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The United States government has already declared that in regards to what it alleges to be a Russian cyberattack against the U.S. Democratic Party, the U.S. reserves the right to go to war against Russia. NATO has accordingly changed its policy so as to assert that a cyberattack (in this case actually cyber-espionage, such as the U.S. government itself perpetrates against even its own allies such as Angela Merkel by tapping her phone) constitutes an act of war by the alleged cyberattacker, and so requires all NATO member nations to join any cyberattacked NATO nation in war against its alleged (cyber)attacker, if the cyberattacked member declares war against its alleged cyberattacker. Excuses are being sought for a war against Russia; and expanding the definition of “invasion,” to include mere espionage, is one such excuse. But it’s not the only one that the Obama Administration has cooked up. U.S. Senator Mike Lee has asserted that President Barack Obama must obtain a declaration of war against Syria — which is allied with and defended by Russia — before invading Syria. Syria has, for the past few years, already been invaded by tens of thousands of foreign jihadists (financed mainly by the royal Sauds and Qataris, and armed mainly with U.S. weaponry) who are trying to overthrow and replace the Syrian government so that pipelines can be built through Syria into Europe to transport Saudi oil and Qatari gas into the EU, the world’s biggest energy-market, which now is dominated by Russia’s oil and gas. Since Syria is already being defended by Russia (those royals’ major competitor in the oil and gas markets), America’s invasion of Syria would necessarily place U.S. and Russia into an air-war against each other (for the benefit of those royal Arabs — who finance jihadist groups, as even Hillary Clinton acknowledges): Syria would thus become a battleground in a broader war against Russia. So: declaring war against Syria would be a second excuse for World War III, and one which would especially serve the desires not only of U.S. ‘defense’ firms but of the U.S. aristocracy’s royal Arabic allies, who buy much of those ‘defense’ firms’ exports (weaponry), and also U.S. oilfield services firms such as pipelines by Halliburton. (It’s good business for them, no one else. Taxpayers and war-victims pay, but those corporations — and royal families — would profit.)

The U.S. government also declares that Russia ‘conquered’ Crimea in 2014 and that Russia must restore it to Ukraine. The U.S. government wants Ukraine to be accepted into NATO, so that all NATO nations will be at war against Russia if Russia doesn’t return Crimea to Ukraine, of which Crimea had only briefly (1954-2014) been a part, until Crimeans voted on 16 March 2014 to rejoin Russia. This Crimean issue is already the basis for America’s economic sanctions against Russia, and thus Russia’s continuing refusal to coerce Crimeans to accept again being part of Ukraine would be yet a third excuse for WW III.

Hillary Clinton says “As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack.” She alleges that when information was unauthorizedly made public from Democratic National Committee computers, the cyberattacker was Russia. She can be counted as a strong proponent of that excuse for WW3. She’s with Barack Obama and the other neocons on that. She has furthermore said that the U.S. should shoot down any Russian and Syrian bombers in Syria — the phrase for that proposed U.S. policy is to “establish a no-fly zone” there. She makes clear: “I am advocating the no-fly zone.” It would be war against not only Syria, but Russia. (After all: a no-fly zone in which the U.S. is shooting down the government’s planes and Russia’s planes, would be war by the U.S. against both Syria and Russia, but that’s what she wants to do.) She can thus be counted as a strong proponent of those two excuses for WW3.

While the nearly seven-year-long sectarian “civil war” in Syria is widely believed to have started in 2011, revelations in recent years have shown that the sectarian war that has sunk Syria into chaos actually precedes the “official” start of the conflict.

While the nearly seven-year-long sectarian “civil war” in Syria is widely believed to have started in 2011, revelations in recent years have shown that the sectarian war that has sunk Syria into chaos actually precedes the “official” start of the conflict. In 2010, Wikileaks published hundreds of thousands of classified State Department cables, including a 2006 cable showing that destabilizing the Syrian government was a primary goal of U.S. policy in the Middle East. The ultimate intention was to topple Iran, one of Syria’s closest allies. The cable revealed that the U.S.’ goal at the time was to undermine the Syrian government by any means available. In addition, retired United States Army General Wesley Clark’s bombshell interview with Democracy Now exposed the existence of plans for regime change in Syria that date as far back as 2001. Now, a newly declassified document from the Central Intelligence Agency has shown that these regime change efforts date back even further to the late 1980s – and potentially even earlier.

