The Race For Raqqa And America’s Geopolitical Revenge In “Syraq” (I)

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

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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.

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".

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:

ISIS fighters arrive in Ar-Raqqah, Syria on board of American supplied ex-Iraqi army vehicles.

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

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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 most resilient forces fighting ISIS.

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”.

isis_control_0922.0(Click on image for best resolution.)

To be continued…


Andrew-Korybko-624x320Andrew 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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“The New Middle East”: Russian Style (Part 1)

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ANDREW KORYBKO
ORIENTAL REVIEW

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The US’ plan to construct a “New Middle East”, announced during the failed 2006 Israeli War on Lebanon, has been totally offset by Russia’s game-changing anti-terrorist intervention in Syria. Although no formal details were ever officially provided as to what this “New Middle East” would look like, many caught on that it would likely follow the destructive contours of Ralph Peters’ “Blood Borders”, in which the entire region falls apart along ethnic and sectarian lines in a Yinon-esque scenario. In fact, the fulfillment of this strategy is one of the main reasons why the “Arab Spring” theater-wide Color Revolutions and the War on Syria were unleashed, but all of that is proving to be for naught now that Russia brilliantly flipped the initiative and has indisputably become the leading actor in the Mideast.

Moscow’s “Mideast Pivot” is geared towards restoring the principles of order in the region that Washington had so wantonly disregarded as it blindly sought to destroy the status quo and chaotically remake the Mideast according to its own desired vision. With the tables having dramatically been turned, however, it’s time to explore another vision of the future, albeit one in which Russia, not the US, plays the guiding role over events. This “New Middle East” is a lot different than the one the US had intended, and it eliminates just about every lever of influence that Washington had previously employed in attempting to keep the region servilely under its strategic command.

This article’s premise is predicated on the Coalition of the Righteous (Russia-Syria-Iraq-Iran) succeeding in its extermination campaign against ISIL, and Part I proceeds to describe the paradigm shift that the Allies have enacted through their actions. Part II is then broken up into two separate sections that uncover the wide-ranging geopolitical consequences of a coalition victory, with the first one discussing the Lebanon-to-Iran Resistance Arc and the second one detailing the resultant destabilization of Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Finally, in response to this historical defeat inflicted against unipolarity, the article concludes by forecasting the ways in which the US will seek geopolitical revenge against Russia for unseating it from its prized perch at the crossroads of Afro-Eurasia.

Out With The Old, In With The New

The Coalition of the Righteous (COR) has completely upended the previous US-led order in the Mideast, and not much of the strategic architecture that Washington created over the past two and a half decades is expected to remain by the time its campaign is concluded. Here are the most notable elements that define this paradigm shift:

Russian Leadership

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]irst off, the most visible difference is that Russia has assumed the key role of setting the region’s agenda, and it’s Moscow, not Washington, that’s affecting the most tangible change in the Mideast. This development didn’t come out of nowhere, as despite the surprised reaction of many observers (especially Western ones), Russia had been steadily growing its regional clout for decades through the management of two ultra-strategic partnerships with Syria and Iran. The one with Iran is relatively new and mostly goes back to the early 2000s, but the relationship with Syria began in the early 1970s and is remarkably the only Soviet-era friendship to remain unscathed by Russia’s international drawdown in the 1990s. Through the simultaneous leveraging and strengthening of each of these bilateral partnerships, plus the unified strategic overlap between them (i.e. the Syrian-Iranian Strategic Partnership), a super nexus of interests has been established, thereby setting the strategic backdrop for the COR and the multilateral pushback against the US’ “New Middle East” of chaotic destruction. Unlike the US, Russia leads from the front, not from behind, and this fearless example has energized its coalition and raised the hopes of the entire multipolar world.

