All right, Joe, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
Our next guest is Joe Loria.
He's written for every major paper that matters in the world.
Uh, recently the wall street journal, I think.
Anyway, uh, this one's running at antiwar.com and a lot of other places, consortium news and a few others.
Uh, what Russia fears in Syrian conflict.
Welcome back, Joe.
How are you doing?
I'm doing fine, Scott.
Thanks a lot.
How are you doing?
I'm doing good.
Okay.
So yeah, I think I didn't mention you're based at the United Nations in New York and that's who you're talking with as the basis for this article, correct?
That's right.
Okay, good.
So, um, well, let's start with, uh, like in the title of the Russians, what are the Russian diplomats to the United Nations telling you about their position on this civil war in Syria?
If that is what it is.
Well, Russian diplomats at the UN are all, yeah, they're, they're only saying, uh, on the record that, uh, they're opposed to regime change in Syria, uh, particularly if it's led by the West, such as in Libya, they're quite upset about what happened in Libya.
They voted or they abstained on the resolution that authorized the NATO no-fly zone.
They feel they were misled because it turned into much more than just a no-fly zone.
Uh, it really turned into air cover for the rebels who then were also, uh, armed by countries in the Gulf, which led to the overthrow of Gaddafi.
So they've seen many of their allies being overthrown and they don't want to see this in Syria again.
And, uh, they're quite upset by the way the U S treats them, uh, basically just, uh, ignoring any of their interests in Syria and trying to portray them as immoral for supporting Assad and these massacres, many of which, uh, we still don't know who was behind.
But they won't go beyond that.
Those are the public reasons they give, but the article that I wrote that you referred to, I spoke to three experts and they've made pretty clear that beyond those issues of, uh, regime change and the ones that analysts normally cite publicly, which are the fact that Russia has a Naval port on the Mediterranean coast of Syria, that they have millions of dollars in arms sales legally every year to Syria.
And the Syrians are unable to even pay for most of that anymore.
I understand.
And, um, and the fact that this is the last Middle East ally of Syrians are the ones generally given, but I found that it's quite a mystery really.
And that was not explored by the Western media.
Why exactly Russia is so strongly supporting Assad, uh, in the face of this very, very vicious criticism from the West, very undiplomatic language.
For example, Susan Rice, the U S ambassador to the UN in a public meeting where Russia vetoed one of two resolutions that would have condemned Assad for this crackdown said that the United States was disgusted by this.
And Hillary Clinton has accused the Russians of lying about not sending offensive weapons to the Syrians.
And this is kind of a rare diplomatic language right out in the public to attack Russia.
So, uh, I, I wanted to look into why exactly what was behind Russia's support for the Syrians in the face of this criticism.
And unfortunately you don't get that in the Western media, particularly the U S media.
And that's, it's a very fortunate fact because the basic rule of journalism, really journalism 101 is that there's at least two sides to every story.
And we never in international reporting ever seemed to get the other side of the story.
The other side is demonized.
If there seemed to be an enemy or opposed to us interests, and we only get what the U S government officials tell Western and American reporters.
And if, and I don't really blame the government for doing what they do, they are going to spin the story their way and promote their own interests.
That's what all governments do.
If governments gave a balanced and honest account of what's really going on, then we wouldn't even need the media.
They would just be able to publish.
We would just publish their press releases.
But of course that's not the case.
They only give their point of view.
So it's incumbent on the press to look at the other side of the story, not to take either side, but just to present them to the public.
And that's what I tried to do in this piece, because we don't see where any point of view of Russia, these stories, the way, for example, the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, Saddam was demonized.
And when he presented a many, many page dossier of his weapons of mass destruction, which he stated how and where and when all of these weapons were destroyed, it was dismissed immediately out of hand as a bunch of lies and propaganda from Saddam.
And of course we know that in fact he had destroyed all those weapons of mass destruction.
And this is not in any way to support Saddam or Assad.
These guys are butchers.
There's no question about that.
It's an unfortunate fact that there's a kind of Manichean view of international affairs that if you should even dare to, uh, to say that, uh, somebody who's opposed to the U.S. might be telling the truth somewhere that that your brand that is supporting that side.
