength of moderate forces. This policy has contributed to the destruction of Syria. We can blame Assad for everything, and he certainly carries a large part of the blame. But we should not close their eyes to our own responsibility.

      A la fin de l’interview il ouvre lui aussi, au sujet de la cessation des hostilités signée à Munich, le placard des soutiens parrains internationaux de l’opposition et de la coalition Jaysh al-Fatah, où se trouve caché le squelette al-Nusra. Tout en déplorant l’exploitation qu’en feront le régime et la Russie :

      Now there is supposed to be a cease-fire next week. What’s that worth?
      The Nusra Front and the IS are excluded. But the Nusra Front is the heart of the armed rebellion, it dominates the region around Idlib. The Qaeda offshoot is allied with Ahrar al-Sham, the largest non-terrorist group: They fight together at the front, they care for their wounded. Assad can now tell Ahrar al-Sham Step aside, here we come with our tanks and we are retaking Idlib. What is Ahrar al-Sham to do? Keep the ceasefire, or do they stand with their partners from the Nusra Front? Russia and the Syrian army can hunt everything from the air, and the West can not say anything because he is against al-Qaeda. That is the dilemma. Russia and Assad will exploit it shamelessly.