By  Andrew KORYBKO (USA) Belatedly, the US is desperately trying to create “facts on the ground” to sustain its drive to  “federalize” Syria.

Russian warplanes, in cooperation with the Syrian air force destroyed in the last 48 hours 344 ISIS targets, including 59 command-center, 41 depots, 17 fortified sites and 74 training camps. The sorties also destroyed 3 stores for oil, a factory of explosives, a workshop for mortars and 3 stations for treating oil. The air assault also eliminated nearly 500 tanks loaded with oil for the Islamic State (ISIS).

The Mideast will never be the same again after Russia’s anti-terrorist intervention in Syria. The US’ previously uncontested hegemony over the region is now an unpleasant memory of the past, but it doesn’t mean that it’s totally squeezed from the area just yet. It now appears as though the US is approaching the last step of its ‘geopolitical grief cycle’, having emerged from a complete panic and a pathetic propaganda war to finally enter the planning stages of what’s shaping up to be its counter-response. The airdropping of 50 tons of weapons and equipment to its newly assembled “Democratic Forces of Syria” proxy in the country’s northeast is indicative of its latest strategy.

The US is pressuring its allied units to race to Raqqa “within weeks” under heavy American air support in order to establish ‘facts on the ground’ that could then influence the post-conflict political reconciliation process along the Brookings Institution’s proposed federalization model. If something similar happens along the same time in Iraq’s Sunni-dominated regions, then a semi-institutionalized and largely autonomous trans-border sectarian entity will be created that would kill any hopes for a revival of the Friendship Pipeline between Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Worse still, it could resurrect the Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline to Europe that was one of the reasons for the whole war in the first place, and divide the Russian-led anti-terrorist coalition right down its geographic middle.

Russian bombing ISIS. With the Russians, it’s for real.

Part I speaks on the US’ last-ditch plans to salvage some of its influence in the Mideast, while the second part addresses what Russia and Syria can do to stop it.

American Scheming

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he US revealed the hand that it’s ready to play, and it involves suddenly shifting the strategic focus to Raqqa and using any gains that its proxies acquire there as a springboard for forcing (de-facto) federalization upon the country.

Laying The Groundwork

As mentioned in the introductory paragraph, the US is pushing its proxies into a heated race for Raqqa (conceptually predicted by the author in August 2014), understanding very well that if it beats the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in capturing ISIL’s headquarters, then it’ll be the controlling force able to guide any post-conflict political settlement in that region. Therefore, in order to not have its influence in Syria totally expunged by the Coalition of the Righteous (COR), the US is prioritizing this objective over all else, hence the tweaking of its “covert”, off-site training program with the more urgent overt, on-site one. Additionally, it’s expected that the US will refocus its “anti-ISIL” bombings on fulfilling their nominal objective owing to the strategic criticality that it has in finally doing so.

US bombs the Northern Syria/Turkey zone, near Kobani. Trying to establish “facts on the ground”.

The Race For Raqqa

The rush between the SAA and the “Democratic Forces of Syria” (DFS) to capture Raqqa is eerily reminiscent of the Allied Race for Berlin exactly 70 years ago, complete with both Moscow and Washington approaching the same strategic goal from separate directions (albeit in an indirect manner this time). Just as the Race for Berlin was instrumental in setting the on-the-ground reality that would determine post-war “New Europe”, so too is the Race for Raqqa the main determinant in deciding what the post-war “New Middle East” will look like, which is why the US is in such a frenzy for its supportive forces to seize the city as soon as possible.

Facts on The Ground

“Refugee” Retreat:

Capturing Raqqa might not be enough to solidly put the “DSF” in a position to enforce their American-advised federalization model on the rest of the country, hence the necessity to establish concrete demographic facts on the ground that could facilitate this. There are a couple of scenarios for how this could come about, but one of the most likely deals with the scores of retreating jihadists, squeezed between ever-tightening Turkish and Jordanian border security, fleeing east to make an ostensible final stand with their fellow terrorists-in-arms in the un-“Islamic State’s” ‘capital’. Bringing with them countless human shields (which would be positively referred to by the Western mainstream media as “Sunni refugees”), they’d be able to largely stave off Russian airstrikes at the same time as enacting a massive demographic transformation, all with a wink and a nod from the US.

