Blair and Obama Ally with
al-Qaeda in World War Drive
by Jeffrey Steinberg and Nancy Spannaus
Dec. 11—Over the past week, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, McClatchy News Service, and the London Daily Telegraph have all exposed the Obama Administration's marriage with al-Qaeda in the drive to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria. The U.S., British, and French reliance on hardened al-Qaeda fighters to bring down the Syrian government is a replay of the alliance that overthrew Muammar Qaddafi in Libya in 2011. And it was Libyan affiliates of al-Qaeda that captured and summarily executed Qaddafi, on orders from the White House, 10 Downing Street, and the Élysée Palace.
The alliance with al-Qaeda is as unlawful as it is dangerous. For, as exposed in-depth in EIR's Special Report, "Obama's War on America: 9/11 Two," both the global jihadi network and the Obama Administration are tools of the British Empire, in its drive to end the era of the nation-state, and return to global feudalism. Yet, in order to prevail, that Empire has to overcome the resistance of Russia, China, and remaining patriotic forces in the United States, especially in the U.S. military. And to do that, the Empire is currently deploying its assets, including Obama and al-Qaeda, on a confrontation course in the Middle East that threatens to provoke World War III.
(For the latest dossier on the Obama Administration's alliance with al-Qaeda, see National.)
Blair's 2003 Lies—Redux
The clearest indication of the recent escalation against Assad is the wartime black propaganda campaign launched in the past week, claiming that President Assad has ordered the use of chemical weapons against his own population, or possibly against Turkey. Top U.S. officials, including Obama himself, have issued dire warnings against Assad's use of chemical weapons, and the news media has been full of false claims that sarin gas canisters have been assembled and are already loaded on Syrian Air Force planes.
This "weapons of mass destruction" scare, rolled out just before the NATO Council was scheduled to meet to approve a Patriot missile deployment on the Syrian-Turkish border, came directly out of the 2003 playbook of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, when he produced the infamous "sexed-up" dossier on the non-existent threats from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, to push President George W. Bush into war. Blair plays a direct role for the Queen in exercising control over President Obama, who has adopted the former British Prime Minister's Hitlerian pre-emptive war policy ("responsibility to protect"/R2P), and Nazi health-care program, whole hog.
Despite reported serious skepticism in NATO, especially from the Germans, the "chemical weapons" ploy was picked up by NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and the NATO Council on Dec. 5, gave a green light to the provocative Patriot deployment, which is scheduled, after pro forma votes in the German and Dutch parliaments, to go ahead in early 2013.
Not everyone is buying the propaganda line. The widely read website of Col. Patrick Lang (USA-ret.), firedoglake.com, featured a blistering warning that the chemical weapons claims are a replay of the fake propaganda used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Former White House Middle East expert Hillary Mann Leverett also pronounced it a transparent fraud. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced the chemical weapons claims as outright lies, telling reporters in Brussels last week that Russia had fully investigated the allegations and concluded that they were no more than "rumors." Lavrov told Western counterparts that the Assad government had given Moscow hard assurances that it had no intention of using chemical weapons against Syrian citizens.
And the idea that Syria would launch any kind of military attack against neighbor Turkey, a NATO member, which is in the process of stationing NATO Patriot missile batteries along the border with Syria, is widely considered preposterous. More serious, is the danger that the opposition would seize chemical weapons stocks and use them—blaming the damage on the Assad regime.
Jihadi Escalation
Meanwhile, the British-Obama-Saudi axis is moving ahead to try to create the conditions for ousting Assad, through bloody irregular warfare inside Syria, and preparing an alternate "legitimate government" outside the country.
There is little doubt that the rebel faction that has been most effective against the Syrian Army is the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra.
The Obama Administration has been at pains to try to create the appearance of distance from al-Nusra, while continuing to rely on the jihadists to carry out regime change against Assad. The official line is that the "West" must upgrade its material, including military, support, to the "moderate" wing of the Syrian opposition, thus allowing the radicals to be "isolated." This is even more absurd than the lies about the chemical weapons danger.
Efforts over the past four months to curb the flow of weapons and funds to the most radical of the neo-Salafist fighters have all failed miserably. According to senior U.S. intelligence officials, who have spoken with EIR on condition of anonymity, the neo-Salafists are so dominant in the Syrian opposition that it would be naive to assume that they will be kept out of any post-Assad regime, and certainly, there could be no way of keeping weapons sent to the "moderates" out of their hands. Indeed, the U.S.- and European-sponsored new political and military leadership of the opposition is dominated by members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. And Brotherhood spokesmen have made clear that they will retain their close collaboration with al-Nusra and other jihadist groups.
The attitude of the British, Americans, and others toward the jihadis has been clearly signalled by the fact that the UN Security Council routinely refuses to condemn terrorist actions by the Syrian opposition, as the Russians have been quick to point out, even as the UNSC rushes to condemn the Assad regime.
Preparing a New Government?
Paradoxically, the more evidence that surfaces that the anti-Assad forces are dominated by radical Islamists who are as anti-American as the al-Qaeda fighters who assassinated Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi, the more the Obama Administration is pushing for the overthrow of Assad as fast as possible.
On Dec. 7, the U.S., Britain, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar all sponsored a meeting of Syrian rebel commanders in Turkey, and established a 30-man command structure. While leaders of al-Nusra were barred from the meeting, it is widely recognized that this effort is purely cosmetic.
President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials have continued to draw the links between the Obama Administration and the al-Qaeda fighters driving the regime changes, first in Libya, and now in Syria. In one recent speech, Putin suggested ironically that Obama should release all of the prisoners at Guantanamo and send them on the next flight to Turkey to join the rebel cause.
Along with the establishment of a new military command, the British, the U.S., and their "Friends of Syria" grouping are trying to create a unified political structure, allegedly fit to form a post-Assad government. Such a group was founded a few weeks ago, and its leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib was welcomed in Brussels at the EU foreign ministers meeting Dec. 10. Britain and France have officially recognized al-Khatib's National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces as a government in the wings, as have the Saudi-dominated Gulf states, but the U.S. and other European nations have not.
The British hope that the Dec. 12 meeting of the Friends of Syria, in Marrakesh, Morocco, will result in broader recognition—a crucial step for open arming of the jihadist opposition. The British press is also dominated by "leaks" of British preparations, with Arab and U.S. allies, for a military deployment to topple Assad.
Conflict with Russia
Any direct NATO or American military involvement against Assad would be a major step towards World War III, pitting the U.S. and NATO against Russia and China. American military leaders candidly admit that any such conflict could soon lead to thermonuclear war, and likely, extinction of the human race. They are horrified at the insane policies coming out of Washington, and represent a crucial war-avoidance force.
But, as Lyndon LaRouche has repeatedly warned since the overthrow and assassination of Qaddafi, the only durable war-prevention option is the removal of President Obama from office for his high crimes and misdemeanors. With the U.S. Congress set to end their lame duck session this coming week, President Obama will have more than a month to bring the world to the brink of general war, before the newly elected Congress is sworn in and resumes business.
The recklessness of the President's flagrant alliance with al-Qaeda in Libya and Syria is the clearest indication that he will stop at nothing to bring the world into military conflict.