The declassified document was written in July, 1986 by the Foreign Subversion and Instability Center, a part of the CIA’s Mission Center for Global Issues, and is titled “Syria: Scenarios of Dramatic Political Change.” As the document itself states, its purpose is to analyze – in a “purposely provocative” manner – “a number of possible scenarios that could lead to the ouster of President Assad [Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez] or other dramatic change in Syria.” The report’s meager distribution list suggest it was considered by top officials in the Reagan administration, specifically because it was distributed to national security chiefs, not entire agencies. It was also distributed to a handful of key players in U.S.-Syria relations, such as former Ambassador to Syria William Eagleton. Though the document itself officially predates the current Syrian conflict by nearly 25 years, much of its analysis brings to mind recent events in Syria, particularly those that led to the outbreak of war in 2011. Chief among these is the rise of factionalism between Sunni Muslim elements against the ruling Alawi minority (a Shi’ite sect), as well as the potential to counter Russian influence in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. These similarities suggest that U.S. regime change efforts in Syria date back to well over 30 years ago – proof of the persistent imperialist elements that consistently guide U.S. foreign policy.

On Wednesday, the US airlifted hundreds of mainly-Kurdish fighters to an area behind ISIS lines where they were dropped near the town of al-Tabqa. The troops– who are part of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF– were accompanied by an undisclosed number of US Marines serving as advisors. Ostensibly, the deployment was intended to encircle ISIS positions and retake the area around the strategic Tabqa Dam. But the operation had the added effect of blocking the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) from advancing  along the main road towards Raqqa, the so called Capital of ISIS.  While the blocking move might have been coincidental, there’s a strong possibility that Washington is in the opening phase of a broader strategy to splinter the war-torn country and prevent the reemergence of a united secular Syria. According to Almasdar News: “The Coalition supported the offensive with air movement and logistical support, precision airstrikes, Apache helicopters in close air support, Marine artillery, and special operations advice and assistance to SDF leadership,” the US-led coalition said in a statement.” (AMN News) In a matter of weeks, Washington’s approach to the war in Syria has changed dramatically. While the US has reportedly ended its support for the Sunni militias that have torn the country apart and killed over 400,000 people, the US has increased its aid to the SDF that is making impressive territorial gains across the eastern corridor. The ultimate goal for the SDF fighters is an autonomous Kurdish homeland carved out of West Iraq and East Syria, while US objectives focus primarily on the breakup of the Syrian state, the removal of the elected government, the control over critical pipelines routes, and the redrawing of national borders to better serve the interests of the US and Israel.

The most recent adaptation of Yinon’s plan was articulated by Brookings Institute analyst Michael O’ Hanlon in a piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal titled “A Trump Strategy to End Syria’s Nightmare”.  In the article, O’ Hanlon states bluntly: “To achieve peace, Syria will need self-governance within a number of autonomous zones. One option is a confederal system by which the whole country is divided into such zones. A less desirable but minimally acceptable alternative could be several autonomous zones within an otherwise still-centralized state—similar to how Iraqi Kurdistan has functioned for a quarter-century…. Security in the Sunni Arab and Kurdish autonomous zones would be provided by local police and perhaps paramilitary forces raised, trained and equipped with the direct support of the international community. …(“A Trump Strategy to End Syria’s Nightmare”, Wall Street Journal) In an earlier piece, O’ Hanlon referred to his scheme as “Deconstructing Syria” a plan that “would produce autonomous zones that would never again have to face the prospect of rule by either Assad or ISIL.” Many of the details in O’ Hanlon’s piece are identical to those in Trump’s plan which was announced by Secretary of State Tillerson just last week. The Brookings strategy appears to be the script from which the administration is operating.

In his presentation, Tillerson announced that US troops would not leave Iraq after the siege of Mosul was concluded which has led many to speculate that the same policy will be used in Syria. Here’s an excerpt from an article at the WSWS that explains this point: “US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared Washington’s intention to keep troops deployed more or less indefinitely in the territories now occupied by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in remarks delivered at the beginning of a two-day meeting of the US-organized anti-ISIS coalition in Washington. “The military power of the coalition will remain where this fraudulent caliphate has existed in order to set the conditions for a full recovery from the tyranny of ISIS,” he told an audience that included Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. He gave no indication of when, if ever, US troops could be withdrawn from a war zone extending across Iraq and Syria, where there has been fighting of greater or lesser intensity throughout the 14 years since the US first invaded Iraq.” (Tillerson pledges long-term US military role in Iraq and Syria, World Socialist web Site) US Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis reinforced Tillerson’s comments adding that the US plans a indefinite occupation of Iraq (and, possibly, Syria) stating that it was in America’s “national interest.”

