Confirming over 364,000 deaths since March 15, 2011 in the seven-year-old Syrian civil war, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights expressed concern about the next massacre in Idlib province. Showing great concern for the growing loss of life in Syria, the Observatory renders no judgments as to the cause. When you consider the Saudi funded proxy war has gone on for seven years, it makes you wonder who’s at fault for all the carnage and displaced persons, totally over 12 million. Most of the Western press blames Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for fighting back against the Saudi, U.S. and Turkey-funded proxy war, despite the fact that al-Assad has a right to defend his sovereign territory. When Tunisia, Egypt and Libya fell early on in the 2011 Arab Spring, al-Assad said he wouldn’t go down without a fight, something he’s done for the last seven years.
Seeing al-Assad in trouble, 65-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin joined the fight Sept. 30, 2015, shortly after addressing the U.N. General Assembly Sept. 25, 2015 in New York. Putin told delegates that he would do whatever it took to prevent another Iraq in Syria, meaning a terrorist takeover of an otherwise orderly nation. Whether you liked Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein or not, he kept terrorism out of Iraq, until former President George W. Bush led, what he called a coalition-of-the-willing, to topple Saddam April 10, 2003, opening up the terrorist floodgates. While Bush justified his march to war to “democratize Iraq,” and purge Saddam of weapons of mass destruction, Iraq received neither democracy nor WMD. It took 10 years for remnants of Saddam’s Baathist regime to morph into the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], conquering 30% of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Watching the death toll rise in the Saudi-U.S.-Turkey funded Syrian civil war, Western nations stuck to the script to oust al-Assad, despite the casualties. Saying that 110,687 civilians have been killed together with 64,000 terrorists and another 64,000 from Saudi funded rebel groups, suggests that the death toll continues to rise, including another 13,000 in the last six months. If Western powers were really concerned about the rising death toll, they’d stop funding the Saudi proxy war to oust al-Assad. Concerned about the rising Syrian War death toll, the U.N. appointed Speical Peace Envoy Staffan de Mistura four years ago to help deal with the death toll and humanitarian disaster. Syria’s 12 million displaced persons, flooded the Mideast and Europe with refugees, driving the U.K.’s June 23, 2016 Brexit vote to opt out of the European Union because of immigrations issues.
Since taking his position as U.N. Syria Special Peace Envoy, de Mistura took the Saudi side agreeing that the Syrian conflict could only be resolved by negotiation, namely, getting rid of al-Assad. It didn’t take long for Putin to counter the Western onslaught on Damascus, turning the war in al-Assad’s favor. Despite the rising death toll and humanitarian crisis, Turkey announced yesterday that it would give anti-al-Assad forces more arms-and-cash to prevent Syria, Russia and Iran from ending the seven-year-old Saudi proxy war. If Western allies were really interested in preventing more civilian casualties or displace persons, they’d work with Syria, Russia and Iran to remove rebel and terrorist groups from Syrian soil. Al-Assad has made clear he intends to remove what’s left of rebels and terrorists from safe havens in Syria, regardless of casualties and displaced persons.
Most military experts see Syria as reasserting control over rebels and terrorists inside their borders. Saudi’s 34-year-old Defense Minister Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and 56-year-old U.S.-educated Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir have gone on record saying they’d never give up the fight until al-Assad leaves Damascus. Western allies looking to topple al-Assad have failed over the last seven years. Under former President Barack Obama and the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the U.S. gave arms-and-cash to Syrian rebels for six years, only to watch their fortunes change when Putin joined the war in 2015. When it comes to defending a sovereign nation, there’s little a head-of-state wouldn’t do to rid the country of rebels and terrorists. Expecting al-Assad to roll over at the Saudi’s demand is unrealistic. Every sovereign nation has right to defend its territorial integrity.
If the U.N. or other world bodies are concerned about an impending massacre in Syria, they should refocus on ways to get rebels and terrorists out. Unlike Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, al-Assad chose to fight a determined Saudi-U.S.-Turkey-funded insurgency to preserve his sovereignty. Watching 64-year-old Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defy Russia and Iran to re-supply Syrian rebels to fight al-Assad proves that he’s not concerned about the death toll and humanitarian crisis. When Erdogan tried to broker a ceasefire last week in Tehran, Putin and Rouhani said no way. With the war raging on for seven years, Putin and Rouhani want to finally end it, promising to wipe out remaining rebel and terror groups. Unwilling to admit defeat, Saudi Arabia and Turkey want to give Syrian rebels one last suicide mission to battle al-Assad, knowing they have no chance of winning.
