Analysis, Side Feature

Views on the News – 22 Dec 2018

Headlines:

  • Simple-minded American President thought Syrian War was about ISIS only
  • Trump calls for Reduction of Afghan Troops by Half
  • America and Britain struggle openly at UN over Yemen Resolution

Simple-minded American President thought Syrian War was about ISIS only

The strong reaction of American politicians, statesmen and the America media to the decision of President Donald Trump to withdraw from Syria has exposed the real reasons America has been fighting there. According to the Washington Post: President Trump’s surprise decision to rapidly withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria is meeting with intense criticism by foreign policy experts, who denounce it as strategically stupid, reckless for national security and a blow to America’s global credibility.

The real reason America is in Syria is to suppress the revolution of the Syrian people, which threatened the entire nation-state architecture imposed on the Middle East after the collapse of the Ottoman Khilafah (Caliphate) State. Additionally, because of fear of entering its own military in large numbers, America has had to depend on the participation of numerous other allies and agents, including Russia, Iran, Saudi, UAE, Turkey, some working openly with the Assad government, some apparently on the side of revolutionary groups but imposed actually to smother them. Throughout this, the story of fighting ISIS was simply a cover for public opinion consumption domestically within America and internationally. Unfortunately, it seems no one thought to explain fully America’s complex Syria plan to the incoming President who took over leadership of the war from President Barack Obama. For example, one aspect of this plan is to create a small permanent US military presence to protect US interests and ensure that none of its allies or agents became too dominant; according to the Daily Beast: A fateful decision by national security adviser John Bolton to expand the United States’ goals in Syria backfired, and is a key reason why President Donald Trump ordered a total withdrawal of U.S. troops, two senior administration officials told The Daily Beast.

Bolton in September added a second mission to the already open-ended operation in Syria. In addition to destroying the so-called Islamic State, U.S. troops would stay in Syria indefinitely, forcing Iranian forces there to eventually withdraw.

All states practise political manoeuvring but the West have taken this manoeuvring to the level of contradicting their own stated values in order to serve their own material interests. It is expected that America will quickly find a way to work around this latest presidential naiveté. For example, according to Reuters: Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Friday called for immediate U.S. Senate hearings on President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw all American troops from Syria, which prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

With Allah’s permission the world shall soon witness the re-emergence of the righteous Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) State on the method of the Prophet (saw) whose actions will be fully in accordance with its Islamic ideology, and return peace, justice and stability to the affairs of all mankind.

 

Trump calls for Reduction of Afghan Troops by Half

According to the Washington Post: U.S. military and Afghan officials grappled Friday with President Trump’s order to pull nearly half of all American troops from Afghanistan, a move that will probably focus the war on one of the few military efforts the president says he cares about: counterterrorism.

The order to draw up withdrawal plans, issued during a White House meeting this week, would reduce the military presence from more than 14,000 troops to about 7,000, drastically scaling back Pentagon efforts to assist and support Afghan forces.

Afghan forces have suffered hundreds of fatalities per month this year, as a resurgent Taliban puts pressure on the Afghan government despite a marginally expanded Pentagon mission there 16 months ago.

U.S. military officials in Afghanistan and at the Pentagon have declined to comment on the withdrawal plans. Some U.S. officials close to the president, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said they are trying to change the president’s mind.

Trump’s Afghan decision has perhaps even greater impact than the Syrian withdrawal because America’s is the primary military force in Afghanistan. America’s real objectives here are to create a permanent military presence from which to oversee west, central and south Asia and provide a forward base against the Russians and the Chinese. ‘Counterterrorism’ is just an excuse. America’s special representative Zalmay Khalilzad is in the process of crafting a complex settlement to secure America’s failing Kabul proxy from defeat at the hands of the mujahideen. Such a settlement requires the formation of a new pro-American Taliban leadership, which America has been attempting to build through direct negotiation with favourable Taliban leaders, coercion of Pakistan, and a programme of targeted assassination of non-compliant mujahideen commanders. It is expected, however, that Khalilzad will be able to continue work on his plan in spite of Trump, in particular because the formal military contingent in Afghanistan is only a small part of the total American presence, which is dependent on vast numbers of private mercenaries who carry out the real fighting in Afghanistan.

 

America and Britain Struggle openly at UN over Yemen Resolution

While the astute political observer sees numerous ongoing instances of US-UK conflict in world affairs, it is rare that such conflict breaks out into the open, as it has just done over Yemen. According to the Guardian: The United Nations security council has agreed to the deployment of UN monitors to observe the implementation of a ceasefire in the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.

A UK-drafted resolution supporting the ceasefire, agreed in Stockholm, was adopted on Friday afternoon, the first UN resolution on Yemen in more than three years.

The news was welcomed by aid agencies. “Today, at last, the council has taken a much needed step to respond to the urgency of the humanitarian disaster as well as the international community’s growing outrage and desire to put an end to the brutal war in Yemen,” said Frank McManus, Yemen country director for the International Rescue Committee.

“With more than 20 million Yemenis facing severe hunger, and 10 million on the brink of famine, it is imperative the agreements reached in Sweden are implemented effective immediately, and all parties to the conflict commit to further talks in January.”

However, the resolution was only agreed after it was stripped of much the language on guaranteeing humanitarian deliveries and the need for accountability for war crimes. The edits were on the insistence of the US mission, reflecting the views from the Saudi and Emirati coalition, which has resisted any UN constraints on its operations in Yemen.

When diplomats reconvened at dawn on Friday after a long night of negotiations, the US stunned the UK and other European missions by threatening to veto the British resolution if the humanitarian language was not pruned and a clause inserted explicitly condemning Iran for its role as a backer of the Houthi rebels – an insertion that was blocked by Russia.

It is highly unusual for the western allies at the UN to threaten each other with vetoes. One official involved in the talks said he had “never really seen anything like this”.

Another diplomat said: “I don’t know if the [veto] threat is unprecedented. It is certainly surprising and disappointing. In the end, however, we managed to bridge the gap and come to agreement.”

Evidently, the reason for the strong US objection was the trap that Britain attempted to set up in the resolution that could be used to undermine the Saudi regime, which is the American agent primarily responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. America overcame this by having the humanitarian language removed and including mention of Iran to balance a perception that the Saudi regime was the primary aggressor. In truth, both Saudi and Iranian regimes are engaged in treachery against their own peoples and the entire Muslim Ummah to further the American objectives for the region. The present agent class of Muslim leaders are unable to contemplate government that is fully independent of Western imperial demands.

With Allah’s permission, the Muslim Ummah shall soon pledge themselves to sincere indigenous ideological leadership, loyal to the Ummah and its Deen, that will oppose the evil conspiracies of the Western disbelieving imperialists and use their mutual hatred and conflict to eject them fully from Muslim lands.