“Claiming there was a long-standing plan to oust Syria’s regime serves a political purpose but the evidence simply does not support it”
Brian Whitaker writes on his al-Bab site:
There’s a claim circulated endlessly on the Internet that the conflict in Syria is a “regime change war” orchestrated by western powers. As far as many of the Assad regime’s defenders are concerned, this is established fact. To quote one of them – Piers Robinson, writing for the Open Democracy website – the existence of long-standing “western intentions and actions” aimed at achieving regime change in Syria is “not in doubt”.
It’s true that there have been calls from western leaders, among them Barack Obama, for Bashar al-Assad to step down – but those were in response to atrocities after the conflict had begun. What the regime’s defenders claim is different: that the west had been plotting for years to topple the regime. According to Robinson it’s a strategy that “has been in play since 9/11”.
Constant repetition of this idea on Twitter along with various “anti-imperialist” and conspiracy websites has helped to give it popular credence, even though the historical record does not bear it out.
Manipulating History and the Chemical Attacks
If you weren’t following Syria and its international relations before the war, it’s easy to be fooled by the regime-change meme. Assad’s defenders make it sound plausible by drawing analogies with Iraq, where the goal of overthrowing Saddam Hussein had been official American policy for more than four years before the 2003 invasion. The Iraq Liberation Act, approved by Congress in 1998 under the Clinton Administration, vowed support for “efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime”.
Mentioning Iraq also brings reminders of the debacle over Saddam’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction. We all know that western governments lied about them and used them as a pretext for invading. It’s the same with Syria, Assad’s defenders say. Western powers, allegedly, are raring to topple the regime and the chemical attacks have been cooked up to provide the excuse.
So far, it sounds fairly persuasive – until you remember there have already been plenty of chemical attacks in Syria and that western powers haven’t responded to any of them in the way that the Assad defenders’ argument predicts.
When sarin attacks in East and West Ghouta killed hundreds of people in 2013, the British parliament rejected military action. Obama considered it too but pulled back after Syria agreed to join the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Obama’s more belligerent successor, Donald Trump, ordered missile strikes in response to the sarin attack in Khan Sheikhoun last year and the more recent chemical attack reported in Douma. On both occasions, the strikes were limited in scope and posed no serious threat to the regime. Regardless of his rhetoric, Trump has shown no real inclination to become directly engaged in the broader conflict.
The Long Plot?
But what of the claim that the west had been pursuing a regime change strategy for Syria ever since 9/11 – in other words, for the best part of a decade before the conflict began?
Apart from a short period around 2005-2006, Syria was not a major concern or preoccupation among western governments or foreign policy analysts. In that respect it was very different from Iraq which between the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the war in 2003 had been a constant and much discussed issue.
This is not to say that relations between western powers and Syria were good. They were often difficult but had ups as well as downs. The general approach by western powers was to use a combination of pressure and inducements in the hope that Syria would change its ways. In some areas Syria cooperated; in others it did not and the broad picture, on both sides, was one of wary coexistence.
Internally, under the brutal rule of Hafez al-Assad and the Ba’ath Party, Syria had given rise to one of the region’s most repressive regimes and, internationally, it considered itself part of the “resistance” to Israel and western political influence in the Middle East.
Syria’s grievances against Israel were not without justification, because Israel continued to occupy part of the Golan Heights – Syrian territory it had captured in the 1967 war. Syria, in turn, hosted “political bureaux” of various Palestinian groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC). A report by the US State Department in 2005 commented that “Syria’s public support for the groups varied, depending on its national interests and international pressure”.
Syria’s development of chemical weapons was also, at least initially, linked to its disputes with Israel – as a response to the Israeli nuclear arsenal. Chemical weapons were cheaper to produce and were sometimes described as “the poor man’s nukes”.
Making Friends with Bashar
When Bashar al-Assad inherited the Presidency from his father in 2000, it was widely seen as a hopeful development. At 34, he was still relatively young and seemed to be a moderniser. Among other things, he was head of the Syrian Computer Society; he made some gestures towards tackling corruption and, for the first time in almost 40 years, allowed publication of an independent newspaper (though it did not survive for long).
Bashar also had connections with Britain. A graduate in medicine, he had spent some time in London doing postgraduate studies in ophthalmology and, shortly after becoming president, he married Asma al-Akhras, an investment banker from a Syrian family who had been born and raised in Britain. Asma was a glamorous figure who attracted media attention and, with the aid of western PR firms, helped to give the regime a more acceptable image.
