Kulp: “Nowhere in this article is there anything mentioned about US sanctions.”
True, though if anyone thinks these sanctions play even a fraction of the role in Syria’s disaster compared to that of the Assad regime levelling and burning its entire country for a decade, then they have no idea. Another major factor is the collapse of the Lebanese economy last year, which crushed the value of the holdings of the Syrian elite in Lebanese banks. Before going on, the article notes: “Six deals that were successfully concluded with Russian suppliers fell through in December 2020 <http://newspaper.albaathmedia.sy/2020/12/01/%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A9-%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%AF-150-%D8%A3%D9%84%D9%81-%D8%B7%D9%86-%D9%82%D9%85%D8%AD-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%AA%D8%B0%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%B9%D9%86-%D8%AA%D9%86%D9%81/> after they became unprofitable for the sellers. Russia donated 100,000 metric tons of wheat <https://arabic.rt.com/business/1184252-%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%81-%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D8%B2%D9%88%D8%AF%D8%AA-%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D8%A8%D9%80100-%D8%A3%D9%84%D9%81-%D8%B7%D9%86-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D9%85%D8%AD/> to Syria in 2020 and has not made any new pledges since.” Wheat, in other words (the topic of the article), is not subject to western sanctions. Rather, Russia, the world’s 3rd largest wheat producer, either aids or cuts its aid depending either on profit or politics (this is actually part of *Russia’s own pressure on the Assad regime* to come to the table). Now, one might say, “it’s not up to Russia which has its own problems.” But you could only say that if you didn’t take into account that, while Russia apparently has difficulty supplying much wheat to Syria, it has had no problem supplying the regime with untold billions of dollars worth of horrific weaponry, alongside deploying its own massive aerial killing force, and tens of thousands of mercenaries, so this suggests different priorities rather than difficulty; and, connected to this, the fact that it is precisely all these billions in Russian-supplied and deployed weaponry that allowed the Assad regime to level and burn its entire country, the overwhelmingly major cause of Syria’s devastated economy today. Now, that doesn’t excuse western sanctions, which add an extra layer on top all of this, but you need to know what is sanctioned and what is not and how much its role is in this disaster. It was the Trump regime that ended all funding to even the most ‘vetted’ Syrian rebels (though the late Obama regime had already whittled it down and tried to divert all rebels it funded to fighting *only* ISIS and Nusra rather than the regime); and also ended all funding to civil society organisations in opposition-controlled territory; thereby facilitating Assad’s reconquest of a large part of Syria (some 90% of Assad’s Reconquista took place during the Trump period). The sanctions, stepped up *after the end of all this*, demand that Assad follow through more genuinely with the ‘Constitutional Commission’ process to reform the constitution before “elections” – ie, precisely the Russia-Turkey-Iran-led process (but basically Russia-led process) that upended the more wide-ranging UN Geneva process, and that aims to "constitutionally" reform the regime to save it (and somewhat separate the regime from Iran while further empowering Russia, a goal shared by Assad backers in Egypt, the UAE and Israel). It may seem “ironic” that US sanctions actually have the same goal as Russia’s unofficial wheat sanctions, but not if you’ve been following closely. Indeed Trump’s Syria envoy, Jim Jeffrey, stressed that at the end of all this, all foreign troops much leave Syria – mentioning Turkish, Iranian, US and Israeli forces – *except Russian troops*, which will alone be allowed to remain. Kulp continues: “Or for that matter, Trump's policy of taking Syria's oil, one that Biden seems 100% on board with.” Of course, this is false. It is true that Trump, after continually trying to withdraw completely from Syria, was finally convinced to stay by his advisors, ministers and pentagon by them telling him there was oil there; so they bullshitted him into saying “we’re staying for the oil.” In reality, they wanted to stay in order to (1) continue helping the SDF fight the remnants of ISIS, (2) to maintain a barrier against potential Iranian influence and (3) to use the SDF and the Rojava statelet as a US foot in the door into the ongoing, Russia-led, attempt to push the political solution process. What about the oil though? Yes, the US is protecting the oil (whether from ISIS, Iran or the regime) *for its Kurdish-led SDF allies*! Yes, there’s a small US oil company investing to repair the oilfields and refine the oil, but the governmental authority under which it is operating is not the US government, but the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria which will reap the proceeds of any oil sales. I’m not criticising the SDF, given its precarious situation, one way or another for that – I’ll leave that to resident “anti-imperialists” – just to note it further flies in the face, laughably, of those who love the SDF for its leftism yet also try to play their “anti-imperialist” games at the same time – usually at the expense of the Syrian rebels who never got a fraction of the US support the SDF has got since large-scale US military intervention on its behalf since 2014. Biden, by the way, is not “on board” with this Trump-era justification; he’s back on board with simply justifying the US presence for the same reasons as all Trump’s advisors and ministers, without the need to bullshit to Trump; that is, to continue aiding the SDF in its fight with ISIS and for a foot in the door (see Pentagon: US Forces Not Protecting Syrian Oil Fields https://syrianobserver.com/EN/news/63713/pentagon-us-forces-not-protecting-syrian-oil-fields.html). “How many bases does the US have in their country anyway? Fifteen or so if I recall correctly.” I think there are now 13 US bases in Syria, of which 12 are in the SDF-controlled northeast (quite a lot of US bases for anti-imperialism, but anyway), and one is in the south in al-Tanf on the Jordanian border, where it basically protects a refugee camp (and prevents more of those refugees going to Jordan) and formerly trained ex-rebels to fight ISIS *only*. Previously there were 17, but during Trump’s brief semi-withdrawal in late 2019, some were handed over to Russia (ie, effectively Assad). Of course there have never been any US bases in rebel-controlled territory. On Wed, Feb 17, 2021 at 10:46 AM Chris Slee <[email protected]> wrote: > The US has a few hundred troops in Syria. Some are in north-eastern > Syria, working with the Syrian Democratic Forces in the struggle against > ISIS. Others are further south at al-Tanf near the Syria-Iraq border, on > the main road between Baghdad and Damascus. > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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