West’s Shenanigans against Syria, Iran

By Ismail Salami

The volatile situation in Syria generated by the Saudi-Qatar-funded Wahhabi armed group known as the Free Syrian Army and backed by the West is now an accident waiting to happen.

There is certainly one ulterior motive behind the US-friendly Syrian crisis extravagantly fuelled by the presstitute media which keep distorting the facts on the grounds. A recent article published by the New York Times by Efraim Halevy, who headed Mossad from 1998 to 2002, sheds light on this motive. He states that Iran’s foothold in Syria has enabled Tehran to pursue its “reckless” regional policies, and to stop those policies, Iran’s presence in Syria must be ended.

To this end, the events in Syria must be so choreographed that they should lead to the overthrow of Assad regime and consequently “result in a strategic debacle for the Iranian government.”

“THE public debate in America and Israel these days is focused obsessively on whether to attack Iran in order to halt its nuclear weapons ambitions; hardly any attention is being paid to how events in Syria could result in a strategic debacle for the Iranian government,” he said.

So, it seems that the fate of Syria is intimately interwoven with that of Iran. The exorbitant efforts the West is expending in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime are in fact directed against the Islamic Republic. Once the regime of Assad is trampled under the imperialist boots, the political influence of Iran will be severely damaged. In the meantime, some media such as the state-funded BBC, the Qatar-funded Al Jazeera and the Saudi-run Al Arabiya are carving out a similar scenario in league with western imperialists.

In point of fact, Qatar’s sabotage activity in Syria started in February 2011 when Al Jazeera embarked on a pointlessly mischievous act. A page titled “The Syrian Revolution 2011” was created on Facebook which was an open invitation to rebellion in Syria. It was sonorously called “Day of Wrath” in the manner of similar Facebook pages created for uprisings in the region. Instantly, the page received over 80000 likes which was of course a technical manipulation to create multiple accounts. Interestingly, the only channel which promoted and highlighted the spurious event was Al Jazeera which was bitterly disappointed with the failed attempt as the snare it laid failed to catch any game.

Furthermore, Al Jazeera’s reporting is partly based on what it receives from the London-based “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights”, an ostensibly independent institute which has recently come into limelight thanks to its fallacious name. Funded by the Qatari and Saudi Wahhabis, the institute is composed of two groups: some members of the extremist Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and some elements from the PKK, a branch of the terrorist PKK groups who are scattered in parts of Syria, Iraq and Turkey.

Along the lines of the same policy, Saudi-run Arabic channel Al Arabiya keeps delivering exaggerated reports on the number of those killed in Syria and pointing the finger of blame at the Syrian government while independent reports reveal that the terrorists financed by the West and the Wahhabis are behind the killings. On 13 December 2012, armed terrorists exploded a gas pipeline in the Syrian province of Homs. In Idleb province, a homemade bomb killed six workers of a textile factory and wounded 16 others who were going to work on a minibus. The terrorists have also engaged in a number of sabotage activities including attacking Syrian military facilities and law enforcement agencies, exploding oil pipelines, railroads, and killing citizens, burning schools and killing students and teachers all in the name of Syrian government.

On January 18, the Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani in an interview called for deployment of Arab troops in Syria in order to put an end to what he described as “deadly crackdown” in Syria.

Also, a recent report by DEBKAfile reveals that “British and Qatari troops are directing rebel ammunition deliveries and tactics in the bloody battle for Homs”.

According to the report, Britain’s intelligence arm MI6 has set up four operation centers in the city with the troops on the ground gearing up for an undercover Turkish incursion into Syria.

Reportedly, part of the talks between Syrian officials and head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service Mikhail Fradkov which took place on Tuesday (7 February) was focused on the presence of British and Qatari forces in Homs.

Apart from the extremist Wahhabis, the US and Turkey have been training Syrian armed groups in southeastern Turkish city of Hakkari. A former employee with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Sibel Edmonds says the US is involved in smuggling arms into Syria from Incirlik military base in Turkey in addition to providing financial support for Syrian rebels.

The US has reportedly released hundreds of terrorists from its prisons in Iraq provided that they leave the country for Syria and fight against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The terrorists have entered Syria via Turkey.

Therefore, the US and Turkey have been paving the ground for military intervention in Syria by providing the terrorists with training and arms. Large caches of weapons including anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, mortar bombs and heavy machine guns have been sent via ground to major unrest-wracked Syrian cities.

Add Israel to this list of anti-Syria and anti-Iran groups.

In recent years, Qatar and Israel have cemented their ties to brotherly levels. In January 2008, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met former Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Thani at the Davos Economic Forum in Switzerland.

In line with this meeting hitherto kept secret by Israel, a senior Qatari figure reportedly paid a visit to Israel in mid-January 2008 and met Israeli officials with a common agenda: Iran. Also, former Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni visited Qatar in April 2008 and met the Emir, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Oil and Gas. Numerous meetings between the two sides have taken place since then under different pretexts; yet, they have agreed on a number of points, inter alia, diminishing Iran’s influence in the Middle East.

Be it as it may, they are all moving in one single direction in targeting Syria without consciously wishing to form a concerted front.

What a farce!

The extremist Wahhabis, the neo-colonist Zionists and the Western imperialists have taken up arms against those who fly in the face of extremism and expansionism in the region each with its own agenda on Syria as a whipping boy with the ultimate goal of relegating Iran to the outer fringes of political power.

Dr. Ismail Salami

Dr. Ismail Salami (also known as Simon Lee) is a high-profile Iranian journalist and author. He has written numerous books and is the chief editor of the Press TV website.