With a new president in Damascus, and one with significant British connections, the government of Tony Blair sensed an opportunity to develop better relations. During a Middle East tour in 2001, Blair made a hastily-arranged stop-off in Damascus where he was photographed chatting with Bashar in the courtyard of the historic Umayyad mosque. It was the first such encounter in more than 30 years and the discussions did not go particularly well. Regardless of that, Bashar and his wife were received in London the following year on an official visit which included lunch at 10 Downing Street an audience with the Queen.
In October 2003 the king and queen of Spain paid a state visit to Syria – the first since Juan Carlos had come to the throne in 1975. Agreements aimed at boosting tourism and investment were signed and the royal couple were treated to a tour of Damascus’s old city.
Also in 2003, Syria and the European Union began negotiating an Association Agreement. Similar agreements granting trade privileges and providing for cooperation in other areas had previously been struck with several countries in the region – Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia – the Palestinian Authority. Negotiations with Syria were eventually completed though the agreement was never signed. Nevertheless, by 2011, the EU was Syria’s fourth largest trading partner after Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.
Syria Accountability Act
While the European approach was to nudge Assad towards greater political cooperation through dialogue and inducements, the United States tended to prefer the stick to the carrot. Since 1979 Syria had been designated by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism and in 2003 – a few months after the invasion of Iraq – Congress passed the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. Instigated mainly by supporters of Israel, this sought penalise Syria for keeping its forces in Lebanon and backing militant groups opposed to Israeli occupation. It also called on Syria to stop developing weapons of mass destruction and end illicit trade with Iraq.
Thierry Meyssan, a French conspiracy theorist who had written a book blaming a faction of the US military-industrial complex for the 9/11 attacks, later described Congress’s action as a declaration of war on Syria by the United States. In reality, though, it contained no threat of military action and made no mention of regime change in Syria but listed six possible sanctions:
*Reducing US diplomatic contacts with Syria;
*Banning US exports to Syria;
*Prohibiting US businesses from investing or operating in Syria;
*Restricting travel by Syrian diplomats in Washington and the United Nations;
*Banning Syrian aircraft from taking off, landing in or flying over the United States;
*Freezing Syrian assets in the United States.
The act required President George W. Bush to impose at least two of these but allowed him to waive them (for six-months at a time) if he decided it was “in the vital national security interest of the United States to do so”. Bush, who had initially opposed this measure, eventually signed it into law but issued a disclaimer:
“My approval of the Act does not constitute my adoption of the various statements of policy in the Act as US foreign policy. Given the constitution’s commitment to the presidency of the authority to conduct the nation’s foreign affairs, the executive branch shall construe such policy statements as advisory …”
Bush’s concern was partly about safeguarding presidential prerogative but also about the constraints the act sought to impose on American dealings with Syria. In a letter to Congress, Paul Kelly, Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, explained:
If our efforts on both comprehensive peace and the war against terrorism are to succeed, the President and the Secretary [of State] will need flexibility to determine what combination of incentives and disincentives will maximise cooperation and advance our goals… For this reason, we do not believe this is the right time for legislative initiatives that could complicate our efforts. The imposition of new sanctions on Syria would place at risk our ability to address a range of important issues directly with the Syrian government and render more difficult our efforts to change Syrian behavior and avoid a dangerous escalation.
John Bolton, the Undersecretary of State for arms control – regarded as one of the most hawkish members of the Bush administration – was also critical of the moves in Congress and urged lawmakers to let the US try to change Syria’s behavior through diplomatic means before passing trade restrictions and other measures.
Converging Interests and Syrian Withdrawal from Lebanon
The complicating factor here was that Syrian-American relations were not always diametrically opposed: there were also occasional confluences of interest. Following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, for example, Syria had provided about 20,000 troops for the US-led coalition in Operation Desert Storm (it said they would be used to help defend Saudi Arabia but not to attack Iraq). In 2002, as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Syria had also voted in favour of Resolution 1441 – instigated by the US and Britain – which declared Iraq to be “in material breach” of several earlier resolutions and threatened “serious consequences” if its “violations” continued.
On the counter-terrorism front, a State Department report in 2005 noted that while Syrian officials publicly condemned international terrorism they made an exception for what they considered to be “legitimate armed resistance” – by Palestinian groups and the Lebanese Hizbullah, for instance.
Thus, although there were major areas of disagreement there were also areas where the US and Syria could, potentially, cooperate. According to the report, Syria had cooperated with the US and other foreign governments “against Al Qa’eda and other terrorist organisations and individuals”.
