I will comment upon a Reuters exclusive dated today titled “Obama, aides expected to weigh Syria military options on Friday”. Understanding the U.S. choices in Syria is important because they influence the chances of war breaking out between Russia and the U.S. As inconceivable and irrational as that may be, it nevertheless is on the radar. Military and sometimes political officials on both sides are making threats that do not exclude nuclear bombs being dropped.

Quotes from the article are in italics. My comments are in ordinary type.

U.S. President Barack Obama and his top foreign policy advisers are expected to meet on Friday to consider their military and other options in Syria as Syrian and Russian aircraft continue to pummel Aleppo and other targets, U.S. officials said.

Why such a meeting? Why is Aleppo mentioned and linked to this meeting? It’s because Washington sees an Assad victory in Aleppo as a defeat for Washington, which wants Assad out and a new government in. Why see it as a defeat? It’s because Obama publicly called for Assad to step down and then took aggressive steps to bring him down. It’s because Obama gave U.S. aid and support to the rebels, terrorist and other, directly and indirectly through its fellow conspirators (Turkey and Saudi Arabia mainly). The actions of the anti-Assad coalition enlarged and prolonged the war and the misery of Syrians.

Some top officials argue the United States must act more forcefully in Syria or risk losing what influence it still has over moderate rebels and its Arab, Kurdish and Turkish allies in the fight against Islamic State, the officials told Reuters.

What these officials want is a Syria divided into 4 pieces. One part is governed by moderate or secular rebels, another by Arab fundamentalist rebels (IS and al-Qaeda types), another part going to the Kurds and yet another part to Turkey, which has recently invaded Syria. Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Syria are the coalition that opposes this outcome. They are winning. Assad’s government has weathered the storm. His strategies are working. His forces are on the offensive. Politically, he has a presence and reasonable support in all parts of Syria. These other 4 groups do not. The American top officials want to bomb Syria out of existence and leave the rubble to these 4 groups. For the U.S., it is not at all a question of “risk losing what influence” it has. This appeal not to lose strength and influence altogether clouds the real goal sought by the use of much greater U.S. force, that goal being the destruction of Syria as a political entity. This is bald-faced aggression. It is another and an amplified crime against peace.

One set of options includes direct U.S. military action such as air strikes on Syrian military bases, munitions depots or radar and anti-aircraft bases, said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The U.S. government now openly discusses its crimes against peace. Washington has actually been itching for this kind of bombing and much more, including bombing vital civilian infrastructure, at least since 2013 when the plans were formulated and when Obama was about to give the go-ahead because his chemical red line had supposedly been breached. War crimes and crimes against peace have become currency in Washington. The U.S. government is despicable. It is a contemptible abomination that thinks itself a shining example of moral rectitude.

This official said one danger of such action is that Russian and Syrian forces are often co-mingled, raising the possibility of a direct confrontation with Russia that Obama has been at pains to avoid.

That is one of many such dangers. They include missiles and aircraft from either side being shot down with loss of life. Obama’s pains have not been anywhere near enough, either with respect to Syria or Yemen. His idea was to maintain and extend the empire’s dominance by using local or regional forces supported by critical U.S. contingents, technology and know-how. This has failed in Syria and Yemen. But why extend the empire? And why extend it by force? Why bring it into confrontation with Russia and China? Why place it in a position where the regional “allies” call the shots and/or blackmail the U.S. into arms sales or support of their own aggressions? How is any of this getting either America, the region, or the world to a better place?

U.S. officials said they consider it unlikely that Obama will order U.S. air strikes on Syrian government targets, and they stressed that he may not make any decisions at the planned meeting of his National Security Council.

We’ll see. Anyway, the Washington forces that want the U.S. to attack Syria outright will still be around and will find more receptive ears on Hillary Clinton. It’s these forces and their ideas that Americans must reject and reject strongly. It is they who need to call a halt to militarism in America or continue to face the consequences, which are growing.

One alternative, U.S. officials said, is allowing allies to provide U.S.-vetted rebels with more sophisticated weapons, although not shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, which Washington fears could be used against Western airliners.