Russia has sent advanced antiship cruise missiles to Syria, a move that illustrates the depth of its support for the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, American officials said Thursday.

Russia has previously provided a version of the missiles, called Yakhonts, to Syria. But those delivered recently are outfitted with an advanced radar that makes them more effective, according to American officials who are familiar with classified intelligence reports and would only discuss the shipment on the basis of anonymity. Unlike Scud and other longer-range surface-to-surface missiles that the Assad government has used against opposition forces, the Yakhont antiship missile system provides the Syrian military a formidable weapon to counter any effort by international forces to reinforce Syrian opposition fighters by imposing a naval embargo, establishing a no-fly zone or carrying out limited airstrikes. “It enables the regime to deter foreign forces looking to supply the opposition from the sea, or from undertaking a more active role if a no-fly zone or shipping embargo were to be declared at some point,” said Nick Brown, editor in chief of IHS Jane’s International Defense Review. “It’s a real ship killer.”

Everyone has noticed the contradiction of those who recently characterized the Islamic Emirate as "freedom fighters" in Syria and who are indignant today faced with its abuses in Iraq. But if that speech is incoherent in itself, it makes perfect sense in the strategic plan: the same individuals were to be presented as allies yesterday and must be as enemies today, even if they are still on orders from Washington. Thierry Meyssan reveals below US policy through the particular case of Senator John McCain, conductor of the "Arab Spring" and longtime partner of Caliph Ibrahim.

ohn McCain is known as the leader of the Republicans and unhappy 2008 US presidential candidate. This is, we will see, only the real part of his biography, which serves as a cover to conduct covert actions on behalf of his government. When I was in Libya during the "Western"attack, I was able to view a report of the foreign intelligence services. It stated that, on February 4, 2011 in Cairo, NATO organized a meeting to launch the "Arab Spring" in Libya and Syria. According to this document, the meeting was chaired by John McCain. The report detailed the list of Libyan participants, whose delegation was led by the No. 2 man of the government of the day, Mahmoud Jibril, who abruptly switched sides at the entrance of the meeting to become the opposition leader in exile. I remember that, among the French delegates present, the report quoted Bernard-Henry Lévy, although officially he had never exercised functions within the French government. Many other personalities attended the symposium, including a large delegation of Syrians living abroad.

Emerging from the meeting, the mysterious Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook account called for demonstrations outside the People’s Council (National Assembly) in Damascus on February 11. Although this Facebook account at the time claimed to have more than 40,000 followers, only a dozen people responded to its call before the flashes of photographers and hundreds of police. The demonstration dispersed peacefully and clashes only began more than a month later in Deraa. [1] On February 16, 2011, a demonstration underway in Benghazi, in memory of members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya [2] massacred in 1996 in the Abu Selim prison, degenerated into shooting. The next day, a second event, this time in memory of those who died by attacking the Danish consulate during the Muhammad cartoons affair, also degenerated into shooting. At the same time, members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya ,coming from Egypt and coordinated by unidentified, hooded individuals, simultaneously attacked four military bases in four different cities. After three days of fighting and atrocities, the rebels launched the uprising of Cyrenaica against Tripolitania [3]; a terrorist attack that the western press falsely presented as a "democratic revolution" against "the regime" of Muammar el-Qaddafi.

As President Obama laid out his “strategy” last night for dealing with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and as bipartisan leadership in Congress pushes to approve as much as $4 billion to arm Syrian “rebels,” it should be noted that the keystone to his anti-Assad policy — the “vetted moderate” Free Syrian Army (FSA) — is now admitting that they, too, are working with the Islamic State. This confirms PJ Media’s reporting last week about the FSA’s alliances with Syrian terrorist groups. On Monday, the Daily Star in Lebanon quoted a FSA brigade commander saying that his forces were working with the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate — both U.S.-designated terrorist organizations — near the Syrian/Lebanon border. “We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in … Qalamoun,” said Bassel Idriss, the commander of an FSA-aligned rebel brigade. “We have reached a point where we have to collaborate with anyone against unfairness and injustice,” confirmed Abu Khaled, another FSA commander who lives in Arsal. “Let’s face it: The Nusra Front is the biggest power present right now in Qalamoun and we as FSA would collaborate on any mission they launch as long as it coincides with our values,” he added.

