07/08/16 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show

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Alright y'all, Scott Horton Show.
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Alright, introducing our good friend Gareth Porter.
He's more than 200 of those 4,000 interviews.
Geez, maybe 300 by now, I don't know.
And for very good reason.
He's my most very favorite reporter out of everybody.
And I've got a lot of favorite reporters.
But Gareth Porter, he's the author of the book on the Iranian nuclear program.
It's called Manufactured Crisis, the truth about the Iranian nuclear scare.
And then, boy, he's written a ton of great articles all about the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now focusing on Syria.
This one is a new fight over Syria war strategy.
It's at ConsortiumNews.com and also at AntiWar.com, a very important piece.
Welcome back to the show here, Gareth.
Thanks so much, Scott.
Glad to be back on the show.
Very happy to have you here.
Very complicated war there in Syria.
I guess, you know, the listeners of this show more or less understand the breakdown.
That it's the Assad government and his army, the state army of Syria, allied with Hezbollah, allied with Iran, and allied with Russia.
And they're fighting against a basically al-Qaeda and ISIS-led Sunni-based insurgency, which is backed by the United States, Turkey, Saudi, Qatar, and Israel.
To some degrees, over time, this fluctuates.
I'll let you clarify.
And then, of course, also America and Russia are backing the Kurds and are attacking the Islamic State and have been bombing the Islamic State for the last two years since they declared their caliphate based out of Raqqa in eastern Syria and Mosul in western Iraq.
So, now we're trying to figure out how to end this war short of one side, you know, declaring a complete and total victory because apparently that's not in the cards.
We need some kind of negotiated peace here.
Or we need some kind of change in strategy by, I don't know, America, Russia, or some of the major powers to change the game on the ground, to get this thing over with one way or the other before it turns into a 15-year Lebanon-length civil war here, Gareth.
So, tell us, please, what is going on?
Well, I think you're absolutely right in your overall summary, except for, you know, sort of the distinction between ISIS and al-Qaeda or al-Nusra Front, of course, is not simply that they're two variants of the al-Qaeda-based theme, but rather that they are on different sides of the war in the sense that ISIS and al-Nusra Front are rivals for the ultimate prize of gaining power in Syria rather than, you know, allies in the struggle against Assad.
In other words, they're really three sides to the war, or maybe four sides if you include the Kurds, and that does indeed make it a very complicated conflict and makes it more difficult to figure out what the endgame is going to look like.
I would say, however, that if there's one possibly hopeful sign on the horizon, it is that the Turkish government of President Erdogan is now rethinking its policy towards Syria.
It's not ready to give up its support for al-Nusra Front, clearly, at this point.
On the other hand, there is this distinct possibility, although perhaps a small possibility, that Turkey could approach the Russians, and I think they probably already have approached the Russians, about the possibility of a deal under which Assad would remain in power, but would have to take away, that is to say, the Russians putting pressure on Assad and using their own military power, would have to force the Kurds to give up their demand for autonomy in the area along the Turkish-Syrian border, the northern border of Syria, next to Turkey.
And that's a long shot, but that is one possibility that is beginning to be discussed as a solution that could provide the basis for Turkey to say, okay, we'll shut down the lifeline to the al-Nusra Front and its allies.
So I just wanted to throw that in there.
Well, and they've already cut off ISIS, right?
There was a time where the Turks were happy to let ISIS raise money there, were happy to leave their border wide open to them, were happy to buy black market oil from them.
I think that's right.
I mean, at this point, the Turks have cut off ISIS, and therefore ISIS has turned on them and, of course, started to carry out terrorist bombings of a terrible nature against Turkey.
Man, so I'm trying to keep my scorecard straight here.
So now, in this article, now you're talking about a proposal that the Russians offered to the Americans, somewhat along these same lines as what you're talking about, maybe this deal between the Russians and the Turks.
Well, what the Russians were proposing to the United States was that, you know, let's the two of us get together and, you know, carry out an air campaign against al-Nusra Front that would really weaken it significantly.
And the premise of it would be that the non-jihadist parts of the factions, if you will, of the armed opposition to Assad would retreat from or would separate themselves physically and organizationally from al-Nusra Front, would cease the close military cooperation, including direct participation in the military planning with al-Nusra Front that they have been carrying out in the past.
And that would then allow both the United States and the Russian Air Forces to cooperate in carrying out a more effective campaign against al-Nusra Front.
Now, the U.S. has, as I understand it, never said simply no to that, but they've always wanted to have some further conditions imposed on the arrangement.
