Thin Red Line

When armed forces loyal to Bashar Assad took Al-Quseir by storm with the help of Hezbollah fighters, it became clear that the Syrian rebels were losing this war.

However, Assad’s victory does not satisfy his enemies — neither those who relish human liver in front of the cameras, nor those who play golf on the green lawns outside of D.C. The collapse of the Syrian revolution means a great failure of the West after the Cold War. The stakes are extremely high, and the West will do its best to avoid a fiasco.

The day before the G-8 summit meeting, Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, claimed that the White House has all the evidence proving that Assad’s army has been using chemical weapons against the rebels. Now that Assad has crossed the “red line,” the U.S. can finally start supplying his enemies with guns.

It should be noted that Ben Rhodes is not just a random figure. Being a speechwriter for President Obama, he took a huge step forward during the “Arab Spring” — in particular, he strongly urged his boss to back down from Egyptian President Mubarak and actively support U.S. involvement in the operations against Libya. The fact that it is he who mentioned crossing the “red line” is pretty revealing.

Obama’s administration is widely diverse. Several powerful elite groups are struggling to influence the Lord of the White House. One of these groups is closely connected with the financial empire of the Rockefellers, and its members are doing everything they can to minimize the chances of U.S. intervention in Syria. Moreover, the Rockefeller clan doesn’t mind renewing trade relations with Iran, especially now that the frightening Ahmadinejad will be replaced by liberal reformer Rouhani. Up until recently, it seemed like these people played the leading role in Obama’s foreign policy.

However, there has recently been a significant reshuffling of staff in D.C. As a result, the “pigeons” yielded their positions to the more aggressive “hawks.” For example, replacing Tom Donilon, Rhodes’ immediate boss, Susan Rice will become the new deputy national security adviser starting in July. She’s well known for her negative attitude toward Iran. She also once claimed that the veto which was set by Russia and China concerning the U.N. Security Council’s resolution condemning Assad’s regime “made her sick.”

Meanwhile Rice, who used to be the U.S. representative in the U.N., is replaced by the even more irreconcilable Samantha Power. As a matter of fact, the Rice-Power-Clinton trio, according to American mass media, convinced Obama to bomb Libya, which contradicted the recommendations of Secretary of Defense Gates.

The pressure from Obama’s colleagues in the Democratic Party is increasing as well. For example, former President Bill Clinton called him spineless and said that, by not making a decision, Obama risks making a fool of himself on the world stage.

Even pro-Israel lobby organizations like AIPAC and Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) tripled their efforts. After several staff victories the “hawks” finally gained the upper hand.

A bill is pending in the U.S. Congress that would provide a budget of $250 million to support the formation of transitional power institutes in Syria, finance weapon supplies and equip Syrian opposition groups with trained personnel. The bill has yet to be approved by both chambers, but 300 U.S. Navy soldiers have already crossed the Jordan-Syria border. They are to provide the weapon-delivery corridor for Syrian rebels. According to the mass media, the CIA and Army interior troops instructors arrived in Jordan to train the troops of the Syrian opposition, whose warfare skills are lacking compared to Assad’s army.

However, just providing this corridor is not going to change the course of the war. This is especially true since Tehran is willing to send soldiers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The situation could have been changed by a land operation, but Obama wouldn’t take this chance. The only way to change the distribution of forces in the rebels’ favor will be to impose a no-fly zone above Syria. Previously, this helped NATO destroy the Gadhafi regime in Libya (similarly, the intervention began when the governmental forces almost took over the main pillar of resistance in Benghazi).

Although the final decision has not been made yet, the preparations are going full speed. The missile system Patriot and the F-16 fighter aircraft have already been deployed in Jordan — officially for a joint military exercise, but there is no guarantee that they won’t be left near the Syrian border after the exercise is complete. Also, the Iranian news agency FarsiNet reported that Israel made an arrangement with Qatar regarding large-scale supply of weapons to Assad’s enemies.

Nevertheless, Syria’s destiny is being determined not so much in Tehran or Jerusalem, but in Northern Ireland, where the G-8 summit is being held. At this meeting Western leaders are trying to convince Putin to compromise on the Syria issue — just like they convinced former President Dmitry Medvedev to support the U.N. Security Council resolution regarding Libya back in spring of 2011. However, now they are dealing with a different kind of leader, and Syria is a harder nut to crack. I would venture to say that Putin’s position will remain the same — which means that the outcome of this global confrontation in the Middle East is far from being decided.