In my report last week I noted that buried in a New York Times article last month was a Syrian “rebel” commander quoted as saying that his forces were working with ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra in raids along the border with Lebanon, including attacks on Lebanese forces. The Times article quickly tried to dismiss the commander’s statements, but the Daily Star article now confirms this alliance. Among the other pertinent points from that PJ Media article last week was that this time last year the bipartisan conventional wisdom amongst the foreign policy establishment was that the bulk of the Syrian rebel forces were moderates, a fiction refuted by a Rand Corporation study published last September that found nearly half of the Syrian “rebels” were jihadists or hard-core Islamists.

Another relevant phenomenon I noted was that multiple arms shipments from the U.S. to the “vetted moderate” FSA were suspiciously raided and confiscated by ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, prompting the Obama administration and the UK to suspend weapons shipments to the FSA last December. In April, the Obama administration again turned on the CIA weapons spigot to the FSA, and Obama began calling for an additional $500 million for the “vetted moderate rebels,” but by July the weapons provided to the FSA were yet again being raided and captured by ISIS and other terrorist groups. Remarkably, one Syrian dissident leader reportedly told Al-Quds al-Arabi that the FSA had lost $500 million worth of arms to rival “rebel” groups, much of which ended up being sold to unknown parties in Turkey and Iraq.

Pro-government forces in Syria have reportedly broken a rebel siege of two villages northwest of Aleppo, effectively cutting off Turkey's supply line to opposition groups operating in and around Syria's largest city. Government troops, accompanied by Iran-backed Shiite militias and Hezbollah forces, apparently reached the cities of Nubl and Zahraa with the help of heavy Russian airstrikes on Wednesday. The opposition had held these cities since 2012, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Russian airstrikes across northern Syria had been steadily shifting the epicenter of the war toward the corridor north of Aleppo since late November, in retaliation for Turkey's decision to shoot down a Russian warplane that it said violated its airspace.

A stepped-up Russian bombing campaign in the Bayirbucak region of northwest Syria, near the strategically important city of Azaz, had primarily targeted the Turkey-backed Turkmen rebels and civilians — and the Turkish aid convoys that supplied them. As a result, Turkey's policy in Syria of bolstering rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime — and establishing a "safe zone" for displaced Syrians that might hinder the regime's efforts to take Aleppo — has been unraveling for months, and now appears to have been defeated entirely.

"It cuts Turkey off from Aleppo via Azaz," Aaron Stein, an expert on Turkey and Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Business Insider on Wednesday. "Ankara can still access Aleppo via Reyhanli, through Idlib," Stein said in an email. But "Turkey is on the back foot in Syria and is at a disadvantage now that Russia is deterring them from flying strike missions," he added. Indeed, Turkey's ability to retaliate against the Russian bombing campaign in northern Syria was severely limited by the de facto no-fly zone Russia created in the north following Turkey's downing of the Russian warplane in November. "This has to be Turkey's weakest position in Syria in years," David Kenner, Foreign Policy magazine's Middle East editor, noted on Twitter. "Shooting down of that Russian jet was a pivot point — backfired in a major way."

Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu pledged to return a “historical debt” to Turkey’s “Aleppo brothers” who helped defend the country in the early 20th century, just days after Russia warned of Ankara’s intentions to invade Syria as the rebels there falter. “We will return our historic debt. At one time, our brothers from Aleppo defended our cities of Sanliurfa, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, now we will defend the heroic Aleppo. All of Turkey stands behind its defenders,” Davutoglu said at the meeting of the Party of Justice and Development parliamentary faction, which he heads.

Davutoglu was apparently referring to World War One and subsequent events in the Turkish War of Independence, seemingly glorifying the defense and retaking of Turkish cities from the Allied forces. Yet, he failed to mention that the Turks had been drawn into the war by Ottoman imperial ambitions. Turkey had entered the conflict by shelling the Russian port of Odessa from the sea. It then suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Russian troops in the war’s southern theater, before the Ottoman Empire was occupied and divided by the Allies. At the time, the three cities Davutoglu named saw thousands of Armenians and other minorities slaughtered by Turkish nationalists as part of the Armenian Genocide, which Ankara denies to this day.Alarmingly, the statement comes less than a week after Russia’s Defense Ministry warned that Turkey was preparing a military invasion of Syria and is trying to conceal illegal activity on its Syrian border.

