{"id":13659,"date":"2015-10-21T07:34:03","date_gmt":"2015-10-21T12:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13659"},"modified":"2015-10-21T07:34:24","modified_gmt":"2015-10-21T12:34:24","slug":"the-syrian-terror-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13659","title":{"rendered":"The Syrian terror trap"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Syrian terror trap<\/a><\/h3>\n

The US, Russia and Iran are fracturing the Levant<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Leaked US diplomatic cables show that the US sought to undermine the Assad regime nearly a decade ago. But that\u2019s not the whole story. In 2011, as peaceful protestors rallied across Syria, Assad was courted by the Obama administration as a potential client and regional partner. Only because the US eventually abandoned him, did he revert fully to the trappings of Russian and Iranian power. Yet in supporting Assad\u2019s state-terrorism in the name of fighting terror, the new Russia-Iran military axis in Syria is falling into a trap of its own making. Rather than constituting a new \u2018anti-imperialist\u2019 front, the Russia-Iran alliance could see the conflict escalate into a protracted regional, sectarian war of attrition culminating in the permanent dismemberment of Syria.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Russia\u2019s invasion of Syria has provoked excitement amongst some antiwar activists, who see Putin\u2019s macho muscle-flexing in the Middle East as a welcome geopolitical check on American hegemony.<\/p>\n

But just because the United States is\u200a\u2014\u200aas Boston University historian and military veteran Professor Andrew Bacevich has\u00a0shown<\/a>\u200a\u2014\u200athe world\u2019s pre-eminent imperial superpower, that doesn\u2019t make angels out of its rivals.<\/p>\n

Russia Today (RT) and Press TV (Iran\u2019s satellite news channel) would have us believe that Russia and Iran are waging a Good \u2018war on terror\u2019 in Syria.<\/p>\n

In reality, both Russia and Iran are, like the US, neo-imperial state structures engaging in geopolitical expansionism.<\/p>\n

Without an ounce of shame, the Russians and Iranians have eagerly co-opted the language of the US-led \u2018war on terror\u2019 to justify their own imperial violence in Syria.<\/p>\n

It is not the \u2018war on terror\u2019 they oppose, but merely US encroachment on their regional interests.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Syrian terror trap The US, Russia and Iran are fracturing the Levant Leaked US diplomatic cables show that the US sought to undermine the Assad regime nearly a decade ago. But that\u2019s not the whole story. In 2011, as peaceful protestors rallied across Syria, Assad was courted by the Obama administration as a potential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[259,6113,441,1608,522,2092,1343,694,776,792,10058,827,834,862],"class_list":["post-13659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-empire","tag-insurge-intelligence","tag-iran","tag-levant","tag-middle-east","tag-nafeez-ahmed","tag-regime-change","tag-russia","tag-syria","tag-terror","tag-terror-trap","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13659"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13661,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13659\/revisions\/13661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}