And that's what we now see covered in my story about the Obama administration's response diplomatically to the Russian plan.
And that was provided or given to the Russians on June 27th.
And in that proposal, according to both the Washington Post article as well as other news media coverage of it, the Obama administration wants the Russians to essentially, as one source put it, not my source, but a published source put it, they want to ground the air force of the Assad regime.
And that's obviously putting it in the strongest terms.
It would mean that the Assad regime would not be carrying out further bombing.
Now, I don't think that's going to be acceptable to, clearly that's not going to be acceptable to the Russians.
But more explicitly, what my understanding is that the Obama administration was demanding that the Russians agree that there would be no bombing, further bombing of the areas controlled by the U.S. clients, is the way I'm going to put it, the armed clients of the CIA in Syria after this agreement would go into effect.
So that leaves a lot of questions unanswered, obviously.
And this was really where my article sets out to try to discern what it is that's really going on here.
So, you know, my article basically says that the folks who are, who have the hard line in the Obama administration on Syria, who want the Obama administration to either use military force against Assad or carry out a much more aggressive program of assistance to, military assistance to the armed opposition, or both, are very much opposed to this.
And that includes the Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, who has made it known that he doesn't like this proposal.
But clearly factions within the CIA, and I think it's clearly those folks who are responsible for the covert operation in Syria, the so-called covert operation of aiding the armed opposition in Syria, they're opposed to this because it carries them further away from where they want to be, which is a much more aggressive program.
So, you know, we know that there are factions within the Obama administration who are opposing this.
But I further raise the question of whether, how serious is the Obama administration about really wanting to go ahead with this kind of program?
I have serious questions about that.
All right, now, so Gareth, the other thing is, well, I mean, okay, so the CIA backs these different groups, but to what degree can they really tell them what to do?
In other words, if America, say Obama instructed the CIA to instruct the mythical moderates to, yeah, no, now we really mean it.
Separate yourself from al-Nusra because we're about to bomb al-Nusra.
Can you even get them to do that?
Or are they just going to say, no, we're down with al-Nusra and not with you because you're going to end up stabbing us in the back anyway.
And so, you know, and this has been the problem all along, or really they haven't tried to separate them out from al-Nusra like in the deal from a few months ago?
Yeah, I think the point here is that if the United States is not willing to tell its allies, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, no more arming of the opposition groups if they're not going to cooperate with the ceasefire, then those groups are not going to pay attention to what the United States says.
And I think that's exactly what has happened in the past, that the U.S., you know, sort of parrots the line that, yes, we support a ceasefire and we expect all groups to, who have signed up for the ceasefire, meaning the groups that are our clients, to participate in this and to separate themselves from the al-Nusra front.
But in fact, you know, John Kerry knows very well that they're not going to do it as long as they can count on the external regional allies to continue their policy of providing a lifeline from across the Turkish border.
And of course, as long as they're able to, you know, get through against the Russian and Syrian bombing.
But I think that's correct that the U.S. clients are not going to comply with that because they don't see it as in their interest.
And they believe that they can continue on the present course because they have the support of Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Yeah.
So we're even, they really do have some strings to pull.
CIA actually probably could boss them around, but they would have to crack down on their allies and have their allies crack down on the mythical moderates.
And they're just not willing to do that.
That's what you're telling me.
That's exactly right.
And this has been the crux of the matter ever since this program began in 2013, or even earlier, depending on how you date it.
The United States has been part of a coalition and it has valued its alliances with the regional allies more than it does peace in Syria or any other interest.
And that, in my view, is the real problem with U.S. Middle East policy, that the U.S. does not really care about.
I mean, can I use the A.S.S. word?
It does not give a rat's ass about the Syrian people or about peace in Syria.
It values primarily being able to have access to the Incirlik air base in Turkey, access to the Bahrain naval base, which is controlled by Saudi Arabia, and access to the crucial land and air bases in Qatar.
So, I mean, this is...
So what you're saying is when Obama finally decides to stop deliberately backing terrorists, he can't because all of our satellite tails are wagging the imperial dog.
Well, I mean, I don't think that terrorism has really been the primary interest here for many years, in fact.
But, yeah, the point is that we...
Well, I mean, the al-Nusra guys target civilians with suicide attacks and that kind of thing, right?
Yeah, I mean...
The Arar al-Sham massacres people for having the wrong religion.
What am I missing?
Well, we are de facto using the terrorists in al-Nusra Front as a basis for the policy in Syria, have been since 2012 or 2013.
And therefore, you know, I would argue and have argued that terrorism is not...
The terrorism-slash-counterterrorism is not the reason the United States is doing anything in Syria.
