by Pepe Escobar
July 10, 2012
from
GlobalResearch Website
|
Pepe Escobar is the author of
Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War
(2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge.
His most recent book is
Obama does Globalistan (2009).
He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com |
US Secretary of State
Hillary
Clinton is running out of rhetorical ammunition in the US's
Holy War against Syria.
Perhaps it's the strain of launching a NATO war
bypassing the UN Security Council. Perhaps it's the strain of being eaten
for breakfast routinely by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Hillary has just called on "Western powers" and their Arab stooges - the
NATO-GCC compound [1] that passes for the "international
community" - to "make it clear that Russia and China will pay a price
because they are holding up progress" regarding weaponized regime change in
Syria.
In non-newspeak, this means,
"If you block our new war, there will be
payback".
Howls of laughter in the corridors of the
Kremlin and the Zhongnanhai notwithstanding, this shows how desperate the
NATOGCC compound is to force regime change in Syria as a stopover in cutting
off Iran's privileged connection with the Arab world.
And this while Turkey's Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan - leading NATO's eastern flank - itches to attack Syria but
can't find a way to sell it to Turkish public opinion.
Into this incandescent context plunges WikiLeaks - releasing a batch of very
embarrassing
emails against the Assad system and the NATO rebels as well. A
possible side effect will be to inspire waves of so-called progressives all
across the West to start supporting the Holy War on Syria.
A realistic effect will be to show how unsavory
both sides - the police state Assad system and the armed opposition - really
are.
Car bombing tourism,
anyone?
It's useful to examine what price Washington itself, not to mention its NATO
subjects, could be paying for this Holy War branch-out fought with - who
else - the same bunch of "terrorists" who until yesterday were about to
destroy Western civilization and turn it into a giant Caliphate.
Washington, London and Paris have tried - twice - to twist the UN Security
Council into yet another war. They were blocked by Russia and China. So plan
B was to bypass the UN and launch a NATO war.
Problem is NATO has no stomach
- and no funds - for a very risky war with a country that can actually
defend itself.
Thus plan C is to bet on a prolonged civil war, using the Far-from-Free
Syrian Army (FSA), crammed with mercenaries and jihadists, and the band of
opportunistic exiles known as the Syrian National Council (SNC).
The SNC has actually called for a Libya-style no-fly zone over Syria -
shorthand for
a NATO war.
Turkey also formally asked NATO for a no-fly zone.
NATO commanders may be inept - but they have a certain amount of experience
with major embarrassment (see Afghanistan). They flatly refused it.
The SNC - and the FSA - could not be more un-representative.
The "Friends of Syria" - as in Hillary and the
Arab stooges - barely acknowledge the existence of the National Coordination
Body for Democratic Change (NCB), the main indigenous opposition movement in
Syria, composed of 13 political parties, mostly from the Left, Arab
nationalists and including one Kurdish party. The NCB firmly denounces any
form of militarization and totally dismisses the FSA.
Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari - a Kurd - has warned that Salafi-jihadists
of the al-Qaeda mould are moving into Syria in droves.
Apparently this bunch
still listens very closely to "invisible" al-Qaeda ideologue Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri;
five months ago he issued these marching orders to jihadis in Iraq, Jordan,
Lebanon and Turkey. It also helps that many of them are being weaponized -
via different networks - by the House of Saud and Qatar.
For months everybody knows that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) of
al-Qaeda-linked Abdul Hakim Belhaj has been active in Syria - as well as
remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq now responsible for car bombings even in
Damascus.
In the event of a post-Assad Syria dominated by hardcore Sunnis infiltrated
by Wahhabis and Salafi-jihadists, guaranteed blowback will leave Afghanistan
after the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad looking like a ride on Disneyland Hong
Kong.
We accept yuan and
rubles
As for China, it's laughing about Hillary's desperation all the way to the
bank.
As the House of Saud becomes ever more paranoid
with what it sees as the Obama administration flirting with democracy in the
Arab world, Beijing jacked up trade ties by delivering a bunch of new
missiles to Riyadh.
And while the "West" flirts with Holy War, Beijing's state-sponsored
corporations have been buying commodities like crazy all across the Middle
East, North Africa and South America - as well as stockpiling rare earths
for strategic reserves. China produces no less than 97% of the world's rare
earths - used on everything from iPads to those shiny new missiles now
frying in the Arabian desert.
Other side effects as in "the price to pay" for the bypassing of the UN and
the obsession on NATO as global Robocop will be inevitable. It shouldn't be
forgotten that the Holy War on Syria is a stopover on the way to Tehran. For
instance, a new system of maritime insurance, as well as a new international
exchange mechanism - bypassing Western diktats - may be about to be born.
Yet the most important element may be a concerted move by Russia, Iran and
China to reorganize the global energy market by transacting outside of the
petrodollar.
So Washington cuts Iran off from SWIFT - the international bank clearing
system? Iran's central bank counterpunches; if you want to do business with
us, you can pay in any currency apart from the US dollar, or you can pay
with gold.
This is the Holy Grail of the Holy War -
not Syria; one thing is for Tehran
to accept Euros as payment for its oil and gas; another thing is to accept
gold. On top of it with full support from both Russia and China.
In a nutshell; the whole Holy War syndrome is accelerating the end of the US
dollar as global reserve currency.
And when it happens, will there be an American
Spring? Or will US elites - like the Mob - have the guts, and the muscle, to
force Russia and China to pay the price?
Note
1. NATO-GCC is a compound of the North
Atlantic treaty Organization and the Gulf Cooperation Council.