Opulent Arabs Fuel Syrian Hell, Stiff Syrian Refugees

The cataclysm in Syria has created the worst refugee crisis the world has known since the end of the World War II.  This, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UNHCR, which has prime responsibility for coping with the 3.9 million men women and children who have fled the on-going horrors.

Ironically, the tragedy is unfolding almost at the doorstep of some of the most colossally wealthy people on the planet who preside over the oil-rich states of the Gulf.

In deed, with far less than 1% of their mammoth sovereign funds, almost any of the Gulf States could have provided, on their own tab, all of the $1.266 billion dollars that the UNHCR attempted—and failed--to raise last year for Syrian refugee relief.

In 2014, the UNHCR campaign ended up 37% short of its goal.

 One would think that those fabulously blessed royals and sheikhs and emirs would have been lining up to back the UNHCR’s attempts to mitigate the catastrophe that has overtaken millions of their mostly Sunni Arab brethren.

Especially since those same Gulf states also provided the arms and money that fueled so much of the horrific violence.

But one would be largely wrong.

As a donor, Kuwait was something of an exception. It gave $93 million to the UNHCR in 2014, the third largest contribution after the United States ($303 million) and the European Union ($146 million).

On the other hand, the Kuwaitis have also funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to some of the most extreme fighting groups in Syria, to the point that furious U.S. officials went public last year in an attempt to oblige them to turn off the spigot.

Yet, to its modest credit, Kuwait’s backing for the UNHCR’s Syrian relief program is greater than all the other Gulf states combined.

It’s not that the recent dramatic drop in oil prices has emptied those Arab coffers.

The Qataris, for instance, bankrolled by a huge sovereign wealth fund estimated at $250 billion, continue snapping up trophy hotels, football clubs, businesses, and huge hunks of prime real estate across the globe. Just in Paris, among many other assets, they own Le Printemps department store, the Peninsula Hotel, Raffles Royal Monceau, and 350,000 square feet along the Champs Elysees.

In London they’ve also bought up much of the skyline, from the towering Shard to Harrods, to No. 1 Hyde Park, to a massive swathe of Canary Wharf, not to mention 20% of the London Stock Exchange, and 10% of the company that owns British Air. They even helped keep Barclays Bank afloat during the height of the financial crisis.

The Qataris have also been among the most aggressive in doling out funds to radical groups fighting in Syria. They are thus also directly implicated in the on-going disaster.

How much did the Qataris, with the second highest annual per capita income in the world ($104,000), give to that campaign?

They gave $26 million-- far less than Germany ($42.3 million) or Japan ($34 million).

That was also far less than the $58 million fine that the Qatari ruling family were ordered to pay for an illegal scheme they used to avoid paying taxes on a prime 13 acre London site they bought from the British Ministry of Defense, for a cool $1.5 billion.

(Don’t even ask about the $120 million that Qatar's armed forces shelled out to purchase the Renaissance Hotel in Barcelona.)

On the other hand, the Qataris were far more open-handed to the UNHCR’s Syrian campaign than were other Gulf rulers.

The royals who run the United Arab Empire control a sovereign wealth fund of $773 billion that dwarfs Quatar’s. They also boast a stunning capital (Abu Dhabi) that Forbes labeled “So Blindingly Rich it’s almost Sickening.” Their donation last year to the UNHCR’s drive?

$4.8 million. Far less than Finland. ($7.84 million)

Then there’s the Saudis.

Their new ruler, King Salman, has been shoring up his own position and that of his sprawling family with a mammoth post coronation give away that so far totals more than $32 billion and has been lavished over most of his country’s population.

According to the New York Times, for the moment at least, there is little talk about human rights abuses or political reform. Saudis are spending. Some have treated themselves to new cellphones, handbags and trips abroad. They have paid off debts, given to charity and bought gold necklaces for their mothers. Some men have set aside money to marry a first, second or third wife. One was so pleased that he showered his infant son with crisp new bills. 

The Saudis have also been very generous to the new military regime in Egypt: Along with other Gulf States, they came up with $12 billion to back the government of General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi after it tossed out the Muslim Brotherhood, detested and feared by the Saudis. The Saudis have promised billions more. 

Under Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the cowboy head of Saudi Intelligence until he was removed in April, 2014, the Saudis also funneled huge amounts of arms and money to some of the most militant groups battling Syria's Assad—including the fighters from ISIS, who they cheered on in Iraq.

