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JAISAL NOOR: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jaisal Noor in Baltimore.
On Monday, President Obama did six separate televised interviews as he made his case for
intervention in Syria.
BARACK OBAMA: It is important for Assad to understand that, you know, the chemical weapons
ban which has been in place is one that the entire civilized world, just about, respects
and observes. It's something that protects our troops--even when we're in the toughest
war theaters--from being threatened by these chemical weapons. It's something that protects
women and children and civilians, because these weapons by definition are indiscriminate.
NOOR: However, some have questioned what the true motives of the United States are in intervening
in Syria.
Now joining us to discuss this is Nafeez Ahmed. He's a best-selling author and investigative
journalist, executive director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development. His recent
piece for The Guardian is "Syria Intervention Plan Fueled by Oil Interests, Not Chemical
Weapons Concern".
Thank you so much for joining us, Nafeez.
NAFEEZ AHMED: Thank you.
NOOR: So, Nafeez, explain why you argue that it's not humanitarian intervention, it's not
Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria that's driving this push for intervention.
AHMED: Well, the reason I think that chemical weapons is unlikely to be, you know, a main
kind of primary motive, or even the issue of humanitarianism, is because the policy
of--this policy of sidelining Syria or undermining Syria or even regime change in Syria began
over seven years ago with the previous administration. And, in fact, it may even go back longer.
I mean, I think the first indication that we had came from Wesley Clark, who was, you
know, former NATO supreme allied commander, who has said several years ago that shortly
after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a colleague of his told him about a memo talking about
multiple wars in the Middle East after Iraq, including Iran, Libya, and Syria. And so this
was one of the first indications that there was actually a plan [incompr.] in the region,
including Syria specifically.
Subsequently, we had evidence that some kind of operations, covert operations were underway
to actually move toward some kind of agitation in Syria. You know, we had--the State Department
had a so-called policy group known as the Iraq-Syria operations group that was running
various kinds of operations to do with, you know, financial issues, sanctions, as well
as more kind of worrying black-budget type operations. That was followed up by with--you
know, we had further reporting by people like Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker and others,
as well as presidential findings, that revealed that actually there were concrete covert operations
being carried out by the CIA, by the Pentagon as well, and that these operations were designed
to destabilize the various powers linked to Iran, including Syria. And regime change was
discussed as a component of these policies.
So it's clear that the policy in the first place came about--you know, was more influenced
by chemical weapons attacks. And this policy of targeting Syria had already began many
years ago and has reached this point where, you know, the uprising that is taking place--and
it's a very real uprising--it's--you know, the people are very--Assad is a brutal dictator.
But what's happening now is that that is being exploited by Britain, the United States, in
order to pursue interests that have already been there many years ago. And I think that
these interests are--there's a number of interests, but these are linked into various plans for
pipeline reserve.
It's important to member that Syria itself doesn't have very substantial oil and gas
reserves domestically, but it could play a very big role as a potential transit route
for shipping oil and gas, specifically gas, to various markets. And there is competition
to control the role of Syria in this. And this competition primarily has been playing
out between Qatar, which is currently heavily involved in the conflict in Syria, financing
rebels, financing virulent elements of the rebel forces linked to al-Qaeda, Islamist
extremist rebels--Qatar is heavily involved.
And what's very interesting is that in 2009, Qatar had a proposal on the table to basically
have a pipeline that would run through Saudi Arabia. It would run from Qatar's own gas
fields in the North. It would run through Saudi Arabia, it would run through Syria,
it would go to Turkey, and it would end up essentially supplying European markets gas.
Now, Assad declined this pipeline project because he felt that it would endanger his
relationship with Russia, because the pipeline was designed to bypass Russia. He instead
signed a deal where--a year later for an alternative pipeline with Iran. And this pipeline project
would involve Iran teaming up with Iraq, another Shia state, that would supply gas being shipped
through Syria. The Russian port of Tartus in Syria would also play a role in transporting
the gas. So that's how Russia was amenable to this. And eventually this would also end
up supplying gas to Lebanon. And potentially the pipeline could be extended to supply European
markets as well.
So essentially we have this competition between these two pipelines, one of them backed by
Iran, one of them backed by Qatar. And I think this was a very, very central issue in determining
why it is that the United States, the U.K. would feel that Assad was a liability. And
it just fell into this overall strategy of sidelining Iran, sidelining Syria. If this
pipeline, pro-Iran pipeline would have gone ahead, you know, it could have really been
a game changer for Iran, would have really dramatically increased its influence on the
world stage. But this couldn't be allowed. So I think this certainly has played a major
role in what we're seeing.
NOOR: And, you know, the media has largely ignored this kind of--this history and this
background, as well as the long-term U.S. involvement in Syria and the region. Kind
of make the case. How should the U.S. public react to this information? And how should
this affect the arguments being made for and against the war or U.S. intervention?
AHMED: Well, it's a difficult one, because, you know, I personally feel quite conflicted
about the whole thing. It's very understandable that people feel that something needs to be
done about Assad, purely on the grounds of the way in which he has overwhelmingly brutalized
the majority of his own population. I think, you know, if we look at the data, all the
available data that has come out from United Nations, from international observers, human
rights experts shows that Assad is clearly, you know, overwhelmingly complicit in war
crimes. The rebels are also complicit in war crimes, but to a lesser extent. So he is the
greater evil in Syria.
The problem is is that the idea that we have a choice of whether we want to intervene is
in a way covering up the reality that we have already been intervening. The United States
and Britain were training rebel forces in late 2011 before the violence kicked off in
the way it did. I mean, obviously, Assad was already shooting people in the street, you
know, say, after July 2011. But, you know, one can question the extent to which this
violence would have escalated if the rebels were not being trained at that time. I mean,
there were leaked documents from the private intelligence firm Stratfor--these are email
communications where intelligence analysts were in communication with Pentagon officials.
We had notes of various meetings. And these emails revealed not only this training, but
also that the rebel movement, the Free Syrian Army, was not really much of a fighting force
at the time. So we've already played a role in re-creating that. And if Assad was aware
of that--and he probably was--he probably could--he would have seen that as a provocation,
and that would've obviously radicalized his action. I mean, he has indiscriminately targeted
civilian populations, and there's no excuse for that. But it would be naive to assume
that we did not play a role in kind of pushing this conflict further. I mean, we continue
to do that.
It's--unfortunately, here we can see that the goal of the United States and the United
Kingdom isn't really alleviating the suffering of the Syrian people, unfortunately. The goal
is very much about these geopolitical interests, about making sure that we can secure the right
kind of regime in the aftermath.
And this is why, you know, there has been this back and forth [incompr.] I mean, there's
a very interesting statement in some of those emails from Stratfor which I mentioned where
we have a description of the Pentagon officials saying that basically the United States has
a very high tolerance for killing in Syria and that they'll only consider an intervention
in the event of a very public massacre which enters the media. And it certainly seems that
the chemical weapon attack played this role and has triggered the interest in exploiting
public sentiment for an intervention.
So, you know, I'm not going to basically say I'm pro-interventionist or anti-interventionist,
but I think it's very important that people are aware of what are the real goals of intervention.
And, you know, it's very difficult to see a genuine humanitarian element here. And if
that's the case, then an intervention is very likely to maybe even--it could well make things
worse.
NOOR: Nafeez Ahmed, thank you so much for joining us.
AHMED: Thank you.
NOOR: Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.