“We have significant evidence to suspect Turkey is in the midst of intense preparations for a military invasion into Syria’s sovereign territory,” Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov told reporters in Moscow. Konashenkov also stated that Turkey had canceled an agreed upon Russian observation flight that had been scheduled over its territory because of its illicit activities. “So if someone in Ankara thinks that the cancelation of the flight by the Russian observers will enable hiding something, then they’re unprofessional.”Moreover, Konashenkov pointed out that Turkey has already been supplying terrorists in the Syrian cities of Idlib and Aleppo with manpower and weaponry.The spokesman showed the media a photo of the Reyhanli checkpoint, saying that “through this very border crossing – mainly at nighttime – the militants, who seized the city of Aleppo and Idlib in northwestern Syria, are being supplied with arms and fighters from Turkish territory.”

Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – Qods Force, has been seen addressing Iranian military officers and members of Lebanese Hezbollah in western Syria. In the past, the leader of Iran’s expeditionary special operations forces has been spotted on key battlefields in Iraq and Syria prior to the launch of major operations against jihadist groups such as the Islamic State. Recent images of Soleimani (above) appeared on social media sites such as Twitter. His presence in the western province of Latakia in Syria was confirmed by Reuters. According to the news service, Soleimani was “addressing Iranian officers and Hezbollah fighters with a microphone, wearing dark clothes as he spoke to the men in camouflage.” In the photographs, Soleimani is flanked by by a handful of men wearing military fatigues. The faces of the individuals standing next to him are digitally altered to prevent their identity from being disclosed. A crowd of armed fighters who appear to be wearing US Marine Corps desert camouflage uniforms listens to his speech.

Latakia is a western coastal province that has long been a stronghold for the Assad family. Jihadists from the Jaysh al Fateh alliance, which is led by Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, and its close ally, Ahrar al Sham, have launched attacks in the province in an effort to break Assad’s power base. Just two days ago, Abu Muhammad al Julani, Al Nusrah’s emir, threatened to indiscriminately shell villages in the province to avenge regime attacks, including airstrikes and barrel bombs dropped from helicopters, on Sunni villages, towns, and cities controlled by jihadist groups and allied rebel forces. Iran is reported to have deployed significant forces, estimated at thousands of troops, to support the Assad regime’s offensive to retake areas controlled by Jaysh al Fateh in Hama and Aleppo. But Omran al Zoubi, Syria’s Information Minister, has denied a large Iranian presence in Syria. “Only some Iranian military advisers, whose mission is to provide consultations and nothing more, are present in Syria,” Zoubi said, according to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency. Soleimani is instrumental in organizing Syrian and Iraqi militias, as well as Hezbollah, to battle Sunni jihadists and allied rebels in Syria. He has played a similar role in Iraq, where he has organized, trained, and equipped Shiite militias along the lines of Lebanese Hezbollah to fight the Islamic State. The leaders of some of these militias are listed by the US as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, and remain hostile to the US. Soleimani is occasionally photographed with these militia leaders.

Hezbollah has also committed a large force to back the government’s offensive in Hama and Idlib in western Syria. Thousands of the group’s fighters are said to be involved in the operation. In the past week, a senior Hezbollah leader known as Hassan al Haj was killed during the offensive. A senior Lebanese government official told Reuters that Haj was “the most important [Hezbollah] figure killed in battles in Syria since the start of the war.” Russia has also committed an expeditionary military force to back the Assad regime’s offensive. After building up its forces in Syria, the Russian military launched airstrikes on Sept. 30 and have primarily targeted Jaysh al Fateh and allied rebel groups in the northwest. Russia entered the fight under the guise of attacking the Islamic State, but few of its airstrikes have hit the jihadist group. In addition to warplanes and attack helicopters, the Russian military has deployed “marines, paratroopers, and special forces” to Syria, and even executed a sea-launched cruise missile strike from the Caspian Sea. Russia very likely coordinated its entry into the Syrian civil war with Iran and Soleimani. In July, Soleimani is reported to have visited Russia and met with met President Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, despite a United Nations travel ban.

The fact that the Obama administration is preparing to overhaul its approach and vet, train and equip the so-called moderate Syrian rebels attests to its lack of confidence in the only opposition fighters it has backed so far: the loosely organized Free Syrian Army, more a shifting franchise operation than a unified fighting force with a coherent central command.Analysts doubt that the White House's initial pledge of about $500 million will be sufficient to train and equip a new army to defeat the Islamists, who are flush with captured weapons and cash from oil smuggling and other illicit enterprises. Moreover, the Syrian rebels say their principal aim is to overthrow not the Islamists but the Syrian government, whose formidable military is backed by Iran and Russia.