The Iraqi War Of Independence

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ne of the most prominent elements of the Russian-led “New Middle East” is the inclusion of Iraq in the COR, which can be read as nothing less than the country’s desire to liberate itself from American proxy domination and truly experience its first sense of independence since 2003. Most Iraqis, and especially their government (as can be inferred by their membership in the COR), are cognizant of the fact that the US had been using ISIL as its strategic wrecking ball for actualizing Ralph Peters’ “Blood Borders”, and whether Sunni, Shia, or Kurdish, they appear to have finally had enough. Over 13 years of full-on destruction and countless false promises are enough to make even the most stalwart pro-American forces falter in their loyalty, and the Iraqi experience is the most striking global example of the grave perils that befall all of America’s second-rate, non-Western ‘partners’. The Iraqi War of Independence, which is what its COR anti-ISIL campaign basically amounts to, powerfully demonstrates that even the most abused proxy states have the real potential to fight back, provided that the political will is there at the highest levels and that the population is truly fed up with the prior state of affairs.

Syria Comes Full Circle

Stealthy, hypocritical mass murderers like Bush, Obama and the rest operate behind a thick curtain of bald-faced lies, glaring omissions, and public relationese.

Stealthy, hypocritical mass murderers like Bush, Obama and the rest operate behind a thick curtain of bald-faced lies, glaring omissions, and public relationese.

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]yria, the scene of the present global attention, ironically just so happens to be the first battleground of the New Cold War, and it makes for a certain sense of poetic justice that the most epic geopolitical resistance that the US has ever experienced is taking place right there. The Pentagon’s power ploy in wrestling full control of the region by means of the “Arab Spring” Color Revolutions was the opening salvo of the New Cold War, as the US had originally planned to carry the chaotic regime change momentum all the way to Central Asia and thenceforth to the Resistant & Defiant (R&D) states of Russia, China, and Iran. It goes without saying that all three of these actors understood the global power grab that the US was undertaking even if they were slow in coordinating their response, and had it not been for fierce and patriotic Syrian resistance to this scheme, it’s possible that they would have been in a much less advantageous and more disorganized position in confronting it today.

Syria’s sacrifices stopped the tidal wave of terror from slamming into the R&D states, and Russia’s gratitude was expressed through its 2013 diplomatic intervention in staving off an American bombing campaign against the country. This bought the R&D states a bit more time to prepare before the next imminent onslaught, but it unwittingly provoked the US into moving forward its regime change plans for Ukraine and deploying them a year ahead of schedule. This vengeful attempt was meant to ‘punish’ Russia for the global embarrassment that it inflicted on the US in Syria, and it’s what most people mistakenly think set off the New Cold War, overlooking that it was Syria, not Ukraine, where the first battle was fought. Incidentally, everything has come full circle, and the most important stage of the New Cold War is presently being played out in Syria, as the COR smashes the terroristic instruments of unipolar hegemony and midwifes the birth of the multipolar world order, and more than likely, it won’t limit its successes to the Mideast either.

Chasing Evil

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he largest uncertainty facing American strategists is exactly how far the COR will geographically go in fighting back against global terrorism. The present focus is obviously on the Syrian-Iraqi theater, but after the conclusion of that campaign, one must realistically ponder whether the Allies could repeat their success in Libya or Afghanistan, pending of course an official request from those countries’ leaders. Of corroborating note, it’s hugely significant that shortly after the COR’s anti-terrorist intervention in Syria, Kerry urgently pleaded with Libya’s leaders (both de-jure and de-facto) to form a government as soon as possible so as to stop ISIL from taking further hold of the country. One could venture to guess that the US is seriously worried about the possibility that an expanded COR, this time including Egypt (which has selectively intervened in Libya in the past), could intervene in the failed state in order to root out the Pentagon’s proxy forces and save the country from following The New York Times’ “Blood Borders”-like scenario of trilateral state fragmentation.

Concerning Afghanistan, if ISIL ever manages to establish a destabilizing enough foothold there, it’s possible that Kabul, having been witness to the efficiency of the COR’s anti-terrorist airstrikes in Syria, could request similar assistance in dislodging the terrorist group. If that happened, then it would be the final nail in the US’ Central-South Asian coffin of chaos, as Afghanistan would thus be signaling the beginning of its own War of Independence in removing the US’ presence. With the proxies go the patron, so it’s expected that as soon as the terrorists are extinguished from Libya and Afghanistan (potentially with COR assistance), the US will also be shown the door as well and these two states can finally regain the sovereignty that they had earlier lost.

