диссертация (1169605), страница 16
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It is alleged that they played a disproportionate role overinfluencing the Iraq War. In fact, this group of individuals had actually been117US Plans to Topple Assad Family Go Back Six Presidents, CIA Doc Reveals. Sputnik. N.p., 10 Apr. 2017. Web.11 January.
2018. https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201704101052502201-cia-syria-assessment-1986/.118Winer N. The Project for the New American Century. MoveOn.org, 4 May 2003. Web. 26 January 2017.http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin13.html.65pushing for a war in Iraq since 1998 trying to lobby for regime change there priorto the punitive Operation Desert Fox119. It also became known that a few of thePNAC members listed participated in a Foreign Policy in Focus Forum aboutSyria’s role in Lebanon. The participants all signed a statement where it wasrecommended that the US begin planning for military action against Syria because“if there is to be decisive action, it will have to be sooner than later” 120.
This willbe a crucial fact to keep in mind because many of PNAC’s members would latercome to occupy premier decision-making roles in the G.W.Bush administration,and openly expressed a desire for destabilizing Syria.James Mann in his famous book “Rise of the Vulcans” argues that theneoconservative movement had been conspiring for approximately three decades inits quest to ultimately seize supreme power in the US.
He writes that its origins canactually be found in the members of the Republican Party who opposedDemocratic President Jimmy Carter’s détente with the Soviet Union. As the yearspassed, they coalesced together by creating think tanks and other such institutionsas platforms for organizing what would eventually be their successful path topower, and the author argues that they always intended to be a “war cabinet”121.Therefore, it’s no surprise that the Bush Administration would behave soaggressively in the Middle East, both in overt and clandestine forms in launchingthe War on Iraq but also paving the way for the “Arab Spring”, respectively.The same neoconservative foreign policy train of thought which influencedPresident Bush Jr.
also had strong effect on the Obama administration, although itcompeted with the neoliberal interventionists. Nevertheless, regardless of whetherit was the neoconservatives or the neoliberals which ultimately gained Obama’s earat any given moment of time, the end result was the same – PNAC’s plans fordestabilizing Syria ultimately came to fruition because all of these strategies were119Weiner B. A PNAC Primer: How We Got Into This Mess. AntiWar.com, 2 June 2003.
Web. 26 January 2017.http://www.antiwar.com/orig/weiner6.html.120Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role. The Middle East Forum, May 2000. Web. 26 January2017. http://www.meforum.org/research/lsg.php.121Mann J. Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet . N.Y.: Penguin Books, 2004, pp. 56-79, 112127, 261-277, 311-332.66used to that end. Above mentioned J. Mann described how eventually democratsmoved to the same mode of behaviour, fusing neorealist and neoliberal ideas 122.The 9/11 terrorist attacks provided the justification for the US’ Global Waron Terror. To adapt to this military reality, a reconceptualization of the Mideastoccurred among the US foreign policy planners.
The ideological and academicbasis for reinventing American strategy lies in the theoretical and neoconservativeworks referenced earlier in the dissertation. It’s noteworthy that many PNACmembers eventually joined the Bush Administration, and they accordingly tooktheir ideas with them into the realm of policy planning. What had at one time beena relatively fringe group of ideologues were all of a sudden placed front and centerin the American “deep state”, thereby giving them the capabilities that they neededto retool the US military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies in accordancewith their vision. This meant in practice that neoconservative thinkers such asRobert Kagan, Richard Haass, and William Kristol became some of the key driversof American strategy in the Middle East.The first significant decision that the 43rd President made which would havedirect consequences for Syria was the promulgation of the so-called “Axis of Evil”during his 2002 State of the Union address123.
The inclusion of Iraq onto this listwas alarming enough for Syrian national security because it indicated that the USwas openly targeting it for regime change and war, something which it wouldeventually deliver on in 2003 on the grounds of fabricated “Weapons of MassDestruction” allegations. A few months after the State of the Union in May 2002,however, the “Axis of Evil” was expanded by then-US Under Secretary of StateJohn Bolton to include Cuba, Libya, and Syria124. Not coincidentally, it was PNACmember J. Bolton, who made the announcement that de-facto placed Syria on theofficial regime change agenda 125.
It is appropriate at this point to recall that some122Mann J. The Obamians. The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine American Power. N.Y.: PenguinBooks, 2012. 416 p.123Bush G. W. Bush State of the Union address. CNN. N.p., 29 Jan. 2002. Web. 10 February.
2018.http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/29/bush.speech.txt/.124US expands 'axis of evil'. BBC, 6 May 2002. Web. 25 January 2018. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1971852.stm.125Ibidem.67PNAC members had signed a statement advocating military force against Syriaafter a forum on the topic in 2000. This shows that the plan of the Syrian operationcan directly be traced back to that point, even if it was not official American policyat the time.Speaking of the expanded Axis of Evil, it serves a certain military-politicalpurpose for decision makers. US Central Command (CENTCOM) is theDepartment of Defense entity tasked with overseeing military operations in part ofthe Greater Mideast (see the map).http://www.centcom.mil/en/about-centcom-enAs can be seen from the above map, the “Axis of Evil” linkage betweenSyria, Iraq, and Iran forms a clear-cut contiguous line perfectly dividingCENTCOM in half.
This means that the US may have found it convenient to targetall three countries for regime change because this would allow its militarycommand (CENTCOM) to multiply its force potential in its highlighted regionaltheatre.When President B. Obama came to the White House there were hopes thatrelations between the United States and Syria will improve.
B. Obama during hiselection campaign end earlier in his first term declared his desire (and promise) tomake the American foreign policy more peaceful becoming the Nobel Prize winner68for his promises126. Though Washington did not like that the Syrian governmentsupported HAMAS and Hezbollah, criticized alleged “violation of human rights”in Syria and “slow democratization”, the countries were interested in cooperationfighting terrorism and preventing further escalation of crisis in Iraq. In 2008-2009there were negotiations at the government level127.Analyzing American policy in the Middle East Russian scholar AndreySushentsov writes that there are three key philosophical directions that influencedthe formation of American foreign policy, namely idealism (ex: pacifism),pragmatism, and radicalism (ex: neoconservatism). Neoconservatives were clearlyin charge of Bush’s race to war with Iraq being the first and only one of the threewhich suffered a conventional military invasion by the US, one which Sushentsovcharacterized as a “small war”.
But A.Sushentsov believes that the US neverthelesshad rational motives, though it lacked a long-term strategy and constantly changedits policy goals throughout the years, to say nothing of between the Bush andObama Administrations 128.A.Sushentsov expands more on the US reasons for invading Iraq and itsshifting objectives there speaking on the conceptual and psychological bases forthis decision129. He says that the United States came to believe that it must “spreaddemocracy” throughout the world, a mission which was to a large degreeinfluenced by neoconservative thought. The 9/11 terrorist attacks had a powerfulpolitical-psychological effect on America and provided a new impulse to“democracy proselytization” under the pretext of fighting terrorists and “terrorstates”.
The US tried to leverage this for international legal and moral-ethicalpurpose in the run-up to its invasion of Iraq, which it claimed was arming terroristswith Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that could target both Israel and theAmerican homeland.Шаклеина Т. А. Россия и США в мировой политике. М.: Аспект Пресс, 2017. С. 120-142.Lesch D.W. The Fall of the House of Assad. - Yale: Yale University Press, 2012, p. 48.128Сушенцов А. А. Малые войны США. М.: Аспект Пресс, 2014.
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