Oh, I understand what you mean.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I misunderstood what you meant by that, but I understand.
You're saying our war on terrorism is not what's relevant.
But, yeah, that's not what I was talking about either.
I was talking about our war for terrorism for Christ's sake.
Neither counterterrorism nor the concern about civilians in Syria nor the concern about stability in the Middle East have anything to do with, you know, or are governing concerns about US policy.
It is continuing to maintain the United States as a regional hegemon, a regional superpower, and that demands access to these bases.
It demands the continuation of the military status quo in that sense.
So, I continue to believe that that is what controls the US policy in the Middle East.
And, again, Obama is merely a kind of steward of that continuous policy rather than someone who ever intended to really upset the apple cart.
Right.
Well, yeah, and, you know, I hope I didn't sound like some kind of Trumpian birther saying that Obama is a secret Muslim terrorist or whatever.
He obviously is pursuing these interests for, you know, doing the very same thing Ronald Reagan did, which is backing these guys in order to accomplish American goals.
Yeah, except that, in fact, Reagan was more progressive, quote-unquote, in the sense of recognizing reality and being upset about, in the case of Reagan's policy, what the Israelis were doing and was willing to say publicly, hey, we've got to stop that.
The Israelis have got to stop this.
You know, he was, in fact, more reality-oriented in his own way, at least during the early 1980s, than Obama has proven to be.
And that's, I think, a very telling point about the nature of US national security policy over these decades.
Yeah, I saw a clip of Ronald Reagan talking about how the Israelis ought to get out of the West Bank.
I couldn't believe it.
And that was par for the course for a Republican president back in the 80s.
Wow.
Last night I saw a screening of a new film on the occupation of the American mind.
That's where I saw the clip, exactly.
Yeah, that reminds me.
So we saw the same clip.
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Yeah, I mean, I was just a kid then.
I didn't remember that.
I didn't know anything about it.
He wasn't being so frank about it the way he was being, too.
This was serious business.
He wasn't making a soft suggestion or something.
Various memoirs record the fact that Reagan really was personally very upset about what the Israelis did.
He did not understand.
He had simply not understood what was really going on there.
And when he understood it, he was quite upset.
And that was an interesting moment, shall we say, in U.S. national security policy that took place.
So let me get back to Ash Carter for a minute here.
This guy was sold when they got rid of Chuck Hagel and they brought in Ash Carter to be the Secretary of Defense.
They basically sold him as a wonk.
He's a mathematician and he's a physicist and he's a technocrat.
Nobody knows his name, but he's going to be the placeholder until the next administration, basically.
We're not going to have any more stars.
We're promoting this guy from inside the Pentagon.
He had advocated an attack on North Korea and a couple of other things that made people wonder maybe there was a bit of an ideology here.
But from where I'm sitting, it seems like, and I know I'm oversimplifying, but I'm doing so so that you can clarify.
It seems like there's a real split between the CIA and the DOD about whether we want to back al-Qaeda in, you know, more or less back al-Qaeda through our allies and all those caveats in Syria.
And the DOD, apparently the attack on the Pentagon back 16 years ago still are exactly what their problem is, but they still seem to not be over their hatred of al-Qaeda.
Maybe it was the 4,500 of them that got killed fighting the Sunni insurgency in Iraq War II.
The CIA apparently doesn't give a damn.
But then both sides cry to Nancy Yousef at the Daily Beast about it and say, Nancy, those guys are backing our enemies and we want them to stop.
And yet Carter seems like he doesn't know what's going on there.
Okay, good question.
Good question.
Good point.
Two things.
One, first of all, Ash Carter's real interest here has nothing to do with Syria.
Again, it has to do with DOD's interests.
And what's the primary interest the DOD has in Russia?
It is continuing the new Cold War.
So what Ash Carter is concerned about is that if the Obama administration were to sign up to a real joint military effort with the Russians, that would be a big blow to the new Cold War.
And so he's simply not going to buy into that at all.
So I think that's the primary concern.
Now, the secondary question here, or a second question, let me put it that way, is this consideration of what's going on with regard to U.S. military cooperation with the Kurds.
And that has to do with not just al-Nusra Front, but even more so with cooperation with the Kurds against ISIS.
The Kurds have become the primary military force apart from Assad against ISIS.
In Syria, anyway, yeah.
In Syria, right.
And so that's where particularly, this is not so much about Bash Carter, but the military, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military who are carrying out the war against ISIS are, of course, very close to the Kurds in that regard.
And that's why I think you get this military versus CIA conflict.