But for the UNHCR’s Syrian refugee program?

In 2014, the Saudis gave a total $2.9 million. Which wouldn’t buy you a decent one bedroom apartment in Belgravia these days.

 Even tiny Denmark gave more ($6.2 million).

That was last year. How is the UNHCR’s Syrian refugee campaign doing so far this year as the crisis becomes even more horrific?

 For 2015, the UNHCR is attempting to raise $1.342 billion.

 As of February 16, with TV broadcasting images of ragged, poorly sheltered Syrian children dying of exposure, the UNHCR has received pledges totalling a scant $74 million--only 6% of the amount needed.

The U.S. has yet to make its commitment.

The largest donors to step up to date are Canada ($10, 318,143) and the European Union ($51 million).

 And the Saudis, with their new munificent ruler? They’ve pledged $2.773,000, less than the amount they gave last year. The UAE has promised $2,247 million, also far less than last year.

 But more than Qatar…which has come up with $209,000.

 Not even the price of a decent crocodile handbag at Aspreys.

 (It would be interesting to see if these facts were picked up by Al Jazeera--also owned by Qatar.)

Why Did Syria Want CW Anyway?

An air of inanity pervades the debate about Syria—obscuring the underlying fears and motives, the real forces behind a surrealistic, blood-soaked drama worthy of Kafka, Ionesco, or Pinter.

It’s evident, for instance, that the 800-pound guerrilla hovering behind the debate is Israel and its American backers, one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington.

What has not been made clear is that, lurking in the background, is another shadowy hulking presence: Israel’s nuclear weapons capacity, which—as I’ve previously blogged--Israel has never officially acknowledged and most U.S. administrations have done their best to ignore. As have the mainstream press and the gaggle of statesmen, commentators and “experts” with weighty proposals on how to resolve the current crisis.

For instance, Senator Joe Manchin III, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia, would give Bashar al-Assad 45 days to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and begin ridding the country of its weapons stockpiles. Only if Assad refuses would the American president be authorized to take military action.

“We need some options out there that does something about the chemical weapons,” Mr. Manchin said. “That’s what’s missing right now.”

That proposal, however, comes across as hopelessly naïve when you understand why Syria’s leaders opted for chemical weapons in the first place.  

It was not with the intention of deploying CW against their own people. It was instead an attempt to develop an affordable and meaningful deterrent to Israel’s daunting military might, particularly to Israel’s nuclear capability.

That’s the bottom line of several serious studies of Syria’s weapons program, done over the past few years by American and other experts. As a study published by the European Union’s non-proliferation consortium in July 2012, concluded, “Syria’s CWs are not tactical or battlefield weapons, but rather a strategic deterrence against Israel’s conventional superiority and its nuclear weapons arsenal.IWhile Israeli leaders have always portrayed their country as an embattled David, confronting an existential threat from an Arab –and now,Iranian—Goliath, Syria’s perspective has been totally different.  

As the rulers in Damascus have seen it, Israel, thanks to its sophisticated industrial base,  and unwavering financial and political support from the United States, has been able to develop by far the most powerful military forces in the region—with its own nuclear trump card.  

The Syrians, on the other hand, have suffered one humiliating setback after another, from the failure to defeat Israel in 1948, to Israel’s on-going occupation of the Golan Heights, which they took in 1967, to Israel’s repeated forays into South Lebanon.

The Syrians, however, came to realize they could never equal Israel’s military might.  They opted instead for a practical alternative: chemical weapons. If not strategic parity, CW would at least give Syria, if the chips were down, a fearful enough weapon to brandish against Israel’s nuclear capabilities.

As the European Union’s study said, “With meager resources, an inadequate military culture and a weakening, less-than-reliable Soviet patron, Syria was in no position to maintain its policy of conventional parity. That became amply clear at the turn of the 1990s, when Syria approached economic bankruptcy, witnessed the collapse of the USSR and had to adapt to rising US influence in the region.”

Syria’s determination to maintain its chemical arsenal could only have increased after 2007 when Israeli planes bombed what was apparently a Syrian attempt to construct a nuclear reactor.

One Israeli analyst claimed that  CWs and associated delivery systems became, for lack of better options, the ‘core’ of Syria’s security strategy, a ‘wild card’ that would create enough uncertainty in the minds of Israeli decision makers to prevent an escalation of an existential nature.

