IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)
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| Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif visits Ankara, June 7, 2017 © Yasin Bulbul |
We know that international legality goes no further than pious aspirations, so all that counts is force and tactical-strategic capacity of its use.
THE SYRIAN CRISIS
Well, the United States edged its way into Syria on its own account – that is, without the Damascus government having called on it – in order to achieve two interrelated goals.
First, to save the self-styled anti-Assad Syrian Democratic Forces which had suffered blows from both ISIS and the Syrian Arab Army of Damascus – to the extent that it was necessary to link them up with the Kurdish militia of Syria to give a semblance of existence.
Second, to break the potential territorial continuity between Syria, Iraq and Iran – that is, the so-called “Shiite corridor”.
To date, none of these goals has come to fruition, and Washington is facing complications that are not indifferent.
The use of the Kurds has inevitably led to the hostility of Turkey, NATO’s most important partner in the eastern Mediterranean, and it is practically impossible to rule out that Ankara will stand by without doing anything faced with the rise of a Kurdish entity in northern Syria. In this regard, a storm is brewing, from which Russia will benefit.
As for the second point, the failure to interrupt the Shiite corridor, which implied in practice US occupation of south-east Syria, should be noted (US troops were stationed at the al-Tanf border crossing between Syria and Iraq). As the Syrian army approached al-Tanf, the United States responded with bombing and unilaterally declaring a “deconfliction zone” around it.
In this way, it also counted on interrupting Iranian supplies to the Lebanese Hezbollāh; but the fundamental objective was to take control of an area from the Saudi-Iraq border in the province of Al Anbar – in western Iraq – across south-eastern Syria and north-eastern Syria occupied by the Kurds.
Instead, it was Syrian troops supported by Iraqi troops that connected western Syria with the border north of al-Tanf and met up with the Iraqis north-east of the border crossing, as well as advance towards Abu Kamal and the Euphrates valley.
For its part, the Russian command has warned Washington that military action aimed at changing the situation thus created would be a hostile act to which it would react.
Iran has made itself heard by launching medium-range missile from its territory on ISIS positions in Syria. With missiles launched from its ships in the Mediterranean, Russia has bombed jihadist positions, while Iraqi militias have marched from the south towards al-Tanf. As a result, the small US contingent present there has been put out of harm’s way – at least for the time being.
On Syria, it is interesting to read the recent interview by Robert S. Ford – US ambassador in that country from 2010 to 2014 – with the Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat, which was obviously ignored by the “politically correct” media.
After recalling that at the beginning it was considered safe to bring down the government of Bashar al-Assad – while the situation changed following the involvement of Iran, Russia and Hezbollāh, as a result of which the Syrian army recovered and took back increasingly more territory – Ford wanted to warn the Kurds of Syria vis-a-vis the United States, pointing out that Washington never intended to help them in their aspirations once Raqqa had been conquered, thus making it understood that they would find themselves on their own against the governments of Damascus and Ankara.