Strategic Surrender:

So long as America’s proxies capture Raqqa first, then these “Sunni refugees” and their terrorist hostage takers could ‘surrender’ to them instead of to the SAA, the effect of which would be historically similar to retreating Nazis surrendering to the US so as not to fall into Soviet hands. Unlike the USSR which was an actual internationally recognized entity, the “DSF” are legally unrecognized (for now), but by having a mass surrender and “refugee” transfer strategically land in the palm of their hands, they’d de-facto become the on-the-ground ‘authority’ in that part of the country. This in turn would further the federalization plan that they have, and cheering it all along would be the Western mainstream media.

Info Wars:

[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ust as they slandered the Soviet Army as being ‘barbaric communists’ during World War II and thus ‘justified’ as many last-minute Nazi surrenders to the West as possible, they’ll continue doing the same thing that they’ve already been doing for over four years with the SAA, alleging that it’s an ‘illegitimate’ and ‘barbaric’ entity that has no right to receive surrendering terrorists or freed hostages. The end effect will be the same – the genuine liberating force in the war (the Soviet Army and SAA) is made to look like the bad guys, while the real bad guys (Nazis and Wahhabis) are presented as ‘victims’ of the liberators and garner Western sympathy for that exact reason. One must keep in mind that both situations are examples of high-level information warfare meant to achieve specific geopolitical goals on behalf of the US, and the historical lesson from the end of World War II is being repeated theme-for-theme as the War on Syria rapidly draws towards its end-game conclusion.

Conditionals

Synchronized Surrender In Iraq:

The US’ new strategy is dependent on a few factors, the first of which is that ISIL, if it does in fact surrender to the “DSF”, publicly proclaims that it did so in order to promote a ‘political settlement’ that would give the territory a level of autonomy on par with or even exceeding that of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq. Likewise, something similar must happen around the same timeframe in Iraq’s Anbar Province (and potentially even Nineveh) so that a sub-national trans-border Sunni entity can be forged between it and east-of-the-Euphrates portions of Syria’s Ar-Raqqah, Al-Hasakah, and Deir ez-Zor Governorates. This is the only way that the terrorists’ military defeat could be partly transformed into an economic-strategic ‘victory’ for the US as per the de-facto creation of a pro-American satellite in the heart of the Mideast, strengthened by its geographic contiguity to Saudi Arabia and enriched by the Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline that will run through it.

SAA fighters—the little credited Syrian Arab Army, one of the bravest and most resilient forces fighting ISIS. The SAA have confronted impossible odds, and stood their ground.

…

Kurdish-Arab Post-War Amity:

Assuming the unfortunate scenario where the US gets close enough to actualize this stratagem, its vision could still crumble at the last minute if there’s a Kurdish-Arab post-war fallout within the “DSF”. After all, the main components of this militant umbrella are the Kurdish YPG militia and the “Syrian Arab Coalition”, and it’s foreseeable that they may differ about the post-war allocation of territory within the proposed federal structure that the US would be promoting. The US, Turkey, and the Gulf States would find it absolutely unacceptable for the Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline to go through Kurdish-controlled territory, thus meaning that the “Syrian Arab Coalition” would have to find some sort of ‘accommodation’ with the Kurds to remove them from the northern reaches of Ar-Raqqah Governorate or ensure that this territory doesn’t fall under the jurisdiction of any forthcoming Kurdish sub-national entity. Since the Kurds are not expected to abandon the territory that they’re both inhabiting and militarily operating out of, the “Syrian Arab Coalition” may be directed by the US, Turkey, and others to resort to terroristic genocide against them so as to ethnically cleanse the Kurds from this strategic pipeline corridor. The resulting internecine bloodbath might open up the door for a COR counter-offensive that would spell the final end to the US’ Mideast proxy equivalent of the “Battle of the Bulge”.

(Click on image for best resolution.)

To be continued…

---

Andrew Korybko is an American political commentator currently working for the Sputnik agency. Hamsa Haddad is a Syrian researcher based in Moscow.

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Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?

By ANDREW KORYBKO (USA)
THIS IS A REPOST. THE ESSAY REMINDS US OF THE ROLE THAT REGIONAL NATO PUPPET STATES PLAYED AND STILL PLAY IN AMERICA’S ENCIRCLEMENT STRATEGY AGAINST RUSSIA. 

