The Catskill Chronicle

By Mort Malkin

Here I sit at my writing table with lots of research information the the NSA has not gotten around to classifying as Top Secret. But, this information is as embarrassing as many of the documents that have been so classified. So, readers may be assured that they will not be accused of receiving stolen goods and not be indicted under the 1917 Espionage Act.

Gadfly has analyzed all the disparate complexities of recent Syrian events so that even media pundits can understand it all.

The following are undisputed:

• Syria has been around for a long time — since prehistoric times.
• Russia is now an ally of Syria and of Bashar al-Assad, its elected president.
• Assad sometimes rules with and iron hand and , in general, is not very lovable.
• Many Syrian dissidents were and are committed to non-violent resistance, but we hear only a rare report of their existence.
• Many factions exist among the violent (non non-violent) dissidents, some of them not so nice.
• Poison gas has been used, probably by both sides in the military conflict.

Gadfly has also learned that:

• The White House really wants regime change in Syria, to reduce Russia’s influence in the Near East and deny them a naval base in the Mediterranean.
• To this end, President Obama has Secretary of State Clinton say out loud, “Assad must go.” Obama, himself, accuses Assad of using poison gas, thus crossing a Red Line. So, poor Obama simply must bomb Assad out of existence.
• The US people remember the alleged weapons of mass destruction that Cheney said Saddam Hussein was hiding but that Bush could not find either in Iraq or under his own bed in the White House. The US public is understandably sick and tired of  US warfare in the Middle East.
• Russian President Putin remembers that Libya’s Gaddafi was killed when the US, UK, and France went beyond the UN mandate of protecting civilians and flew wild over the skies of not only Benghazi but all of Libya. The Russians are not going to sign on to the use of military force, not even a no-fly zone, in Syria.

A little known back story occurred in June 2012 in Geneva:

• Kofi Annan brokered an agreement among the five permanent members of Security Council to end the Syrian conflict. Under the agreement, a transitional government of national unity would be formed to include all Syrian groups. Free elections would then be held under UN supervision.
• Russia submitted a draft resolution of the “Action Group for Syria” agreement to the Security Council the following week. The US, UK, and France rejected it outright even though their envoys had approved it at Geneva the week before.
• While the Geneva Accord was being worked out diplomatically, British and French Special Forces were training Syrian rebels, the US was providing satellite intelligence, and unmarked NATO planes were flying weapons to a Free Syrian Army base in nearby Turkey. The rebels also were being financed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Obama surely feels cornered. The US public, and Congress besides, will not support a war with Syria, not even a shock-and-awe bombing. Only the stockpiling and use of chemical weapons would allow military action. But Russia has agreed that chemical weapons should be removed from Syria, and it should be done through diplomatic action and under UN auspices. Then, just last week, Assad said Syria is willing to sign on to the International Conventional Weapons Convention.

All is not lost for our beleaguered president, though. Gadfly convened an emergency meeting of its Revelry & Research division and, after due deliberation and creativity, came up with a solution. First the US must sign up with the International Court of Justice and agree to its compulsory jurisdiction provisions. Then, it must prove itself worthy to sit on the war crimes committee of the Court. Finally, the US will be able to nominate Bashar al-Assad for indictment as a war criminal. That would finish Assad politically. Mission accomplished.

Yet, Obama would still be left with Vladimir Putin to convince that the US is the only superpower on Earth. We would never convince the Russians of this by bombing Moscow. But, we might try diplomacy and setting an example for Russia, and the rest of the world, to follow. Why not start with freeing the political prisoners we hold … for example, Bradley Manning.