By Elizabeth Kendal —
The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children. The activities are similar to preparations the regime made before its April 4, 2017 chemical weapons attack.
As we have previously stated, the United States is in Syria to eliminate the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. If, however, Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price.
Coming, as it does, comes hot on the heels of President Trump’s visit to Riyadh and his speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit, this statement may indicate that the Trump administration is preparing to escalate the conflict in Syria.
See: Trump in Riyadh: A Message to Tehran,
by Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Monitoring, 29 June 2017
Now that President Trump has redrawn Obama’s Red Line, all we have to do is wait for the chemical attack that should deliver the Turkey-Arab Sunni Axis and its militant/jihadist proxies exactly what they so desperately want: US missile strikes against the Syrian government – only this time, far more devastating.
Like previous chemical attacks, this one too will be the work of Islamic jihadists – most probably foreigners who have no qualms about sacrificing Syrian nationals for what they regard as the greater Islamic good.
Anyone who finds this difficult to believe should consider the following expert analysis.
Under the heading: “Strategic Trajectories: Indicators of emerging patterns of global significance”, Issue 4,2017 of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy (D&FA, the magazine of the Washington-based International Strategic Studies Association) included a report entitled, “Attack on Syria: US Has Returned to ‘Business as Usual’.”
Excerpt:
“US Pres. Donald Trump may, on April 7, 2017, have sacrificed the direction of his Presidency largely to calm domestic critics. He authorized the firing, by two US Navy destroyers in the Western Mediterranean, of 60 BGM-109B unitary warhead and BGM-109D cluster munition Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles (TLAM) at the Syrian Air Force base at al-Shayrat; 58 of the TLAMs hit designated targets. The incident may well be a strategically pivotal – domestically as well as internationally – as the decision in January 2002 by US Pres. George W. Bush to attack Iraq.” (emphasis in the original)
After examining various intended and unintended or unavoidable consequences of this action, D&FA examined the casus belli (the incident that provoked the attack).
Excerpts:
“The US attack authorized by Pres. Trump was in response to an alleged attack by Syrian Air Force aircraft on the north-western Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, in southern Idlib province, supposedly using chemical-payload bombs. Despite US government claims of irrefutable evidence that the Syrian Arab Air Force had used chemical weapons, no evidence was provided that the Syrian Government was involved in the use of chemical weapons. The US claims, when examined, are all based on reports from partisan sources within the Syrian opposition and from the Turkish Government, and not a single piece of evidence was from direct reporting by any US military or intelligence officer with an understanding of chemical weapons.
“Site investigations of the alleged attacks, in fact, revealed cratering from BM21 122mm Grad rocket launcher munitions, not aircraft-delivered munitions. Several of BM21 systems – including long range versions – were brought in from Turkey to jihadists groups operating in Idlib province shortly before the alleged ‘Syrian attack’, roughly about the same time that the US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stated that the removal of Syrian Pres. Assad was not (then) a US priority.”
As D&FA notes, every time the US had indicated that the removal of Assad was no longer an absolute goal, “Turkey and its allies (including jihadist and ‘Syrian opposition’ groups) produce ‘evidence’ that Syria had used chemical weapons against its own people”. . . What’s more, “The model for the release of such ‘evidence’ has been virtually identical in all cases . . .”
D&FA also notes that “Sarin (GB) has been the chemical weapon of choice by terrorist groups linked to Saudi Arabia and Turkey in the past in the Syrian conflict, not just the August 21, 2013, now-verified false-flag attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, by Saud-backed jihadists with the knowledge of the US Intelligence Community. . .
“Chemical analysis of the sarin residue found at Khan Sheikhoun indicated that it was made to the same recipe as the sarin used in the Ghouta attack in 2013, which has been absolutely and independently confirmed to have been used by Saudi-backed jihadis in that attack. It is explicitly not military-grade sarin and not the type which had been used by the Syrian Armed Forces before the internationally monitored disposal of Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles. . .
“It is probably that the Trump White House was aware that the evidence to support the claims of Syrian Government use of chemical weapons was questionable, tainted, and based on mere allegations. However, domestic political pressures in the US – coupled with a US media outcry at the reports – gave the President a chance to calm his critics at home by appearing strong internationally. . .”
Having covered asymmetric warfare and the August 2013 Ghouta false-flag chemical attack in my book, After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East, I was not remotely surprise to see experts declaring the April 2017 Khan Sheikhoun attack a false-flag; indeed, as noted by D&FA, the pattern was “virtually identical”.
After viewing the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) on Khan Sheikhoun, chemical weapons expert Theodore A. Postol (Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) penned a cursory assessment: “A Quick Turnaround Assessment of the White House Intelligence Report, Issued on April 11, 2017, About the Nerve Agent Attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria”. [Full Text – Addendum]
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| The photo that launched 60 cruise missiles |
In his report, which makes fascinating reading, Prof. Postol is scathing about the US assessment. He comments that both the cratering and the way the munition was exploded indicate that, rather than being delivered from the air (in which case it would have exploded outwards, and above the ground) it is clear that the munition had been placed on the ground and that an external explosive device was detonated on top of it, crushing it inwards, and leaving a crater. This is just one of Prof. Postol’s many cursory observations.
Postol writes: “It is hard for me to believe that anybody competent could have been involved in producing the WHR and the implications of such an obviously predetermined result strongly suggests that this report was not motivated by a serious analysis of any kind.
“This finding is disturbing. It indicates that the WHR was probably a report purely aimed at justifying actions that were not supported by any legitimate intelligence. . .
“On August 30, 2013, the White House produced a similarly false report about the nerve agent attack on August 21, 2013 in Damascus. This report also contained numerous intelligence claims that could not be true. . .
“I therefore conclude that there needs to be a comprehensive investigation of these events that have either misled people in the White House, or worse yet, been perpetrated by people seeking to force decisions that were not justified by the cited intelligence.”
If the Trump administration has decided to enter the Syrian war on side of the regime change coalition (Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia), with the aim of pushing back against Iran, in defense of US allies Saudi Arabia and Israel, then it should stop playing games and just say so.
However, before the US Government starts firing missiles into Syria, it should also look forward and be open about the likely costs: Hezballah and Iranian Quds Force terror will surely strike back against US interests; Syria (presently secular) will become a potentially hostile Islamic state; and Syria’s Christians and Alawites will most surely face genocide.
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Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate. She serves as Director of Advocacy at Canberra-based Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF), and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.