Poland, the eager American servant that it has been, has now officially taken on the role of the ‘Slavic Turkey’ in relation to Ukraine. Just as Turkey has been a geopolitically convenient conduit for arms, personnel, and material support for the Syrian terrorists, so too has Poland begun to officially fulfill this role for their Ukrainian counterparts.

Prime Minister Tusk stated on 20 February, 2014 that Poland was already treating the injured insurgents from Kiev, and has actually ordered the military and interior ministry to provide hospitals to help even more. The deputy health minister has confirmed that Warsaw is in contact with the rebels in Kiev “in making plans to take in Ukrainian wounded”. This means that Poland has formally extended its covert and diplomatic reach nearly 300 miles into the interior of Ukraine, and that its intelligence services are obviously doing more in Ukraine than just ‘helping the wounded’ (terrorists). It is even more likely that Polish influence is even stronger in Lviv and Volyn Oblasts, the regions bordering Poland, and coincidentally or not, Lviv has already attempted to declare independence. The same can be said of Turkish influence deep into Syria at the height of the crisis in that country, and one must be reminded of the fact that Turkey also helped the wounded [anti-government] fighters in that country recover on its territory.

The structural similarities between Poland and Turkey in relation to Ukraine and Syria need to be examined in order to more clearly understand how the ‘Lead from Behind’ template has been applied to both case studies.

Maidan protesters in Kiev enjoy their victory in the knowledge that Washington and NATO stand behind them.

First of all, the ‘Lead from Behind’ strategy has been defined as “discreet U.S. military assistance with [others] doing the trumpeting”. It is the new strategy of warfare for theaters where the US, for whatever reasons, is reluctant to directly militarily engage itself. It relies on using regional allies/’leaders’ as proxies to further US geostrategic and geopolitical goals via asymmetrical measures while Washington pivots to Asia, where it aims to present a conventional deterrent to China. Both Poland and Turkey are the US’ puppets of choice in their respective theaters against their neighboring targeted states (Ukraine and Syria). At the least, the US provides intelligence support and the training of ‘opposition’ units, while Poland and Turkey pull the weight in directly assisting those members during their deployments in the victimized nations. In the case of Ukraine, the US utilized NGOs to infiltrate the country over a more than 10-year period and also allocated $5 billion to “help Ukraine achieve [the development of democratic institutions]”. The National Endowment for Democracy has also been pivotal in peddling the ‘Kony 2012 of Ukraine’ in order to advance their psy-op campaign against Kiev, just as ‘Syrian Danny’ was the version deployed against Damascus.

But the similarities do not end there.

Both Poland and Turkey are frontier NATO states, with Poland being described as “the largest and most important NATO frontline state in terms of military, political and economic power.” These two geostrategic states also have an overwhelming population when compared to their neighbors, as well as national inferiority complexes stemming from their lost imperial legacies (the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire). They share a significant land border with the states targeted for a ‘democratic transition’, as well as important cultural and political connections with those societies (as a result of the aforementioned imperial legacies) prior to the unleashing of the respective crises. This gives them significant intangible benefits over the future battlefield, both in state, non-state, and informational activities.

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]oland and Turkey also host important American military installations. Turkey houses the US Air Force at Incirlik and an anti-missile defense radar in the east, while Poland provides the US with the Lask Air Force Base and an anti-missile defense outpost in the northeast near Kaliningrad. In regards to the development of the insurgents’ mission, the Ukrainian Fascists are taking on disturbingly similar characteristics to the Jihadists in Syria. In 2011, random sniper fire (attributed to the ‘rebels’) was targeting civilians in Damascus, just as the same has begun to occur in Kiev, even targeting a reporter from RT. The Lviv request for independence can be seen as following the declaration of autonomy of Syria’s Kurds, as both areas abut the border of the proxy state interfering in the affairs of its neighbor. In a similar fashion, both insurgent groups have taken over border control posts connected to their patron state, and this move obviously increases the ease with which Ankara and Warsaw can funnel arms, personnel, and materials to their subversive spawn. When the borders cannot be held by the insurgents, they resort to ransacking government depots and stealing arms from captured government forces and occupied buildings.   The Syrian fighters have a history of hostage taking and brutal executions, and their Ukrainian comrades have followed their lead by capturing over 60 police officers in Kiev.