In effect, this newly revamped, U.S.-backed rebel force, whenever it is ready to deploy — the buildup could take years — will be fighting a war against two powerful adversaries, Islamic State and the Syrian military. That equation hasn't generated much optimism."We spent hundreds of billions of dollars and years of effort trying to build up forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and look at what we got for it," said Joshua Landis, a Middle East expert at the University of Oklahoma. "We don't have a partner in Syria. That's the reality of the situation."

It's not yet clear whether Washington's purported allies in Syria are completely on board with the U.S. offensive against Islamic State. One of the administration's favored moderate rebel factions, Harakat Hazm, part of the Free Syrian Army alliance and a recipient of U.S. missiles and training, issued a statement Tuesday denouncing the "external intervention" — that is, the U.S.-led bombing campaign in Syria — as "an attack on the revolution."The group said its main goal was toppling Assad. It is demanding "unconditional arming" of the Free Syrian Army, yet its members also acknowledge fighting alongside Al Nusra Front, the official Al Qaeda force in Syria.Still, the country's motley bands of fighters labeled as moderates may well be the White House's best hope for now. It has few other options.Some analysts have urged the administration to forge a limited, conditional alliance against Islamic State with the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a kind of lesser-of-two-evils approach. Syrian warplanes have been pummeling Islamic State positions for weeks, and Assad has long presented himself as a bulwark against regional "terrorism."

It's official! The New York Times finally admits that the "CIA rebels" in Syria who received tons of TOW anti-tank missiles are working under the field command of al-Qaeda/Jabhat al Nusra: Rebel commanders scoffed when asked about reports of the delivery of 500 TOWs from Saudi Arabia, saying it was an insignificant number compared with what is available. Saudi Arabia in 2013 ordered more than 13,000 of them. Given that American weapons contracts require disclosure of the “end user,” insurgents said they were being delivered with Washington’s approval. But, be assured, because these "CIA rebels" feel bad about it, they are still "moderate" or somewhat "relative moderate". Advancing alongside the Islamist groups, and sometimes aiding them, have been several of the relatively secular groups, like the Free Syrian Army, which have gained new prominence and status because of their access to the TOWs. ... It is a tactical alliance that Free Syrian Army commanders describe as an uncomfortable marriage of necessity, because they cannot operate without the consent of the larger and stronger Nusra Front. But Mr. Assad and his allies cite the arrangement as proof that there is little difference between insurgent groups, calling them all terrorists that are legitimate targets.

That these "relative secular" al-Qaeda auxiliaries are threatening suicide attacks against Russians only confirms their secularism. Judging from the reader comments to that NYT piece the U.S. people are pretty aghast about this now openly admitted cooperation. They, and a realist op-ed in the NYT, call for cooperation with Russia and the Syrian government. There may already be more cooperation between Russia and the U.S. than we can see. At least that is what the Turkish President Erdogan perceives. Yesterday the U.S. dropped 50 tons of small weapons and munition to Kurdish fighters in north east Syria. According the U.S. justification for this those Kurds along with some Arab Syrian tribals are supposed to attack the Islamic State in Raqqa. (Those Arab tribals are by the way just a bunch of worthless thieves. This according to the Voice of America(!).) But the Kurds do not seem to know about those Raqqa plans anyway. They have different aims:

U.S. officials hope the YPG will now turn its attention to Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the defacto capital of the Islamic State, which lies just 60 miles south of Tal Abyad, a border town the YPG seized from the Islamic State in June, with U.S. help. But PYD spokesman Can said the Kurdish group’s first priority is to link the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, northwest of the Syrian city of Aleppo, with Kobani, the Kurdish enclave northeast of Aleppo. That would mean clearing the Islamic State from villages along 60 miles of the Turkey-Syria border, in particular the border town of Jarablus. “Our prime and most important goal is to liberate Jarablus and to connect Kobani with Afrin,” Can told McClatchy. Capturing Raqqa, a mostly Arab city, is “not really” a PYD objective, he said. “Not for now,” he said. That is just as I suspected the Kurds to react. But why did the U.S. officials claim that these Kurds and the collection of thieves would attack Raqqa? Did they not coordinate with them or was that Raqqa story a ruse? The Turks seem to assume such and they accuse the U.S. as well as Russia of coordinating with the Kurds to seal the border with Turkey: Turkey warns U.S., Russia against backing Kurdish militia in Syria

Two Russian navy ships are completing preparations to sail to Syria with a unit of marines on a mission to protect Russian citizens and the nation's base there, a news report said Monday. The deployment appears to reflect Moscow's growing concern about Syrian President Bashar Assad's future.

The Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified Russian navy official as saying that the two amphibious landing vessels, Nikolai Filchenkov and Caesar Kunikov, will be heading shortly to the Syrian port of Tartus, but didn't give a precise date.

Each ship is capable of carrying up to 300 marines and a dozen tanks, according to Russian media reports. That would make it the largest known Russian troop deployment to Syria, signaling that Moscow is becoming increasingly uneasy about Syria's slide toward civil war. Interfax also quoted a deputy Russian air force chief as saying that Russia will give the necessary protection to its citizens in Syria. "We must protect our citizens," Maj.-Gen. Vladimir Gradusov was quoted as saying. "We won't abandon the Russians and will evacuate them from the conflict zone, if necessary." Asked whether the air force would provide air support for the navy squadron, Gradusov said they will act on orders.

Iraq and Syria The Pentagon has begun rolling out the expanded campaign against the Islamic State, although operations will increase gradually over a number of months [Wall Street Journal’s Julian E. Barnes]. Retired Marine general, John R. Allen, has been chosen to coordinate the international coalition against ISIS, according to a senior administration official [New York Times’ Michael R. Gordon]. In an interview with NPR (Eyder Peralta), Obama’s national security advisor Susan Rice emphasized that the operation against ISIS would not be “Iraq war redux” and that the U.S. is not going to deploy ground troops with a combat role.

Democratic senators are reportedly unnerved by President Obama’s attempt to gain swift authority from Congress to arm and train Syrian rebels [Politico’s Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim]. House Republicans are said to be split on their views, with some, including Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers speaking out in favor, whereas others showed more caution [The Hill’s Scott Wong et al]. The New York Times (Jonathan Weisman) reports that House Republican leaders will call members back to the Capitol early next week, in “a rare show of unity” with President Obama, to authorize the arming and training of rebels in Syria. Arab states remained reserved about the extent of their commitment to military efforts to combat the Islamic State yesterday, even as Secretary of State John Kerry succeeded in obtaining their support at a meeting in Saudi Arabia [Wall Street Journal’s Maria Abi-Habib and Jay Solomon].   Al Jazeera reports that French President Francois Hollande is travelling to Iraq in an act of visible support ahead of possible airstrikes with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State.

The Syrian deputy foreign minister has said that Syria has “no reservations” about airstrikes in the territory, but said that “it is a must” for Obama to call Syrian President Assad [NBC News]. Anne Bernard [New York Times] writes that the prospect of U.S. strikes in Syria “captivated” the people on Thursday, with debate over whether the strikes would help or hinder President Assad. The New York Times (Ben Hubbard et al.) explores the complexities faced by the U.S. in using decentralized and diverse Syrian rebels to counter the Islamic State in Syria. Tom Perry and Alexander Dziadosz [Reuters] explore the impact that U.S. support for the Syrian opposition against the Islamic State will have on the Assad regime.

The United States is set to deploy troops on the ground in Syria for the first time to advise and assist rebel forces combating ISIS, the White House said Friday. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the U.S. would be deploying "less than 50" Special Operations forces, who will be sent to Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria. The American troops will help local Kurdish and Arab forces fighting ISIS with logistics and are planning to bolster their efforts.

The Special Ops troops will first be deployed to northern Syria to help coordinate local ground forces and U.S.-led coalition efforts to fight ISIS, the senior administration official said. The local forces in that area have been the most effective U.S. partners in confronting ISIS.

He was also careful to insist: "These forces do not have a combat mission."

While the nearly seven-year-long sectarian “civil war” in Syria is widely believed to have started in 2011, revelations in recent years have shown that the sectarian war that has sunk Syria into chaos actually precedes the “official” start of the conflict. In 2010, Wikileaks published hundreds of thousands of classified State Department cables, including a 2006 cable showing that destabilizing the Syrian government was a primary goal of U.S. policy in the Middle East. The ultimate intention was to topple Iran, one of Syria’s closest allies. The cable revealed that the U.S.’ goal at the time was to undermine the Syrian government by any means available.