Advisors with narrow viewpoints think that they can fine tune or calibrate control of local forces by controlling the weaponry made available to them. They can’t. And these tiddlywink suggestions shouldn’t blind us to the large picture. The U.S. shouldn’t be supporting any rebels at all! In addition, the U.S. is unable to “vet” rebels and select “good” ones; they join up with radical elements. They give up their weapons. Arms can be sold and diverted, as has happened in Jordan.

The ultimate aim of any new action could be to bolster the battered moderate rebels so they can weather what is now widely seen as the inevitable fall of rebel-held eastern Aleppo to the forces of Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

U.S. intervention in Syria is a losing proposition, as it has been elsewhere (Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Iran). Intervention via “moderate rebels” has been doubly a losing proposition. An enhanced U.S. military intervention on behalf of a group that cannot even be identified and separated from radical jihadists, even after the U.S. agreed to do just that, is a completely asinine endeavor. The U.S. government again and again tries to accomplish missions it cannot accomplish or attempts to accomplish by means that don’t achieve the desired ends.

Earlier Thursday the United States launched cruise missiles at three coastal radar sites in areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi forces, retaliating after failed missile attacks this week on a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials said.

After the Saudis bombed a funeral, killing anywhere from 140 to 200 persons and wounding 525, a few (ineffectual) rockets were launched toward U.S. warships in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb. The ships are said to have been in international waters. That’s not relevant. Of all the many international waters, why are U.S. warships in those places and in what ways are they supporting the Saudi aggression on Yemen? They are part of a carrier-centered group that moved into the Red Sea three years ago whose destroyers are loaded with 200 Tomahawk missiles that were ready to attack Syria.

It’s commonplace for news media to mention the Houthi forces as “Iran-aligned”. Since most Americans have no idea where Yemen is, who the Houthi are, what the war in Yemen is about, why Saudi Arabia may have attacked Yemen, and why American ships are in nearby waters, this handy phrase “Iran-aligned” or “Iran-backed” serves to identify the “enemy” as the Houthi, because Iran has already been demonized in the American media.

Anthony Cordesman of Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank suggested the United States’ failure to act earlier in Syria, and in Aleppo in particular, had narrowed Obama’s options.

Cordesman is in the chorus that blames Obama for not using much greater force sooner, i.e., for not aggressing against Syria years ago. Obama’s military options to defeat Assad may well be restricted at present; but they were equally restricted in 2013 and before. He had no end game then and he has no end game now. He had no replacement government then and none now. If he had bombed Syria years ago, it could only have been on the basis of a flimsy excuse like crossing a red line that he concocted and that no one was certain had been crossed. He still would have faced the unpalatable prospect of gaining control with U.S. ground forces; and they would have had to wipe out a significant Syrian military. In short, it would have been Iraq all over again or perhaps Libya. It would have opened up Syria to radical jihadists and to the inroads of neighboring countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It might still have brought in Syria’s current allies.

Cordesman and others who criticize Obama on these grounds do not have a compelling argument. It’s simply the standard neocon faith in American superpower prevailing in any situation. It prevails in destruction of peoples, property, societies and governments; but does any of that move the world to a better place?

Obama shouldn’t even be holding this meeting today, not if he really wanted peace in Syria and peace between the U.S. and Russia. He would be moving toward a different goal and attacking Syria outright would have no place in moving toward that goal. He would be rejecting the entreaties of advisors around him who have a very different agenda. He wouldn’t meet with them to discuss new U.S. aggression.

Obama might think that he can defuse these internal warmongering sentiments by airing them and going through a charade in which he listens and then makes some token move. I disagree. I think that someone in his position needs to learn how to say “NO!”, something he didn’t do with Hillary Clinton on Libya and something he didn’t do with arms sales to the Saudis and green lighting their Yemen aggression. That is to say, if he actually wanted to say “no” in these instances. This is by no means assured. He revealed his preferences when he said “yes”. Obama is, after all, the empire’s designated leader and sought that position.

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