It has thus clearly been demonstratively shown via the aforementioned examples that the destabilizations of both Ukraine and Syria are modelled off of a patterned approach. The US utilizes proxy states with injured imperial legacies in order to advance its ‘Lead from Behind’ strategy, targeting pivotal geostrategic areas where the US prefers to maintain a plausible deniability over its role and is reluctant to get too directly involved. One can also discern a larger trend developing – the use of extreme macro-regional ideological movements to support long-term destabilization. In the Middle East, extreme Islam is the method of choice for application and export, whereas in Ukraine, it is increasingly appearing as though extreme far-right (in some applications, even Neo-Nazi) group fit the ‘Wahhabi role’ for Europe. Ukraine could quite possibly become a training ground for other European far-right militants, or the ones currently in Ukraine can go on to teach the ‘tools of their trade’ to the highest bidder in other European states. Just as Turkey is supporting the extreme Islamists in Syria via its support for the fighters there, Poland can be said to be flirting with extreme far-right nationalists in Ukraine through its statements of support for the violent opposition and its recent decision to evacuate and help the wounded insurgents (not even counting the unreported level of covert involvement already ongoing). And just as the extreme Islamists got out of the control of their handlers and now endanger the entire Middle East, the risk remains that the extreme far-right nationalists may become uncontrollable in Ukraine as well and come to endanger the entire EU. When comparing Poland to Turkey and Ukraine to Syria, it is proven that the Arab Spring has come to Europe in more ways than meet the eye.

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Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
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Andrew Korybko (USA)

Fleeing Myanmar for obscure reasons, many Rohingya try to escape to Bangladesh. The “Boat People” refugees are becoming a global problem.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s complex as it may appear at times, the main consistency of US foreign policy is that it covers its pursuit of geopolitical self-interest with humanitarian and democratic rhetoric. There’s always an ulterior motive behind the US lecturing countries about ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’, and those two key words should raise immediate red flags to any concerned decision makers in the targeted state that the US is addressing.
…
Being the expert image manipulator that it is, the US never shies away from exploiting human tragedy for its own strategic ends, a lesson that everyone would do well remembering when considering the Rohingya issue in Myanmar. While there certainly are some legitimate grievances that the Rohingya are leveling against the authorities, it’s evident that the US is already exploiting them for its own geopolitical ends. Washington wants to establish a military presence in the Bay of Bengal in order to control China’s pipelines through Myanmar (both of which go through Rohingya-inhabited Rakhine State), but in order to get to that point, it first needs for the Rohingya to have their own autonomous or independent government there.

The first part begins by unravelling the layers of complex context related to the issue, before going into the specifics of the current migrant crisis. Part II then explains how the US aims to create an autonomous or independent Rohingyaland by capitalizing off of this tragedy, and concludes with an examination of the multifaceted benefits it would receive through the creation of the South Asian “Kosovo”.

Unscrambling The Context

The plight of the Rohingyas and their place in the bigger picture of American geostrategy against China can appear to be an overwhelmingly complex topic, but it can be subdivided into three simpler categories of general understanding; American grand strategy; Myanmar’s domestic affairs; and the Rihingyas’ situation. By breaking down the bigger, thematic picture into smaller, finer details, one should be able to acquire a more solid understanding of how the US is relentlessly pursuing its own self-interest at the Rohingyas’ expense.

American Grand Strategy:

The US’ post-Cold War foreign policy has hinged on adhering to Brzezinski’s ‘Eurasian Balkans’ concept, which essentially stipulates that the US could manipulate preexisting ethnic, religious, and territorial issues in Eurasia in order to prolong its control of the supercontinent. This can be done in two ways: the method of indirect disorder has the US utilizing proxy actors to stir endless chaos, much as it’s currently doing with ISIL in the Mideast; while direct control involves the US conventionally asserting its on-the-ground dominance, just like it did by building Camp Bondsteel (one of its largest European bases) in occupied Kosovo after the 1999 War on Yugoslavia. Indirect disorder can be used as a modus operandi for establishing direct control, and this is precisely the game that’s at play with Rohingyaland along the Bay of Bengal.