In addition, retired United States Army General Wesley Clark’s bombshell interview with Democracy Now exposed the existence of plans for regime change in Syria that date as far back as 2001. Now, a newly declassified document from the Central Intelligence Agency has shown that these regime change efforts date back even further to the late 1980s – and potentially even earlier

The declassified document was written in July, 1986 by the Foreign Subversion and Instability Center, a part of the CIA’s Mission Center for Global Issues, and is titled “Syria: Scenarios of Dramatic Political Change.” As the document itself states, its purpose is to analyze – in a “purposely provocative” manner – “a number of possible scenarios that could lead to the ouster of President Assad [Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez] or other dramatic change in Syria.” The report’s meager distribution list suggest it was considered by top officials in the Reagan administration, specifically because it was distributed to national security chiefs, not entire agencies. It was also distributed to a handful of key players in U.S.-Syria relations, such as former Ambassador to Syria William Eagleton.

Iran won Iraqi support for its efforts to oppose a U.S.-led military strike on Syria during a visit to Baghdad on Sunday by the new Iranian foreign minister, highlighting how close the two countries have grown since U.S. forces withdrew in 2011. Speaking during his first visit abroad since he was appointed last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarif warned that U.S. intervention in Syria risks igniting a regionwide war.

“Those who are short-sighted and are beating the drums of war are starting a fire that will burn everyone,” Zarif said during a news conference.Standing alongside him, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said all of Syria’s neighbors, including Iraq, would be harmed by American involvement in Syria’s two-year-old conflict. “What I can say conclusively is that Iraq will not be a base for any attack, nor will it facilitate any such attack on Syria,” Zebari told reporters after holding talks with Zarif.

In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons.[*]​＊ Then with less than two days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. The strike was postponed as Congress prepared for hearings, and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad’s offer to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And we are joined now by the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. Thanks for coming back to This Week. And you know, the president said he's prepared to strike Syria. Those strikes could be imminent. Will the United States try to get UN Security Council authorization first? Or do you accept now that's just not going to be possible? SAMANTHA POWER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: Well, let me say that Secretary Kerry just convened a meeting of the Security Council on Friday which showcased just how much support there is on the Security Council and in the broader international community for the anti-ISIL effort. STEPHANOPOULOS: But the Russia veto.

POWER: Russia has vetoed in the past, but on very different issues. I think Russia has made clear for a long time its opposition to ISIL. The Iraqis have appealed to the international community to come to their defense not only in Iraq, but also to go after safe havens in foreign countries. And what they mean by that of course is Syria. And they're quite explicit about that. So they have made an appeal to the international community for collective defense. And we think we have a legal basis we need if the president decides... STEPHANOPOULOS: Without a UN authorization. POWER: Consistent with the UN charter, we -- it will depend on the facts and circumstances of any particular strike in Syria, but we have a legal basis we need.

David Cameron will urge MPs to support air strikes against Isis in Iraq but is unlikely to ask them to approve military action in Syria against the militant extremist group. The Independent understands that the Liberal Democrats and Labour are reluctant to endorse air strikes in Syria, forcing the Prime Minister to think again. Last week, he argued that action in Syria would not need the support of the Assad regime, saying: “President Assad has committed war crimes on his own people and is therefore illegitimate.”However, MPs believe there are serious legal doubts about action in Syria.There was confusion at the top of the Government today as Downing Street slapped down Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, after he said Britain would not bomb Isis targets in Syria.

It followed Barack Obama’s announcement that the United States would extend its air strikes against Isis in Iraq to Syria. In a White House address, the US President vowed to "degrade and ultimately destroy" Isis and said almost 500 more US troops will be dispatched to Iraq to assist its security forces.Mr Cameron wants to secure the approval of the Commons before launching air strikes. Soundings by whips suggest there could be a majority in the three main parties for action in Iraq, where the new Government is expected to request such intervention, but not in Syria. One Minister admitted: “For the Lib Dems and Labour, Syria is very different to Iraq.”

Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are likely to back UK air strikes in Iraq if the US puts together a “coalition of the willing” that includes countries in the region. But they would baulk at a US-UK only operation.Mr Cameron is anxious to avoid a repeat of his humiliating defeat a year ago, when the Commons voted by 285 to 272 to oppose air strikes against the Assad regime after it used chemical weapons against its own people.Mr Hammond appeared to reflect the private soundings among MPs when he said in Germany: “Let me be clear, Britain will not be taking part in air strikes in Syria. I can be very clear about that. We have already had that discussion in our Parliament last year and we won't be revisiting that position."