Another analyst who has a unique view of Syria’s CW strategy is  M. Zuhair Diab, an international security analyst now living in London. From 1981 to 1985 he was a diplomat with the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As he put it in a study in 1997.

“Syria seeks to neutralize Israel’s ability to employ nuclear blackmail to coerce it into accepting unfavorable conditions for a peace settlement. Syria’s increased bargaining leverage with Israel as result of its CW capability has been demonstrated by Israel’s inability to dictate its terms in the peace negotiations between the two sides. Indeed, the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin recognized that a condition ofstrategic stalemate had emerged between Israel and Syria.”

Syria has not signed the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Whenever the issue comes up, Syria’s leaders have invariably cited Israel’s nuclear weapons program, and the fact that Israel refused to sign the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In other words, Syria is not going to unilaterally lay down its most potent weapon.

Think what you will of the men governing Syria, but how can Israel or its American backers, answer that argument? Particularly if they still refuse to admit officially that Israel even has nukes?

The analysis of Syria’s CW program by the former Syrian diplomat, was written in 1997, 14 years before the outbreak of the civil war which is currently ripping apart his country. At that time, according to him, there were only two realistic scenarios for Syrian tactical use of CW. They both involved defending against Israel.

“1) if Israel launches an offensive involving first use of CW, forcing Syrian units to retaliate in-kind; or 2) if the defensive perimeter of Damascus, the Syrian capital, (italics added) collapses as a result of an Israeli incursion through the Golan Heights or a flanking maneuver through the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon.”

With the existence of the Assad regime now at stake, the Syrian military’s doctrines on whom they might target with CW may have changed. But not the trip wire that might provoke them to unleash CW: a serious threat to the Syrian capital.

What is striking about the study from the former Syrian diplomat I’ve just cited is the fact that, according to some sources, the reason that Syrian military units may have resorted to CW on August 21, was as a desperate measure to drive rebel forces from a strategically key suburb of Damascus.

Jon Stewart on Obama's red line.

In case you missed it, check out Jon Stewart's take on Obama and Syria...Much more incisive than Noam Chomsky or Vladimir Putin. 

Syria-Perilous Precedent

The issues in Syria we are told by the Obama administration and its allies, are clear -cut. America has no choice but to act. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The current face-off between the U.S. and Syria is the product of blurred rhetoric, diplomatic double talk, and shocking miscalculations from both sides. The upshot: the U.S. and a few of its allies are ready—once again to unleash a volley of sophisticated weapons against another Middle East dictator, with no solid legal basis nor any realistic goals in mind.

For example, one of the questions many are asking is: knowing how devastating the U.S. response would be, why would Assad risk using chemical weapons?

The answer is that Assad didn’t know what the U.S. response would be.

Indeed, President Obama was less than precise when he made his statement at a press conference August 20, 2012 that the introduction of chemical weapons in Syria., might change his decision not to order a U.S. military engagement.

We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.  That would change my calculus.  That would change my equation.

Furthermore, we are told that many of Obama’s aides were taken aback by that new and vague policy declaration, the President in effect painting himself into a very imprecise corner.  

Just the same, after Obama had issued that warning. why would Assad have risked  using chemical weapons in the horrific this past week, killing hundreds of his own people.

One part of the answer is that Assad’s forces had apparently already used chemical weapons, in much smaller doses over the past few months, triggering little more than a tepid response from America and its allies, Obama declaring a vague intention to arm the rebels---though such arms have yet to get through.

Another part of the answer is that the August 21 chemical attack may have been a dumb miscalculation on the part of one or more of Assad’s commanders, rather than the result of an order from Assad himself. That, according to Foreign Policy magazine, was the conclusion that U.S. intelligence drew after listening to intercepts as “an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with a leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people.”

Thus, it is not at all clear that the slaughter was not the work of one or more Syrian officers overstepping their bounds. “Or was the strike explicitly directed by senior members of the Assad regime? "It's unclear where control lies," one U.S. intelligence official told The Cable. "Is there just some sort of general blessing to use these things? Or are there explicit orders for each attack?" 

It was thus revealing when the New York Times reported today that

“American officials said Wednesday there was no “smoking gun” that directly links President Bashar al-Assad to the attack, and they tried to lower expectations about the public intelligence presentation…But even without hard evidence tying Mr. Assad to the attack, administration officials asserted, the Syrian leader bears ultimate responsibility for the actions of his troops and should be held accountable.

