The Management of Savagery by Max Blumenthal;

Author:Max Blumenthal;
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 1)

The Eagle versus the Anvil

While Washington deepened its support for the rebels, the Syrian government and its allies faced down jihadist forces on several fronts. ISIS had easily demolished a collection of rebels around the far eastern city of Deir Ezzor, and was determined to move in and impose its theocratic rule on the city’s 150,000 residents. With Deir Ezzor besieged on all sides and dependent on Russian airdrops for basic supplies, the overstretched Syrian army was left as its last line of defense.

On September 13, 2016, the Syrian and Russian militaries agreed to a ceasefire with the rebels. The deal called for the establishment of a US-Russian “joint integration center” (JIC) to coordinate strikes against ISIS. The secretary of defense, Ashton Carter, expressed serious reservations about coordinating with the Russians, but his objections were vetoed by Obama. The Pentagon then embarked on a public relations push against the JIC, leaking negative assessments to friendly reporters while Carter berated Kerry in private. Four days later, the United States inexplicably attacked a Syrian army unit holding a strategic mountaintop in Deir Ezzor, killing over 100. In the moments after the attack, ISIS seized key points around Deir Ezzor’s airport and threatened to overrun the city entirely. The United States claimed the air strike was a mistake, but the explanation never washed with the Syrian and Russian governments.

“The Deir Ezzor strike appears to have been timed to provoke a breakdown of the cease-fire before the JIC could be formed, which was originally to be after seven days of effective truce—meaning Sept. 19,” journalist Gareth Porter wrote. By that date, the ceasefire had been called off and the JIC was never to be—a development that satisfied Carter and the Pentagon. The Syrian army, meanwhile, managed to hold off the ISIS onslaught that the United States had assisted.

From Idlib to Palmyra, home of some of the world’s most treasured antiquities, areas across Syria were being overrun by jihadist forces, all thanks to a flood of weapons from the United States, the UK and their Gulf allies. And back in Washington, the most well known liberal interventionist pundit in the country, Thomas Friedman, was clamoring in the New York Times for the United States to “simply back off fighting territorial ISIS in Syria and make it entirely a problem for Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and Assad.”

It was not without good cause that 82 percent of Syrians polled by the British opinion monitoring firm ORB International agreed that ISIS was a “US and foreign made group.”

In audio leaked from a closed meeting with Syrian opposition activists, Secretary of State Kerry offered a stunning admission that the United States had used ISIS as a tool for applying negotiating pressure on the Syrian government. Kerry also acknowledged that the growth of ISIS and Washington’s refusal to stanch it was the key factor in triggering direct Russian intervention in October 2015. The cynical American strategy he revealed recalled Brzezinski’s “bear trap,” which aimed to provoke the Soviets into invading Afghanistan by providing Islamist insurgents with advanced weaponry.

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