Well, you know, I've seen different versions, Gareth, of just how separate JSOC's chain of command is from the rest of the military.
And I guess it changes back and forth whether they're really under the chiefs or whether they're the president's private army, you know, on their own chain of command or how exactly that works.
I think it depends on where, you know, the location of where they're involved.
In the case of Syria, I think they're probably much more closely linked into the chain of command, the military chain of command, than they would have been in Afghanistan, for example.
But you're still saying that the split between them and the Secretary of Defense can still be pretty great when they're in the middle of a mission like this.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I think so.
I mean, in other words, particularly if the Secretary of Defense is talking about, you know, avoiding cooperation with the Russians to go against al-Nusra Front and inevitably against ISIS as well.
And in other words, there would be a combination of cooperation against al-Nusra Front as well as against ISIS.
And so, definitely, that would be a conflict.
And remind me one more time, Gareth, al-Nusra Front and their leadership are sworn loyal to the person and the goals of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, the butcher of New York City hiding out in Pakistan somewhere right now?
Yeah, you know, in al-Qaeda's political culture, there is such a thing as, I think it's called al-Bayat, you know, allegiance.
It's a very important concept.
And you either have it or you don't.
If you don't, then it's a very serious matter.
If you break off, this is a big deal.
And so, you know, there have been efforts within al-Nusra Front.
I mean, supposedly, reportedly, there is a faction that has tried to get al-Jilani, the head of al-Nusra Front, to agree to cut off his relationship to al-Qaeda or to cease his loyalty, his allegiance to al-Zawahiri.
And that's failed.
I mean, clearly, he's never been interested in that.
He's never been willing to cease to pledge his allegiance to the head of al-Qaeda.
So, that's a key fact here.
I mean, it's just not going to happen.
Yeah, you know, I don't know.
The fly-on-the-wall thing seems like it would be a lot of fun, but I want to really crawl inside the mind of Ashton Carter for a minute here and try to figure out how picking a fight with Russia is a higher priority, is such a high priority that never mind that we're backing everyone who's backing the al-Nusra Front al-Qaeda in Syria.
I mean, isn't that high treason?
Well, Isn't it?
It's not treason within the system, of course, as you know very well.
I mean, you and I agree that many of the things that have been done in the name of national security should be considered treasonous.
I mean, I hold no...
Again, this is a Muslim conspiracy here, but they're still backing our enemies, our enemies, yours and mine, the civilians of the land between Mexico and Canada.
They made these enemies for us, and they just keep making them and making them.
When they're fighting them, they're making them, and when they're backing them, they're making them even more than that.
Well, but then, you know, it's not just Ashton Carter, of course, it's the entire national security bureaucracy that signed on to the strategy of cooperating in backing the army of conquest in Idlib province, which was the reigning U.S. strategy in Syria from 2014 up till, you know, relatively recently.
And to some extent, you know, there's, at best, ambiguity about it today.
I mean, that's still, that's still, as far as I can see, a de facto U.S. policy in Syria.
So, again, I mean, this is, this is the way they have decided to pursue U.S. interests in Syria for a variety of bureaucratic and political, domestic political interests that have produced the result.
But, but I think that, you know, if you're looking for a reason for this, for Ashton Carter to take that position, it's very simple.
That's where the money is in the military budget.
The military budget is such that, you know, you have to have near, what they call near-peer rivals to justify the kind of spending that we are, that we have been indulging and continuing to indulge in in the military budget.
It's China and Russia that provide the rationale for backing hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of, of spending well into the future.
What would they ever do if they got their regime changed?
What would they ever do if they put another Yeltsin in charge in Russia?
Did some kind of color-coded thing in China and seized, you know, put their sock puppets in charge of these last two independent powers on Earth?
Then who are they going to target?
India?
No, then, then they're, then they're in the, then they're in the soup.
Then, then you see what happened after the end of the Cold War.
They had to suffer a very severe loss of, of budget.
And that's what they're determined not to have happen again.
You know, that, that was a very serious problem for them for many, many years.
They were in the darkness, as it were.
They were, they were out in the desert, you know, suffering from lack of military budget.
And, and so, you know, when they saw the possibility when, when Putin began to respond to an aggressive NATO stance they, they saw the rationale for a new Cold War.
And, and I think that's what we're seeing in practice here.
And, and they're determined not to let that, let go of that.
And that's, that's the primary motivation for, for the, for Ashton Carter and the staff of the Office of the Secretary of Defense at this point.
And to a considerable extent, of course, Joint Chiefs of Staff are, are in the same place.