“The commander in chief of any military is ultimately responsible for decisions made under their leadership,” said the State Department’s deputy spokeswoman, Marie Harf — even if, she added, “He’s not the one who pushes the button or says ‘go’ on this.”

Of course, using that same doctrine—others might argue—as they often do--that American Presidents, like George W. Bush, or yes, even Barack Obama, should be held responsibility for the atrocities committed in the field by their forces.

But that’s probably not something the White House would like to discuss at this time.

When U.S. ignored Mideast Chemical Atrocities

America's outrage over the use of chemical weapons by Arab dictators depends on which dictator did the gassing, and when they did it. The current situation in Syria is a perfect example.

Bolstered by horrific images of hundreds of white shrouded corpses, there is a growing belief that chemical weapons were used in rocket attacks by the Syrian government on a Damascus suburb earlier this week.

If that belief proves to be true, then U.S. President Barack Obama, who had warned Assad that the use of chemical weapons would “constitute a red line for the United States,” faces a terrible choice.

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have long been  outraged by charges that the Assad government was using chemical weapons.  Their feelings are understandable -- right? How could any U.S. administration stand by as an Arab dictator gassed his own people?

But the fact is they did: Republican President Ronald Reagan not only turned his back on such ruthless attacks, though they were substantiated by grisly video evidence, but continued to aid the tyrant who was ordering the savagery.

The dictator in question was Saddam Hussein. That of course was before the invasion of Iraq ten years ago when the George W. Bush acted to topple the tyrant he compared to Hitler.

It was in the 1980's when the U.S. secretly backed Saddam after he invaded Iran. (Along with Michel Despratx from Canal + I did a  TV documentary on America's complicity with Saddam which also covered this subject.)

When word first broke in 1983 that Iraq was using mustard gas against Iranian troops, the Reagan administration (after an verbal tap on the wrist delivered by then Middle East envoy Donald Rumsfeld) studiously ignored the issue. Saddam, after all, was then the West's de facto partner in a war against the feared fundamentalist regime of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini.

Saddam's chemical weapons were provided largely by companies in Germany and France (these days, of course, France is also outraged that Assad may be using chemical weapons).

For its part, the United States provided Saddam with, among many other things, vital satellite intelligence on Iranian troop positions.

U.S. support for Saddam increased in 1988 when Rick Francona, then an Air Force captain, was dispatched to Baghdad by the Defense Intelligence Agency. His mission: to provide precise targeting plans to the Iraqis to cripple a feared a new Iranian offensive. Shortly after arriving, Francona discovered that the Iraqis were now using even more deadly chemical weapons -- nerve gas -- against the Iranians. He informed his superiors in Washington.

The response, he said, was immediate.

"We were told to cease all of our cooperation with the Iraqis until people in Washington were able to sort this out. There were a series of almost daily meetings on 'How are we going to handle this, what are we going to do?' Do we continue our relations with the Iraqis and make sure the Iranians do not win this war, or do we let the Iraqis fight this on their own without any U.S. assistance, and they'll probably lose? So there are your options -- neither one palatable."

Francona concluded, "The decision was made that we would restart our relationship with the Iraqis... We went back to Baghdad, and continued on as before. "

This policy continued even after it was discovered that Saddam was using chemical weapons against his own people, the Kurds of Halabja.

Fourteen years later, in March 2003, attempting to justify the coming invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush repeatedly cited the Halabja atrocity. "Whole families died while trying to flee clouds of nerve and mustard agents descending from the sky," he said. "The chemical attack on Halabja provided a glimpse of the crimes Saddam Hussein is willing to commit."

But President Bush never explained the assistance that the United States had given Saddam at the time.

When news first broke about the atrocity in 1988, the Reagan administration did its utmost to prevent condemnation of Saddam, fighting Congress' attempt to impose restrictions on trade with Iraq.

President George W. Bush's father was then vice president. Another key administration figure involved in the fight was Reagan's national security advisor, Gen. Colin Powell.

A few years later, with their former ally in the Gulf now their targeted enemy, George W. Bush (assisted by Colin Powell) brushed this history of complicity with real weapons of mass destruction under the rug---while using nonexistent WMD as a reason for war.

Could the issue of chemical weapons propel the U.S. into yet another bloody Middle Eastern conflict?