Syria also claimed to have repatriated more than 1,200 foreign “extremists” and to have arrested more than 4,000 Syrians trying to go to fight in Iraq. The State Department report added: “During the past seven years there have been no acts of terrorism against American citizens in Syria. Damascus has repeatedly assured the United States that it will take every possible measure to protect US citizens and facilities in Syria.”
After the end of civil war in Lebanon in 1990, Syria’s troops had remained in the country and its intelligence apparatus kept a watchful eye on the situation there. Meanwhile, Israel controlled a smaller portion of Lebanon in the southern border area where Hizbullah – another of Syria’s non-state allies – waged a guerrilla struggle against the Israeli occupation. The positive side of the Syrian presence in Lebanon was that it brought a degree of stability in the immediate aftermath of the civil war but Lebanese opposition to it grew after Israel’s withdrawal from the south in 2000 and especially after the assassination of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in 2005, when suspicion fell on Syria.
Hariri’s killing triggered the “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon, with protests demanding the withdrawal of Syrian forces. This was a dangerous moment for Syria but Assad defused the situation by pulling out his troops. The following year, after a cross-border raid by Hezbollah, Israel waged a month-long bombing campaign in Lebanon but Syria, despite its close ties with Hizbullah and its official rhetoric about “resisting” Israel, judiciously remained on the sidelines.
To summarize, then, there is no sign that western governments, during the 10 years or so leading up to the current conflict, sought to overthrow the Assad regime or had serious plans to do so. The relationship – though fraught at times – was seen as one that could still be managed by diplomatic means and without a full-on confrontation. It’s also worth noting that in March 2011, during the initial stages of the Syrian uprising, US Secretary of SHestate Hillary Clinton was still calling Assad a reformer and an article in Haaretz newspaper described him as Israel’s favourite Arab dictator.
The US Hawks Before and After 9/11
This diplomatic approach to dealing with Syria did not go unchallenged, of course. There were always some voices, especially in the US and Israel, calling for a tougher line and it is mainly by cherry-picking these that believers in the regime change strategy construct their narrative of a “pre-planned” war.
One early example is the notorious “Clean Break” document from 1996. Produced by Richard Perle and several others who later became influential in the Bush aAministration, it advocated the removal of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Iraq as a first step towards reshaping Israel’s “strategic environment”. Intended as a foreign policy blueprint for the incoming right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu, it urged a complete break with the past and suggested that once Saddam was out of the way Jordan and Turkey could form an axis along with Israel to weaken and “roll back” Syria.
Although often cited as part of the Syria regime-change meme, the “Clean Break” document – which was alarming in many ways – stopped well short of advocating the Assad regime’s overthrow. Instead, it said Israel should move to “contain” Syria and offered three specific proposals in that direction:
“Striking Syria’s drug-money and counterfeiting infrastructure in Lebanon”;
“Paralleling Syria’s behaviour by establishing the precedent that Syrian territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces”;
“Striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper”.
In the article for Open Democracy, Piers Robinson – who is prominent among a group of academics pushing a pro-Assad and pro-Russia line – cites discussions between Britain and the US in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 as evidence that Syria was being earmarked for regime change.
He cites a paragraph from the Chilcot report on Britain’s role in the Iraq war which says (page 324):
On 15 September [2001] the British Embassy Washington reported to London that the US now looked at the world through a new prism: US policy towards Iraq would harden, especially if any evidence emerged which linked Saddam Hussein to the terrorists. The “regime-change hawks” in Washington were arguing that a coalition put together for one purpose [against international terrorism] could be used to clear up other problems in the region.
From the tenor of the British-American discussions there’s no doubt that Syria’s support for terrorism was seen as one of the “other problems” needing to be cleared up. The question, though, is whether regime change in Syria was envisaged as part of that process.
Robinson discusses this in more detail in a separate academic article and quotes a declassified memo written by British prime minister Tony Blair in December 2001, headed: “The War Against Terrorism: the Second Phase”. The memo, which Britain shared with the Americans, discussed what to do about seven countries: Iraq, the Philippines, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Somalia and Indonesia.
On Iraq, Blair proposed a gradual build-up of pressure on Iraq “until we get to the point where military action could be taken if necessary”. On Syria and Iran, Robinson quotes another part of the memo where Blair wrote: “If toppling Saddam is a prime objective, it is far easier to do it with Syria and Iran in favour or acquiescing rather than hitting all three at once.”