“Syria’s sacrifices stopped the tidal wave of terror from slamming into the R&D states, and Russia’s gratitude was expressed through its 2013 diplomatic intervention in staving off an American bombing campaign against the country…”

Additionally, as a tangent of the Afghan scenario, if some type of terrorist threat emanating from the country was directed towards Central Asia (most realistically Tajikistan), it’s unquestionable that Russian-led COR-CSTO airstrikes will immediately be used to stop it. Likewise, Uzbekistan might even entertain the possibility of requesting multilateral Russian-involved assistance if a similar incident happens along its borders and spirals out of control, but only, of course, in very specific circumstances and if absolutely necessary for its survival. The problem in this operational Central-South Asian theater, however, is if a multitude of threats emerges simultaneously, which in that case could prove overwhelming for Russia’s military-strategic planners and will be addressed in Part IV of the article.

Crushing The US’ Pillars Of Power

Not counting Israel (which is in a special category of its own), US influence over the Mideast had rested on two primary pillars of power, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but this construction is now crumbling as Russia returns to the region. In a twist of geopolitical fate, what the US had previously assumed to be the most stable countries in the region are now the two on the greatest verge of destabilization, and ironically, the two which the US had tried the most to destabilize (Syria and Iraq) are now the ones which look to have one of the most stable futures. Addressing the former, Erdogan’s bumbling miscalculations have returned Turkey to a state of de-facto civil war, while Saudi Arabia’s disastrous War on Yemen has given rise to a ‘rogue royal’s’ plan for regime change (to say nothing about the separate threats of ISIL and an Eastern Province revolt).

Russian Su-30 fighter on a mission in Syrian airspace.

Russian Su-30 fighter on a mission in Syrian airspace.

Looking at Syria and Iraq, one of the COR’s geopolitical intentions is to safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its members, and the elimination of ISIL goes a far way in accomplishing that goal. Furthermore, concerning the previous fears of Kurdish separatism, it’s safe to say that Russia’s military assistance to the group has quelled this sentiment and endeared Moscow with a certain degree of influence in Erbil, which could of course be used to temper any secessionist thoughts that would play out to the US’ strategic advantage. With the Kurdish issue being dealt with, and the Wahhabist terrorists on the run, Syria and Iraq have a lot more to look forward to in their futures than civil war-struck Turkey and (royally and domestically) divided Saudi Arabia do, and this has of course weakened American grand strategy in the Mideast unlike any other series of events that has come before it and will be fleshed out more in Part II.

The Defeat Of The Reverse Brzezinski

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he COR’s carefully delegated application of force in Syria – Russian support remains limited to air missions, the Syrian Arab Army and Kurdish militias take care of the full ground component – presents a disciplined way to prevent the temptation of mission creep, the core of the Reverse Brzezinski. If Russia and Iran can avoid this strategic pitfall, then they’d have nullified one of the US’ most innovative policies and won themselves much-needed breathing room for addressing future regional security threats. The more one reflects upon it, the more it becomes clear that the key to beating the Reverse Brzezinski is to assemble the proper coalition of forces for intervening in the “quagmire” zone. If either Great Power attempted to do so on its own and without self-restraint, then its chances of falling for the dupe would have greatly increased, but in the current case of Syria (and soon to be, Iraq), they’ve proven themselves more than able to patiently and multilaterally address the situation and steer clear of the US’ trap. If they can maintain this state of mind and inclusive operational behavior going forward (and there’s no reason to think that they can’t), as well as carry these lessons over to any forthcoming Reverse Brzezinski scenarios such as the South Caucasus or Central Asia, then the US’ formerly flexible strategy of entrapment would become a lot more rigid and much less likely to be employed in the future.

To be continued…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Korybko is the American political commentaror currently working for the Sputnik agency.

 

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A Royal shame: Abdullah leaves a legacy of regional militancy

ANDREW KORYBKO

(Credit: Oriental Review)

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)

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 militarypolitical, 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, 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)

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-created ISIL gangsters and fanatics murder Syrian troops in cld blood. (Oriental Review)

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.

Yemen's regions. (Oriental Review)

(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 SyriaThis 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.


 

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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