Myanmar:

No place in South or Southeast Asia is more susceptible to the Eurasian Balkans concept of American-directed strategic state fragmentation than Myanmar, which has been fighting the world’s longest-running civil war since 1948. To unduly simplify the conflict, it involves the majority Burmese ethnic group in the central part of the country fighting against the myriad minority groups along its periphery, with the rebels seeking a federation but the government fighting for the status quo unitary nature of the state. While the war has been at a stalemate for quite some time, the opening of a new rebel front in the Rohingya’s Rakhine State could be the strategic shift that’s needed to turn the tide against the government, as none of the other rebelling regions or ethnicities is located along the coast.

This factor is exceptionally important since it could enable a slew of foreign patrons to ship massive amounts of material support to the rebels, perhaps even using plausibly deniable methods such as flying other nations’ flags above their arms-running vessels. The inland rebels have no such tactical advantage in this regard, which may be part of the reason why they have yet to be successful in their half-century-long campaign. The addition of a pro-federation rebel movement capable of receiving such supplies could make the decisive difference in finally tipping the balance of power against the government’s forces.

Rohingya refugees picked up in Thailand.

Rohingyas:

The demographic subject of the present article is at odds with the Myanmar government over its identity. The 800,000–1-million-plus Rohingyas claim that they constitute a unique ethnic group, but Naypyidaw sees them as nothing more than the descendants of illegal Bengali migrants, some of whom even fought against the state on several occasions. As such, the government refuses to confer them with citizenship, thus leaving them stateless and unwittingly complicating the present migrant predicament (to be described in the next section). Worse still, because they’re not considered to be citizens, the state is reluctant to actively protect them from the sectarian purges carried out by the ‘Buddhist Bin Laden’ and his pro-Western hyper-nationalist thugs. Instead, it’s settled on a policy of segregation, preferring to force them into separate communities ostensibly out of concern for their own safety. Many Rohingya protest these living conditions that some claim are contrary to their human rights, hence why so many of them have decided to flee the country. Sensing a convenient opportunity for geopolitical benefit, the US has taken up the torch of Rohingya guardianship, advocating loudly in their favor and becoming their de-facto international patron.

The Current Crisis

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Rohingya had already been on the Western media radar since their 2012 persecution, but it’s the current migrant boat crisis that’s made their cause seemingly more urgent. While there are no clear-cut numbers available, the UN estimates that around 100,000 of them have fled by sea in the past three years, which would represent between 10-12% of their total population in Myanmar. These discomfiting numbers clearly indicate that there are some serious domestic issues in Myanmar motivating their exodus, but in and of themselves they’re not cause for direct humanitarian concern. The problem arose when it was reported in early May that around 6000 Rohingya were thought to be lost in the Andaman Sea after having been abandoned by their human traffickers, and genuine horror was experienced when 139 graves were later unearthed in Malaysia, believed to be of dead Rohingyas who perished before reaching their ultimate destination. The squalid camps alongside the Thai-Malaysian border that the illegal Rohingya migrants are regularly kept in have led many to believe that they’re either being abused or held captive by their traffickers. All of these dangers have combined to generate what the UN referred to early last month as a “looming humanitarian crisis”, and the deluge of fake images and internet memes related to the issue have contributed to a feeling of global urgency in addressing it.

Rohingya girl. Her beauty might spare her some of the hardships dealt to so many others.

Regional Response:

The destination states of Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia don’t want to accept any more migrants, having already absorbed tens of thousands of them in the past couple of years, and previously refused to let the stranded boats land on their territory. According to officials, Malaysia already has received 120,000 Rohingyas, while Thailand claims to be housing 100,000 as it is. Nonetheless, because of the exorbitant international pressure directed against them, all three states countries have agreed to temporarily house the at-sea migrants until they can be sent back home or to a third country, thereby abandoning their earlier policy of turning back the boats. While this may temporarily de-escalate the crisis and give the floating migrants a safe reprieve from the dangerous high seas, it doesn’t address the root cause of why the Rohingya are risking their lives to leave Myanmar in the first place, which is something the US intends to resolve.

Some are ready to “solve” the Rohingya problem at sword point. Anti-muslim sentiment is high in some areas.