I had that problem way back in the 90s and writing about the the Yugoslav civil wars.
I thought the Serbians had a point despite the war crimes they were obviously committing in Sarajevo in particular, which got all the attention, but that the Serbians had interests in particular Serbs living in Croatia that had been part of the majority population of Yugoslavia that overnight would become a minority threatened in a independent Croatia.
So these things can't seem to be reported.
And I find that really unfortunate.
So I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to write this piece and to have it on your, on antiwar.com and other sites, uh, to try to put forward the Russian position, which, uh, to get to the point is that they're really fearful of an Islamic government, Islamist government coming to power in Syria and what that might mean for Russian interests and for, uh, Christians living in Syria.
And I put the piece in the context of 30 year struggle that Russia has been going through against Western and Gulf Arab backed Islamist movements, starting from Afghanistan in 1979 to 1989 through the Balkans in Bosnia in particular, and Kosovo, and then, uh, in the caucuses where the Russians have been struggling against these groups again, backed by the U S and the Gulf Arabs.
Uh, and now it's Syria.
And I think that if you look at it, the context of that 30 year struggle, you begin to see a whole different picture of why Russia is in fact supporting the Syrian regime.
If not Assad himself, they say they'd be willing to, uh, no relinquish their support for him.
If in fact, uh, that was a decision of the Syrian people.
They just don't want to see him being removed by force by the outside intervention.
That's the key principle that they're worried about, but they're not waiting to Assad, but they do want to see this regime, a secular regime, uh, remain in place with perhaps a reformist who could make some changes.
But I think the way beyond that in Syria right now, unfortunately, I don't see any opportunity for reform.
And we're going to see probably further escalation of the war.
All right.
Well, now, um, I want to go back to what you said about the media.
Cause we've got lots of Syria and Russia and everything to talk about in a whole other segment to talk about it, but I just think it's a tragedy that it was perfectly reasonable that you digressed for a good minute and a half or two there to explain that you think it's important that a journalist ask basic questions about what the hell is going on in the world.
And that this kind of thing is, you know, de facto banned in America.
We have what amounts to Russian style state media here in the United States where you have to kind of really give this elaborate disclaimer and I don't blame you, uh, I'm sure you've been through hell just for trying to get to the basic facts.
Uh, um, the parallels you mentioned to the Iraq war and, and to, uh, intervention in, uh, the Balkans, uh, is obviously great examples.
Um, that really is the sad state of things.
It's, it's beyond the pale or perhaps it's beyond the pale to even ask what interest does Russia have in Syria?
Um, you know, I don't know if that means that you're, you don't get to be invited to all the great cocktail parties with the Newsweek people or what, but, uh, the pressure must be immense.
Well, I do get it.
I still get invited to the cocktail parties because the articles that I wrote like this one don't get into the mainstream press.
And that's why I'm, I'm grateful for alternative media because that's where you can place a story like this.
So they don't even know that you wrote something beyond the pale.
Yeah.
No, no, they don't read those.
I don't think they read those sites.
No.
All right.
Well, hold it right there.
I'm sorry.
We got to go out to this break.
Uh, we're talking with Joe Lauria.
Uh, he writes for the wall street journal and everybody else.
So this one's at antiwar.com.
What Russia fears in Syrian conflict by Joe Lauria.
It's at consortium news to Robert Perry site.
We'll be right back.
All right.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's antiwar radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Joe Lauria, reporter at the United nations about his piece.
What Russia fears in Syrian conflict.
We ran it at antiwar.com I think yesterday.
Um, okay.
So now obviously Russia's main problem with what's going on in Syria is that the Americans must be completely insane.
They're going to turn Syria into, uh, a gigantic power vacuum war zone of Mad Max, uh, Iraq war proportions for probably years on end, like it's, uh, you know, just, you know, anyway, it's going to make Libya look like nothing.
Kind of a thing.
And, uh, obviously that's their big worry.
And I want to get to that.
And I want to let you talk all about that here in just a second.
