Here’s a fair question, even if it comes from a Russia media organ: whose calling the shots for the US in Syria? From Finian Cunningham at sputniknews.com:
A schism within US government has come spectacularly into the open, with the Pentagon and CIA militarists seemingly subverting the president’s authority over Syria policy.
This amounts to a brazen pulling of rank by the militarist elements within the US power structure over the civilian titular head of government. This power struggle came to light dramatically – if briefly – with the US air strike last weekend on the Syrian army base near Deir ez-Zor in which over 60 troops were killed.
That massacre was no accident, as the Pentagon subsequently claimed. It was a deliberate mortal blow to the shaky ceasefire worked out the week before by US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
Within hours of the Deir ez-Zor attack on Saturday evening, there were reports of air strikes on civilian areas of insurgent-held eastern Aleppo. But none of the reports were able to confirm the identity of the warplanes involved.
Two days later, media coverage shifted to the collapse of the Syrian ceasefire and what is being described as an “outrageous” air strike by Syrian or Russian warplanes on a UN aid convoy near the northern city of Aleppo. Again, no reports have been able to identify the aircraft alleged to have perpetrated that attack, although Washington blamed Syria and its Russian ally.
Predictably, following the attack on the humanitarian convoy in which 12 civilian aid workers were killed and several trucks ferrying food were destroyed, the US is saying that plans to cooperate with Russian military in Syria are now off the agenda.
It is true that the Syrian government declared earlier on Monday that the ceasefire was over. Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have resumed air strikes and ground operations against insurgents in eastern Aleppo and around the capital Damascus. Russian air power is also providing support in the resumption of operations by the Syrian army.
But it is the aforementioned sequence of violence that needs to be particularly ascertained in order to appreciate the real significance of why and how the latest Syrian ceasefire has broken down.
First of all, we should note that the Pentagon and its CIA covert arm were conspicuous in their dissent to the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts to implement a ceasefire in partnership with Russia.
When John Kerry met with Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on September 9 to finalize a planned truce, the head of the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, was openly telling media outlets that he opposed any deal with Russia. It wasn’t just Carter. Other American military chiefs were also deprecating any liaison with Russia over Syria.
Nevertheless, Obama and his top diplomat Kerry persisted – despite the objections of the US military – in coming up with a “deal” with Russia that envisaged a cessation of violence, humanitarian aid to war-torn cities like Aleppo, and, remarkably, an ambitious proposal for US and Russian military forces to form a joint task force to go after al-Qaeda-linked terror groups, such as the rebranded al-Nusra Front and Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/IS).
To continue reading: Syria Shows US Under Military Rule