Official Myanmar And Bengali Positions:

The issue becomes even more complicated when one takes into account Myanmar’s official position on the matter. Naypyidaw asserts that human trafficking networks are to blame, not government persecution, and that many of the illegal migrants in question are actually from Bangladesh. Government representatives have accused some of them of pretending to be Rohingyas so as to receive preferential aid from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that they wouldn’t be able to procure with their actual Bengali identity. While critics might hark that Myanmar is lying about Bangladesh’s connection to the migrant boat crisis, the latter’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina decreed that those leaving the country illegally would be punished because they’re “tainting the image of the country in the international arena and putting their life into danger”, on top of being “mentally sick” in their pursuit for money abroad. No matter how one feels about Hasina’s comments, the fact that she addressed the topic in such a way confirms that the Bengali government acknowledges that their citizens are involved in this crisis and that it’s not completely about Rohingyas. Her statement lends credence to Myanmar’s claims that many of the migrants may actually be Bengali and inconveniently dismantles the Western media myth that anti-Rohingya persecution is to blame for the boat crisis.

To be continued…

[box] Andrew Korybko is a political analyst and journalist with Sputnik who currently lives and studies in Moscow, He publishes primarily on ORIENTAL REVIEW. [/box]

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Remember: All captions and pullquotes are furnished by the editors, NOT the author(s). 

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ANDREW KORYBKO

Abdullah in recent years. Rarely have the eulogies been more hypocritical or misplaced. (Credit: Oriental Review)

[dropcap]King Abdullah[/dropcap] is being eulogized in the most unrealistic ways possible, from CNN designating him as a “reformer” to Chuck Hagel calling him “a powerful voice for tolerance, moderation and peace — in the Islamic world and across the globe.” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin takes the cake, however, by proclaiming that “his smart policy contributed greatly to Middle East stability.”

None of these characterizations are true in any way, as Abdullah’s main legacy isn’t one of reform, tolerance, and regional stability, but of destruction, hate, and regional instability. Every contemporary Mideast problem except for the Israel-Palestine issue can be directly traced back to the deceased despot, and in the wake of his death, it’s worth revisiting the legacy of regional chaos that he leaves behind.

The Method Behind The Madness 

Before highlighting the chaos that Abdullah unleashed all across the Mideast, it’s necessary to explore the three primary reasons why he decided to do this in the first place:

Ideological Proselytization:

Abdullah saw a valuable opportunity to promote his Kingdom’s extreme perversion of Islam, the terrorist ideology of Wahhabism, in the aftermath of the US’ War on Iraq in 2003. Although not officially the King until 2005, he had ruled as regent for nearly a decade prior, thereby meaning that Abdullah’s vision was set into motion around the mid-1990s. This gave him the much-needed time to hone Wahhabist institutions and individuals for more effective destabilizing export abroad, which is precisely what began to happen when terrorists took over the anti-US resistance movement in Iraq. The extreme elements that hijacked the movement started focusing more on inciting a sectarian war(previously dormant for centuries) than on battling the American occupiers, which is exactly what Saudi Arabia wanted as part of its pan-regional grand strategy.

The US is Saudi Arabia’s chief ally, hence why Riyadh had an interest in deflecting attacks against its occupation forces and back toward the resistance itself. However, a more sinister strategy was also at play here, and that was the creation of the so-called ‘Sunni-Shia rivalry’ as a weaponized ideological force against Iran. The Saudis identify the Islamic Republic as being their eternal enemy, and although this was never an objectively foregone conclusion, what is important to emphasize here is that Saudi decision makers hold this mistaken belief and accordingly shape their foreign policy around it.

Saudi agents capturing dissident. (Oriental Review)

They have a paranoid idea that majority-Shia Iran wants to harness its influence among its related believers to exert political influence wherever they reside, including in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province. Thus, Abdullah figured that the Saudis could ‘strike first’ by manufacturing an artificial ‘Sunni-Shia rivalry’ in order to ‘justify’ repressions against the Shia in Saudi Arabia and prevent them from attaining power as ‘Iranian proxies’ in Iraq and Bahrain sometime in the future. In countries such as Yemen and Syria where Shia and Shia-affiliated sects constitute an influential minority, the policy was aimed at inciting religious hatred against them in the hopes that they could be eventually relegated to social and political obscurity. Abdullah’s plan was obviously long-term, but given the intensity of the sectarian war that he launched in Iraq and the lessons his intelligence forces gleaned from such activity, his was able to see demonstrable ‘results’ a couple years later after the ‘Arab Spring’ Color Revolutions. Wahhabism flared throughout the Mideast and Shia communities everywhere found themselves in fear of violent sectarian-led attacks. For the Saudis, this was mission accomplished.