But they also have a war to fight in Syria.
And that, that provides a, a counterweight to some extent to, to that consideration.
So now, wait a minute.
If we, if we rewind it all back to the 92 defense plan and guidance and rebuilding America's defenses and this and that and the other thing.
Is it fair to say then that the whole Middle East war, Iraq War II and, and everything since then is all part of a proxy war with Russia?
Still, just like the days of the USSR?
No, I think you have to think about what was going on in, in, in the, the planning, the run up to the Iraq invasion in 2003 as well, of course, as the, the first Gulf War.
These were wars that were fought for, for different reasons.
But, to, to a considerable extent in the knowledge that, that this was a way of ensuring two things.
One, that you would have a sort of permanent war state that, that would justify much higher levels of military budget than would otherwise be the case.
In both, in both the, the first Gulf War and the Iraq War, this was a huge part of the rationale within the military and, within the, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld specifically.
Okay, that's, that's what he had in mind.
That, you know, I've never written, written about this, but I have a, I have a, I have a, I have a, I have a connection about this, but I have a lot of information, which I someday will write about, about how Rumsfeld's position on the invasion of Iraq was very strongly shaped by the need for a fix on how to be able to fund a whole new generation or generations to come of high tech weaponry while at the same time having a way of carrying out regime change offered that opportunity to accomplish both those things by the air force uh... strategy of shock and awe uh... air you know basically the air force strategy of carrying out regime change by air power without having any significant uh... ground uh... force footprint in in the in the country uh... so that was uh... that was a military budget problem that he had and he was solving that by the invasion of iraq so now we know that when richard perl says real men go to tehran you know yeah he's speaking for ariel sharon there but will wait a minute now i mean assuming i mean i think you agree that was initially part of the plan that they thought they're going to be able to get away with is going straight to syria and iran too and was that they weren't thinking about putin and breaking iran away from russia at that point that was just uh... they're really just thinking about israel or thing about over a weapon i i i don't think that they were consciously thinking about the relationship between iran and and russia no absolutely not no because i mean iran is one of russia's last kind of you know dependent sort of allied states right they they have yet you can't really use an ally or alliance and talking about iran and russia that's not going to work because they've never trusted one another at any moment it's been a yeah there's a lot of bad blood there i understand very very shaky relationship so you really can't use alliance at all for that is uh...but it wouldn't make sense if i was if i was douglas wealth forget him if i was richard perler paul wolfowitz to say yeah would we can rush his position a bit if we had our guy back in power in tehran yeah sure that could be thrown into the mix in the discussion in the national security council but but that's not the primary thought at all that i got some primary uh... uh...thrust of of the planning for the war in iraq all right well good deal man thank you very much for doing the shows always gareth i really appreciate it my pleasure is always good and i know the audience really appreciates it too because they tell me uh... that's a great care for everybody this one is a consortium news dot com and antiwar dot com it's called a new fight over syria war strategy it's a really important piece i hope you'll go look at it again uh... it's a antiwar dot com that's the scott wharton show check out the archives at scott wharton dot org senate for the podcast feed there help support at scott wharton dot org slash donate and follow me on twitter at scott wharton show hey y'all scott wharton here for wall street window dot com mike swanson knows his stuff he made a killing running his own hedge fund and always gets out of the stock market before the government generated bubbles pop which is by the way what he's doing right now selling all the stocks and betting on gold and commodities sign up at wall street window dot com and get real-time updates from mike on all his market moves it's hard to know how to protect your savings and earn a good return in an economy like this mike swanson can help follow along on paper and see for yourself wall street window dot com hey y'all check out the audio book of lou rockwell's fascism versus capitalism narrated by me scott wharton at audible dot com it's a great collection of his essays and speeches on the important tradition of liberty from medieval history to the ron paul revolution rockwell blasts our status enemies profiles our greatest libertarian heroes and prescribes the path forward in the battle against leviathan fascism versus capitalism by lou rockwell for audio book find it at audible amazon itunes or just click in the right margin of my website at scott wharton dot org hey y'all scott here first i want to take a second to thank all the show's listeners sponsors and supporters for helping make the show what it is i literally couldn't do it without you and now i want to tell you about the newest way to help support the show whenever you shop at amazon dot com stop by scott wharton dot org first just click the amazon logo on the right side of the page that way the show will get a kickback from amazon's end of the sale it won't cost you an extra cent and it's not just books amazon dot com sells just about everything in the world except cars i think so whatever you need they've got it just click the amazon logo on the right side of the page at scott wharton dot org or go to scott wharton dot org slash amazon