Biden Bombs Syria: A New World Record?
February 27, 2021
According to breaking news reports, including by Reuters, President Biden has ordered and the Pentagon has carried out military airstrikes on Syria, attacking a structure inside the country that the US government claims houses “Iranian-backed” militia.
US missiles struck tonight near the Syrian town of Al-Bukamal, on the Iraqi border. The strike is said to be in retaliation for recent rocket attacks against US facilities in Iraq. After another rocket attack earlier this month, the US State Department pointed the finger at Iran and threatened a US military response.
The Iraqi parliament voted in January, 2020, to expel US troops from the country after
then-President Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem
Soleimani. The US government ignored the vote of the
democratically-elected Iraqi parliament, however Trump later announced
his decision to pull US troops out of Iraq.
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President Biden wasted no time in reversing Trump’s disengagement strategy for the Middle East. After just over a month in office, President Biden is re-igniting the failed US intervention launched in 2014 against Syria under the Obama Administration.
Within 24 hours of Biden being inaugurated commander-in-chief, US military convoys began pouring into northern Syria. His Administration, from Secretary of State Tony Blinken on down, enthusiastically supported the US “regime change” policy for Syria under President Obama – a policy that only benefitted al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the region,
Earlier this month it was reported that the US was building a new military base in Syria, near the Iraq and Turkey borders. New military bases carry with them new missions, so there is plenty of reason to believe that Biden plans to return the US to the “Assad must go” policy of his former boss.
Biden coming out of the gate with bombs blazing should be of little
surprise to those who have watched his early foreign policy
appointments. For example, he tapped noted neocon and aggressive
interventionist Dana Stroul to head his Middle East Desk at the Pentagon
and no doubt this airstrike at least indirectly reflects her influence
and that of many others like her who have taken up positions in the
Biden Administration.
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Stroul hails from the AIPAC-founded “think tank,” the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), where, as former CIA official Phil Giradi writes, “she has been the Shelly and Michael Kassen Fellow in the Institute’s Beth and David Geduld Program on Arab Politics.” She is an extreme Iran hawk and has advocated and worked for regime change in Syria and US retention of large areas of Syrian territory.
So within a month of assuming office, President Biden looks to be on the cusp of launching a new Middle East war. Will a Left-Right-and-beyond peace coalition emerge to challenge the hawks driving this new push to war? We must remain open to any alliance and be willing to put other issues of potential disagreement aside. There are plenty of antiwar progressives who will increasingly find themselves uncomfortable with this Administration. We must be willing to work with them in good faith.
Buckle up. These are going to be very trying times for non-interventionists!
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