But first two reasons on your list were much more pragmatic, uh, state reasons, uh, Russia's alliance with Syria.
And, um, I don't know if anybody used the phrase all important.
I don't know that it's all important.
I'm only guessing.
It's all important.
This port, this Naval port that Russia has a deal with Syria to use.
Um, otherwise their most Southern most port there is up in the black sea and they got to cross, uh, the straits of whatever they're in Turkey to get to it.
This is, uh, their base in Syria is their only base in the Mediterranean sea.
Am I right?
That's correct.
But, um, so that's kind of a big deal or not.
It's not, uh, I don't think it is that big of a Russians diplomats I've talked to, uh, you know, there wasn't, there weren't any ships in there for a long time until recently for one thing.
And it's somewhat more symbolic than anything else.
Uh, I don't know what value it gives beyond a prestige value to have Russian ships in the Mediterranean.
Uh, it is a place where they bring shipments in to Syria in and out too.
So I think, you know, there's a value to it, but I don't think that if you focused on that as the reason why they want to keep Assad in power, I think that that's a very minor, but a point that they have, uh, for wanting to keep a regime friendly to them because an Islamic government perhaps might shut that port down, tell them to leave.
But I don't think that's what could be very detrimental.
And then how much about the arms sales then?
How much does that amount to a year?
Or how much does that amount to an importance to the Russian government?
It's several millions.
I've seen all kinds of figures, hundreds of millions.
Uh, they've been selling arms to Syria a long time.
These are legal contracts.
There is no arms embargo against Syria by the United Nations, meaning that, uh, they can send these arms to Syria if they want to.
There is a, a EU and an American arms embargo.
So there was this incident recently where a Russian ship was bringing these helicopters back to Syria that had been repaired.
There were very old helicopters sold to Assad's father that Hillary Clinton.
Uh, she spun the story like these were new helicopters being sent right out in the wake of this, of these horrific massacres.
And that was just false.
Really.
These were, these were helicopters that had been sent back to Russia for repair, but on their way, they had been flagged, um, under a European flag or not.
Sorry.
I don't know what the flag was, but it was a European company that had insured this ship.
So they were sent back as a violation of European sanctions.
The Russians have now, we sent it under their own flag and with different insurance.
So they were allowed to sell arms to Syria.
Does it help?
Probably not.
I mean, but the Gulf is sending arms to the rebels.
There's no question about that.
And now we know from the New York times and the CIA is there on the ground in Turkey, trying to determine which arms go to which rebels.
So they're not in the hands of Al Qaeda, which has entered this conflict on the side of the U S and, uh, and the Gulf and the rebels.
So again, I think, uh, these are the, these are the reasons we hear all the time about the port and the arms sales, but, uh, it goes deeper than that.
That's what I attempt to, uh, to say in this.
And to go back one moment about the media, I, this article was published.
I hadn't told you in South Africa and mainstream newspapers, they're part of the independent newspaper chain and in the UAE.
So it's really an American issue that there's no interest in the other side of the story.
We don't get that from Iran and we didn't get it from Iraq.
And, uh, and what it does again is to help the U S uh, manage U S government, manage the perceptions in the U S about what their foreign policy interests are, which often, as this piece pointed out it very short term, where they back someone who was good for the American interests at the moment, but that later it comes back to bite them.
There's so many examples, Noriega, Saddam, and, and now, uh, and in Afghanistan with the manager Dean out of which, uh, yes, they defeated the Soviet union.
Yes.
That was the primary cause of the collapse of the Soviet union.
I think as Brzezinski has pointed out, what was the aim of trapping Russia into Afghanistan, but then out of that manager Dean, uh, emerged Al Qaeda, which came to wreak havoc on its former sponsors in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and in the U S.
So, uh, the, the long range consequences of these short term alliances, which let's face it from the Islamic, uh, the Islamist movement point of view, uh, is, is, is a great deal.
I mean, the Americans are coming to us and saying, we want to give you arms and.
And money.
And, uh, because right now our interests are aligned to, of course, you're going to take that, but once you get to power helped by the U S and the Gulf, uh, then you have your own agenda.