Institutional Expansionism:

The second driving force behind Abdullah’s reign of terror across the Mideast was to spread the influence of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a Saudi-led regional grouping that operates as a multifaceted integrational platform that coordinates military, political, and economic policies. Abdullah’s ambition was to use it as a vehicle for creating regional satellite states, either formally integrated into the organization (such as Bahrain) or living under its military shadow (as it envisioned Yemen to be). Pertaining to Syria and Iraq, Abdullah sought to make them submissive to the GCC’s dictates, in that Syria was unsuccessfully bullied into allowing a gas pipeline to transit its territory (and its subsequent refusal is credited with initiating the war) and Iraq was targeted for trilateral fragmentation so that it could never rival the Saudis again.

Lead From Behind:

A ridiculously underdeveloped nation in terms of technology and actual manufacturing, except for its oil infrastructure, Saudi Arabia apes its chief mentor in almost everything concerning war making. Here a view of their war room. (Oriental Review)

Finally, the US understood the regional value that Abdullah’s goals could have for its global grand strategy, and therefore threw all of its weight behind his destabilizing activities. The American vision for adapting to the multipolar world is to delegate zones of regional responsibility to its close allies (or group thereof), and Saudi Arabia is the Lead From Behind partner for the Gulf. The US wants to use the Saudis and their GCC minions as military proxies for any future conflict with Iran, hence why it and its NATO allies are arming them to the teeth. The US seems to have also fallen for Abdullah’s scam of the ‘Sunni-Shia rivalry’ and his paranoid fears of Iranian interference via this ‘mechanism’, which explains its blind support for the dead ruler’s actions in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, and Yemen. Instead of the US directly confronting Iran, it simply outsources this responsibility to Saudi Arabia and the GCC, which share the same delusional belief as the US and Israel have about a hidden Iranian hand guiding all sorts of Mideast mischief.

Abdullah’s Hit List

While the story of Pandora’s Box may only be a legend, Abdullah’s Mideast application of it is most certainly not. The former King opened the gates of hell when he unleashed his sectarian war on the masses in an attempt to transform his country into the region’s unrivaled hegemon. Thus, the following should be read as Abdullah’s ‘hit list’:

Syria:

Abdullah took personal offense to President Assad’s refusal to betray his Iranian allies and kowtow to the Gulf Monarchies, and thus targeted him for elimination. Of course, the US was also planning President Assad’s removal even before then, but this gave Abdullah an even greater reason to work with them to bring his sectarian plans into play in the Levant. He had intended for Syria to be a peripheral satellite of the GCC, but President Assad’s loyalty to his Iranian partners frightened the King and brought about hallucinations of a ‘Shia alliance’ aimed against his country’s interests. Abdullah wasn’t apt enough to identify it for what it properly was – the Axis of Resistance – but instead, given his fixation with Iran, he only saw a sectarian element to it that he became obsessed with destroying. Since Iraq stood between the two and happened to be run by Maliki (a Shiite) at the time, the Saudis instinctively began plans for sucking them into the oncoming destabilization by restarting the sectarian civil war that previously devastated the country.

Iraq:

Saudi/NATO-created ISIL gangsters and fanatics murder Syrian troops in cold blood. (Oriental Review)

For a while, it seemed like Iraq would successfully resist the Saudi-inspired destabilization that was ravaging Syria, since Maliki’s strong arm kept everything together between his country’s Sunni and Shia citizens. However, that was not to last, as ISIL began its massive surgeacross the Syrian border and into Iraq last summer, whereby it acquired unimaginable territorial conquests in an extremely short period of time. This was the final aspect of Abdullah’s northern-directed foreign policy, since he ultimately succeeded in having the Wahhabist militants destabilize Iraq and reignite the sectarian war, which in turn led to Maliki’s soft-coup removal from power and the country’s de-facto fragmentation into three identity-dominated entities.

