Protecting the petrodollar: America gears up for a long war

His strategy is to “degrade and destroy” the jihadist militants, and he has admitted that the war against the IS in both Iraq and Syria will take time. How much time, he didn’t say, but Obama has already authorised air strikes against IS bases in Syria. British Prime Minister David Cameron will try to convince the House of Commons today to let UK forces join the campaign. 

Last year the British parliament voted down a bill that would have authorised Cameron to send in forces to topple the Assad government in Syria on the grounds that it had used chemical weapons against its people. Obama suffered a similar setback to his Syria strategy at the same time. Now it seems that the US and the UK are taking charge again by picking up where they left off last year. But this time they are targeting the IS, a splinter group of al-Qaeda that emerged out of nowhere a couple of months ago. 

So, are the US and the UK aiming for regime change in Syria or going after IS? What exactly is going on here?

A Daily Mail reader by the name of Aubrey Bailey wrote an interesting letter explaining the IS situation as follows:

“Are you confused by what is going on in the Middle East? Let me explain. We support the Iraqi government in the fight against Islamic State. We don’t like IS, but IS is supported by Saudi Arabia, whom we do like. We don’t like President Assad in Syria. We support the fight against him, but not IS, which is also fighting against him.

“We don’t like Iran, but Iran supports the Iraqi government in the fight against IS. So, some of our friends support our enemies and some of our enemies are our friends, and some of our enemies are fighting against our other enemies, whom we want to lose, but we don’t want our enemies who are fighting our enemies to win.

“If the people we want to defeat are defeated, they might be replaced by people we like even less. And all this started by us invading a country to drive out terrorists who weren’t actually there until we went in to drive them out. Do you understand now?”

Indeed, it is very difficult to separate the good guys from the bad guys in the Middle East. Since the IS is no friend of the Syrian government, Obama is helping out Assad by going after IS jihadists. Obama has sought Congressional support to arm the anti-government rebels in Syria so they can help fight IS militants. The question now is, how can Washington separate the “good terrorists” from the “bad terrorists”? Don’t they belong to the same group from the outset?

What’s more clear is that the air strikes against IS targets in Syria, which started on Monday, represent a violation of the sovereignty of that country. Obama authorised the air strikes without approval from the Assad government. Five Arab nations – Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain and UAE – are also taking part in the air campaign, and US officials says some 50 countries have pledged support to this grand coalition against the IS. Syrian diplomats are right to have asserted that the US should be relying on diplomatic and political means to deal with the militants, rather than resorting to a military option alone, which will not work. The air strikes are unlikely to “degrade” IS forces in any significant and lasting way.

Technically speaking, the US and the five Arab nations have already committed to a war of aggression against Syria. This is in violation of the UN charter, for the war against the IS was never raised at the UN Security Council. And it remains to be seen whether the coalition forces will go after IS targets alone or whether they will also hit Syrian government forces. If the latter is the case, it will certainly heat up the war in the Middle East. The fact that Obama has met with world leaders in New York shows that he is committed to a long war, which might also involve Iran. After the fall of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, the next country on the US list for regime change is Syria, followed by Iran. 

Washington’s grand strategy is to protect the petrodollar and to prevent Russia and other superpowers from securing a piece of the action in the Middle East, which still holds enormous energy resources. This being the case, the air strikes that began this week are likely only the first shots in what will be a protracted war in the Middle East. It looks inevitable that the US and its main allies will send ground forces into the region again. Islamic State militants, who actually pose no terror threat to the US, are merely the excuse Washington is using to start another war.