Usually, I mean, Saddam would help to defeat Iran in the long Iran Iraq war.
Uh, actually ended pretty much in a stalemate, but it stopped the Iranian, uh, and hurt them very badly after the Iranian revolution.
And then of course, Saddam left armed as he was suddenly realized that he had a province that he thought was a province of Iraq called Kuwait and moved in on it.
So, uh, you know, the, the, the unintended unintended consequences, long range of short-term American policy is really at the root of this problem in Syria now.
So, uh, I guess they want to get rid of Assad and mostly to weaken Iran because Iran, of course, is very close ally with the Syrian government.
And it was through Iran through Syria, the Iranian ship arms to Hezbollah and uh, Lebanon and onto Hamas in Gaza.
So the Americans would really like to cut that off and we can, and the Gulf Arabs weakened Iran's influence in the region through Syria, they have, you know, access even to the Mediterranean.
So they are, uh, that's really, I think at the heart of the American motives here is to hurt Iran and to weaken them, uh, in the ongoing dispute over their nuclear program, which of course we don't ever hear in American press with the Iranian point of view is why they may even have such a nuclear program.
But, uh, I think this is why they're going to want to overthrow Assad, but what will follow.
We didn't get a lot of reporting about what would follow the fall of Gaddafi.
And it's a complete chaos there right now.
And we are not hearing a lot about what could happen in Syria, who the opposition figures really are.
Uh, and it's not the liberal Democrats, liberal secular Democrats who unfortunately are a minority in most of the Arab countries that are going through revolts right now.
So that, as you just seen in Egypt, they were, they were unable to field, uh, a presidential candidate in the second round at all, the military or the Muslim brotherhood.
So, um, the, the, the U S again, uh, is playing with fire.
The Russians say, or these analysts, anyway, that I spoke to who know Russian thinking, they're playing with fire here and could create an extremely volatile situation, uh, in Syria, if Assad goes and it's an unfortunate choice here between secular dictatorship of Assad and, and a Muslim, uh, dictatorship of religious theocracy.
There's not a very good choice, unfortunately.
Well, can Russia really do anything about it?
I mean, you look at the Kosovo example, um, they just said, well, okay, you can veto us on the security council.
So we'll just use NATO and do it.
We won't even go to the UN.
Um, I mean, is Russia, they're not going to really bite about it if, um, if the Americans do escalate the war.
Right.
Right.
No, they have said clearly.
And I learned that, that if NATO does operate on its own outside the UN, that Russia will not intervene.
I mean, they're not going to get into a shooting war with NATO of Syria, but you make a good point.
That's probably what's next on the cards.
Although no one knows for sure, because if the, the, the Obama administration is slightly more, um, uh, committed to multilateralism and the Bush administration was, they would like to see a UN resolution to approve, um, uh, a military intervention, like a no fly zone, which I think is the next stage.
The first stage we would see in Syria.
And of course, Russia would veto that.
There's no question about that.
And the, as the Bush administration did not get the resolution that they wanted at the UN to invade Iraq.
And it wasn't just Russia that opposed it was their allies, Germany and France too, on the council at the time, as well as the majority of the other countries on the security council.
They went ahead and invaded Iraq anyway.
And that's what happened in Kosovo.
There was a vote.
Uh, Russia didn't have to veto because it got less than eight votes on the security council.
So it did not pass Russia was able to abstain.
And without the UN authorization, they went ahead.
Clinton went ahead anyway, with the operation in Kosovo at about two weeks ago, Susan Rice made a kind of cryptic remark that if things don't improve and the facade doesn't go, then we may have to take action outside this council, outside the security council was never fully explained by her, what It could have been a politics because at the time, uh, Romney has been beating up Obama for being weak in Syria, but it could also have been opening the door to a possible NATO led operation without a security council authorization.
That is a possibility, but we're not there yet.
All right.
Well, I think they're crazy.
That's the only explanation.
It's gotta be that they're crazy.
All right.
We're out of time.
Uh, thanks very much for your time, Joe.
It's great to talk to you again.
No problem.
Thank you, Scott.
Joe Loria, everybody.
We'll be right back.