Bahrain:

This small island country was actually Abdullah’s first geopolitical victim, since he ordered the Saudi military to intervene there upon the urgent request of its monarchy. The Shiite majority had been rising up against the Sunni-minority royals and demanding democratic representation and more rights, in a scenario that Abdullah could not refrain from viewing in sectarian (read: ‘Iranian conspiracy’) terms. Nonetheless, Abdullah wasn’t successful in putting down the people’s resistance to their rulers (despite dozens of deaths and hundreds of torture allegations), which still continues to this day amidst an ever-stringent crackdown on the opposition.

Yemen:

Finally, Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbor wasn’t spared from Abdullah’s militant ambitions, although it experienced them in a different way. Given that Yemen is the geopolitical Achilles’ heel of the Kingdom, large-scale destabilization there poses the high risk of spilling over the border and boomeranging back into Saudi Arabia, hence Abdullah’s reluctance for all-out conflict there on par with Syria. Also, the government there was favorably affiliated with the Saudis and comfortably kept under their thumb. However, Abdullah’s obsession over sectarianism meant that he continued to view the Shiite Houthis in the north as proxy agents of Iranian influence, and he was paranoid that if they were able to create a more inclusive and democratic government, then Saudi Arabia might be left with a hostile state on its borders.
When the Houthis rebelled against President Hadi’s GCC-approved plan to arbitrarily federalize the country into six units and dilute their already miniscule representation, the government was forced to concede to a UN-mediated power-sharing agreement. The thing is, that was all just a time-buying ploy, whereby the Saudis sought to retain their man in Sanaa while finding a way to slowly destroy the Houthis. When they finally ordered Hadi to backtrack on the agreement and carry out a pro-Saudi coup, everything disastrously fell to pieces and Riyadh’s agent in Yemen stepped down from the presidency. This left the Houthis as the only real political force still active in the country, which in turn exacerbated Saudi Arabia’s fears of an Iranian conspiracy. Yemen is now on the cusp of a greater conflict, as the Kingdom, convinced of a hidden Iranian hand behind its monstrously failed coup attempt, desperately contemplates its next power move along its vulnerable and exposed southern border.

(Criticalthreats.org/via Oriental Review)

Bonus – The Hitman:

Last but not least, Abdullah, following the template of his American advisors, also sought to outsource some of his country’s regional activity to a degree, ergo the creation of ISIL. Although they deny it, the Saudis created it and were absolutely instrumental in helping the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization come to power. So important has ISIL been to achieving Saudi objectives in Syria and Iraq that it can even be said to function as the ‘hitman’ taking out the members of Abdullah’s ‘hit list’. However, just like with any mercenary gunman, the Wahhbist Frankenstein might finally be turning on its masters, which would present an ironic twist of fate for Abdullah’s lasting legacy.

Concluding Thoughts

As the mainstream media shamelessly ‘mourns’ Abdullah’s passing, millions of his victims across the Mideast are celebrating the death of what they rightfully view to have been the world’s number one terrorist. Never before in modern times has one man had such a wide-ranging effect of death and destruction across the region. Bush’s War on Iraq may have been indirectly responsible for ending the lives of between half a million to one million Iraqis, but one needs to be reminded that most of the violent deaths that occurred weren’t perpetrated by Americans (although that definitely doesn’t excuse them), but by anti-government/occupation forces and ‘unknown actors’ (read: Saudi-supported sectarian terrorists).

The salient point is that Abdullah’s brainchild, the artificial ‘Sunni-Shia rivalry’, cooked up in order to advance his Kingdom’s Wahhabism, spread the GCC’s power, and (as he saw it) supposedly contain and rollback Iran, has resulted in countless deaths that the mainstream media never attributed to him, to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of casualties and millions of displaced people due to the Saudi-sponsored War on Syria. This weaponized ideology doesn’t seem set to stop killing for quite some time (if at all), and since it has already proven the capability to outlive its creator, it should deservedly be attributed as Abdullah’s actual legacy.

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Andrew Korybko serves as a political analyst and journalist with Sputnik, and currently lives and studies in Moscow. This article was originally posted on ORIENTAL REVIEW.

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