Robinson acknowledges that it’s not clear from the memo how many of the seven countries were being targeted for regime change but says “talk of hitting Iran and Syria, countries not associated with the Islamic fundamentalist terrorism understood to have been behind Al-Qaeda and 9/11, is clearly suggestive of some kind of military action”.
Rather disingenuously, however, he omits quoting the remainder of Blair’s paragraph on Syria and Iran which said:
I favour giving these two a chance at a different relationship: help and support in building a new partnership with the West in return for closing down support for Hizbollah and Hamas and helping us over Iraq. I don’t underestimate the problems of this but I think it is possible.
Robinson also says “leaked documents indicate the existence of US plans from 2006 to destabilise Syria”. This refers to a diplomatic cable written by William Roebuck, the Ambassador in Damascus, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the Assad regime.
The cable identified a number of the regime’s “vulnerabilities” and suggested ways they could be exploited to America’s advantage. Although this shows the US was trying to cause difficulties for the regime, there’s no indication that the aim was to topple the regime, or that the Americans believed it was likely to be toppled. The cable ended by saying:
The bottom line is that Bashar is entering the new year in a stronger position than he has been in several years, but those strengths also carry with them – or sometimes mask – vulnerabilities. If we are ready to capitalise, they will offer us opportunities to disrupt his decision-making, keep him off-balance, and make him pay a premium for his mistakes.
The Wesley Clark Diversion
Robinson’s final piece of regime-change “evidence” – in his Open Democracy article and in his academic paper – is an anecdote much loved by conspiracy theorists.
The story, recounted several times by retired US general Wesley Clark, is that he visited a former colleague in the Defense Department a couple of weeks after 9/11 and was told a decision had been made to go to war with Iraq. On a second visit several weeks later the ex-colleague told him of a single-page memo which went much further, proposing to “take out seven countries in five years”. Iraq, as expected, was on the list but Syria and Iran were there too. The other four countries were Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan according to some versions of the story..
Clark says he didn’t read the memo himself but was told it had originated in the office of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. It seems to have been one example of the extreme militaristic talk circulating in Washington at the time and Clark said later it wasn’t necessarily a plan – “Maybe it was a think piece…a sort of notional concept.”
In any case, it didn’t happen. The five-year time span expired years ago and Rumsfeld is long gone too but that hasn’t stopped the story from popping up time after time on the internet as evidence of American intentions towards Syria.
If the Arab Spring protests hadn’t spread to Syria in 2011 and been met with a vicious response, it’s very likely that relations between Syria and western governments would have been plodding along on the same bumpy road that we saw during the decade before the conflict broke out.
Claiming there was a long-standing plan to oust the regime serves a political purpose but the evidence simply does not support it. It’s a case of trying to shape the facts to fit a desired narrative – a narrative that blames the conflict on western machinations rather than decades of dictatorship. And that is an insult to the countless Syrians who, before the conflict turned violent, took to the streets demanding an end to repression.
Hardly a compelling argument and very selective one at that.
The policy of regime change in Iraq began under the Bush 41 yet remained largely dormant under Clinton. The architects of the 2003 Iraq pressured Clinton to take military action but he deferred, much as Obama refrained from military action in 2013.
Obama pulled back from attacking in 2013 because his military advisers warned the case against Assad was not a slam dunk. Congress rejected military action. Both he and Cameron were confronted by fierce opposition to military action because the experience of the Iraq war was still fresh among the public. Nobody wanted to take responsibility for it.
By the time Trump came to office, Russia were already in Syria. Had Russian gotten involved in Iraq the Bush 43 administration might have avoided Iraq.
Whitaker ignores that the main prize in Washington is not Syria but Iran and always had been. Jeffrey Goldberg’s interview with Obama’s revealed that the benefit of regime change in Syria would be the isolation of Iran. He ignores the Clinton emails that mentioned the Syria war being for Israel’s benefit. He ignores Christian Amanpour’s interview with Assad in 2005, when she asked what he thought of Washington’s plans for regime change and it’s search for a replacement leader.
Most of all Whitaker totally ignores 911. Without that hugely significant event and the allegations of Saddam’s complicity in the attack, war with Iraq would have been a very hard sell. We would be here having this debate about Iraq and not Syria.
In fact, in February and May of 2001, Condonlezza Rice and Colin Powell both stated that Saddam was no threat, had no WMD and was being contained. If we are to use Whitaker’s logic, that must prove there was never a policy of regime change for Iraq either.
https://www.cs.cornell.edu/gries/howbushoperates/powell-no-wmd.htm
Really not sure where any of this is going — but it certainly does not address the substance of Whitaker’s evidence and analysis, namely:
In March 2011, there were no plans of the US Government for regime change in Syria.
Really not sure where any of this is going
Much of Whitaker’s analysis rests on the argument that the wavering commitment to regime change on the part of Washington proves there was no plans for regime change. He draws parallels to Iraq to try and make this point but ignores key issues that made the Iraq war possible – namely the 911 attacks and the fact that the public were not war weary of military intervention.
In March 2011, there were no plans of the US Government for regime change in Syria.
Christian Amanpour proved otherwise in 2005.
AMANPOUR: Mr. President, you know the rhetoric of regime change is headed towards you from the United States. They are actively looking for a new Syrian leader. They’re granting visas and visits to Syrian opposition politicians. They’re talking about isolating your diplomatically and, perhaps, a coup d’etat or your regime crumbling. What are you thinking about that?
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/10/12/alassad.transcript/
Since Iraq 2003 is a different case from Syria 2011, I’ll let you dangle from the false analogy.
Whitaker doesn’t think it’s a false analogy, seeing as his Jesus rests so heavily on it
If you read Whitaker’s article accurately, I think you’ll find he is effectively explaining why Iraq is *not* an analogy to be misused in the Syria case.
Sorry I don’t know how autocorrect made “thesis” into “Jesus”.
I have read Whitaker carefully. He compares Iraq to Syria in an attempt to highlight how they differ, but in doing so, he is guilty of what he accuses Meyssan and Robinson of doing – cherry picking and omission.
No one disputes that regime change was policy for the Bush 43 and Blair governments in the lead up to the Iraq war. Yet Blair said on a number of occasions that the war was not about regime change. Whitaker is using similar denials made about regime change in Damascus to argue there is no such policy with respect to Syria.
Yes you are right Scott, they are different. After being so bombastic and brazen about Iraq – and the aversion to interventionism this engendered in the public – the hawks in Washington have learned to be far more covert and subtle. Whitaker takes this as evidnce there is no regime change policy.
Whitaker also dismisses how the 911 attacks were exploited to justify regime change in Iraq. Most Americans were led to believe Saddam was a threat and many believed he was behind the attacks. They don’t have this advantage this time.
In spite of all this, there is ample evidence that the plan has been to replace Assad along. Sy Hersh reported on this back in 2007
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection
Sorry, but you have no support for your conspiratorial assertion of a “covert and subtle” regime change approach by US towards Syria.
Even if one treats Hersh’s 2007 piece as reliable, it has to be seen in context of a policy debate within Bush Administration in 2007 about confrontation with Iran. In the end, any thought of regime change was set aside, even before Obama took office. So there is no way you can stretch that to March 2011.
White Helmets’ ties to Saudi Arabia revealed: https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/04/19/exclusive-emails-show-how-the-white-helmets-tried-to-recruit-roger-waters-with-saudi-money/
“During a Barcelona concert on April 13, Roger Waters denounced the Syrian White Helmets as “a fake organization that exists only to create propaganda for jihadists and terrorists.” Warning that the groups’ unverified claims about chemical weapons attacks across insurgent-held territory were aimed at triggering Western military intervention, Waters cautioned his audience, “If we were to listen to the propaganda of the White Helmets and others, we would encourage our governments to start dropping bombs on people in Syria. This would be a mistake of monumental proportions for us as human beings.”
Ah, Roger’s posturing plus Max’s spinning a campaign appeal into a conspiracy theory.
Comfortably Dumb indeed.
Razmjoo……you never get tired do you?
Doubts about Douma: Is ‘trial by media’ the new normal? http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Doubts-about-Douma-Is-trial-by-media-the-new-normal–148945.html
“Revelations of media manipulation in relation to Syria come as no surprise to Sri Lankans who lived through a 30-year civil war against one of the world’s deadliest terrorist groups, whose propaganda skills are legendary. The infamous Channel 4 documentaries, to use just one example, have shown how easily media can fall into the trap of depending on unreliable sources behind the battle lines for their information. It’s a short step from there to using the material supplied by them, which may contain manipulated digital imagery, fake videos and pre-judged narratives intended to mislead the world. The graver danger is that for big powers with their own political agendas, ‘trial by media’ is good enough to deliver punishment!”
Ignores the evidence from the attack, recycles Fisk’s “reporting”, and promotes conspiracy theories.
Fair enough.
Unless I’m mistaken, the US government has yet to admit the story about the babies taken out of incubators in Kuwait was false.