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272 c.129Сушенцов А. А. Очерки политики США в региональных конфликтах 2000-х годов. М.: НОФМО, 2014.234 c.12612769As for the psychological reasons, A. Sushentsov says that the decision wasalready made in early 2002 and that the Bush Administration began to frameeverything in a binary “good vs. evil” approach in order to appeal to its domesticand international audiences’ emotions in cultivating support for the impendingwar.
President Bush delegated a lot of responsibility to his Cabinet. Of thoseindividuals, Bush was closest to R.Cheney, who took the lead in making decisionsabout Iraq and which provided the neoconservative gateway to other likemindedthinkers like P.Wolfowitz who had been plotting this campaign for years already.A.Sushentsov describes the evolution of American priorities during the IraqWar, which, he writes, included the transition from regime change for “antiterrorist” reasons to “nation-building” for supposedly democratic ones.
As for themore specific ones inherent with each of the two, he remarks that they were largelydetermined at times by internal partisan politics, thus explaining their constantlychanging goalposts. The Republican strategy switched from a War on Terror to a“War on Tyranny”, as Sushentsov puts it, which itself gave rise to the “nationbuilding” task under Paul Bremer and later the tactical partnership of the ObamaAdministration after it announced its withdrawal for what could be argued weremostly domestic political reasons related to fulfilling a campaign pledge.The same shifting goals will later be observed in the War on Syria, provingSushentsov’s point that the US is regularly changing its objectives after initiating aconflict, regardless of whether it’s a conventional or unconventional one.Interestingly, in the case of Syria was different: the initial motivations were tocarry out regime change, and only afterwards once Daesh began to become aregional and later on a global problem did the US change its motivation to fightingterrorism, or at least “officially”.
A comparison of the US original reasons forconventionally invading Iraq and unconventionally supporting regime changeelements in Syria results in the curious observation that they ultimately ended uppursuing the opposite of one another’s initial objectives, namely the “anti-terror”war in Iraq turned into “democracy promotion” just like the “democracypromotion” one in Syria eventually morphed into an “anti-terrorist” campaign.70Nevertheless, there were more motivations for each war than the US publiclyadmitted at each time, but the conclusion is still thought-provoking, especiallysince these two states are neighbors.Famed American military leader, the commander who oversaw the War onYugoslavia, and the former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO GeneralWesley Clark published his memoirs in 2007130.
He recounts shocking details thatprove that the US decided to implement regime change against a plethora ofMuslim governments in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, likely indicating thatthey had been plotted long before that. W.Clark recalls how two weeks after 9/11,a “senior general” told him: “We’re going to attack Iraq. The decision has basicallybeen made”. He wrote that this same general told him six weeks later: “Here’s thepaper from the Office of the Secretary of Defense [then Donald Rumsfeld]outlining the strategy.
We’re going to take out seven countries in five years. Andhe named them, starting with Iraq and Syria and ending with Iran”131. Thisconfirms that the American government’s decision to illegally topple the legitimateSyrian leadership was long in the making, stretching back to at least this point oftime in October 2001. It also lends enormous factual credence to the author’sprevious assertion that one of the mainstays of US policy towards the Mideast hasalways been the destabilization of Syria, whether back in 1957 or in 2011.Investigative and award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh put everythingtogether and accurately revealed the making of the “Arab Spring” by documentingeverything that the US was doing to foment sectarian strife in the region and“advance democracy”.
He outlined the Bush Administration’s revised (or“redirected”) Mideast strategy culled from a wide variety of sources, summarizingthat the US was already engaged in operations against Syria as a proxy towardsweakening Iran’s regional influence. He asserted that the Muslim Brotherhood wasto be used as a lever of destabilization and that the Saudis would provide financing130Clark W. A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor and Country.
N.Y.: St Martin's Press. 2007. 231 p.Conason J. Seven countries in five years. Salon Media Group, Inc., 12 Oct. 2007. Web. 26 January 2018.http://www.salon.com/2007/10/12/wesley_clark/.13171and logistics132. All of this has since then transpired as fact, proving that US regimechange operations against Syria began their active phase before it could be clearlyseen and explained. According to Hersh, the US was closely cooperating withSaudi Arabia – particularly through their shared contact point of Prince Bandar, thethen-National Security Advisor to the Kingdom and Riyadh’s former decades-longAmbassador to the US – in order to resist what they believed was the spread ofIranian influence in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.
Their proactive and covert jointmeasures to undermine the rise of a prospective American regional rival seemed tobe directly influenced by the strategic tenets laid out in the Wolfowitz Doctrinewhich was a combination of Constructivism means (identity/sectarian conflict) topromote Neorealist ends (geopolitical dividends) under the cover of Neoliberal(“democracy”, “values”) rhetoric.The US had already taken part in clandestine operations against Syria on thepretext that the Arab Republic was “destabilizing” the region through its “support”for “terrorists” fighting against American occupation of Iraq. A by-product of [thecovert operations against Iran and Syria] had been the bolstering of Sunniextremist groups that espoused a militant vision of Islam and were hostile toAmerica and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
These Al Qaeda-aligned groups wereactually the forerunners of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, and the US did nothing to discouragethem from committing terrorism. The roots of the “Arab Spring” began with Bush,not Obama, but took years for the CIA’s covert destabilization activities to finallydevelop to the point of a triggering a series of theater-wide Color Revolutions oncommand. It’s important to understand the fact that the “Arab Spring” was not aspontaneous “democratic revolution”, but a long-planned plot to overthrow a seriesof governments in the Mideast. When the initial plan failed, as it did in Syria, thevanguard of the Color Revolution movement transitioned their regime changeefforts into fighting an Unconventional War, with this phased process being132Hersh S.
The Redirection. The New Yorker, 5 Mar. 2007. Web.http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all.10February2018.72referred to as Hybrid War133. Out of this Hybrid War emerged Daesh, the mostdangerous terrorist group in human history, but it too wasn’t a spontaneousmanifestation and it’ll later be proven how a declassified document from theDefense Intelligence Agency proves that the US government not only knew thatthis sort of threat was forming in northeast Syria, but encouraged it as a beneficialdevelopment which could tip the scales of war against Damascus and thereforepromote regime change much more swiftly 134.Syria was a special case for the United States.
Bashar Assad came to powerin 2000 after death of his father Hafez Assad who was in office since 1971. Syriawas a country with a well-developed highly centralized political system whichexerted strong influence over all spheres of social, economic and political life ofthe country135.B. Assad was well incorporated into political, military andeconomic elites.
They considered him as a representative of a new generation ofleaders who will keep old privileges and will be able to rule the country in the newinternational situation. B. Assad got his education in London, and many people inSyria and in the West hoped that he will bring reforms in the country. He wasviewed in the country as “the hope” for Syria 136. In his first inauguration speech hespoke about the necessity of social and economic reforms 137.
By 2003 Assadchanged 75% of political, military leaders and administrative staff, local and MassMedia leaders 138. New generation of people, many of them got education in theWest, came to power structures and guarantied support to Assad 139.President Assad began reforms in 2000 but he had to stop them in fear ofinadvertently destabilizing the state if they proceeded too fast and were left133Korybko A. Hybrid Wars: The Indirect Adaptive Approach to Regime Change.
Moscow: People's FriendshipUniversity, 2015. 157 p.134Department Of Defense Information Report.Judicial Watch. 12 Aug. 2012. Web. 15 January 2018.http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf.135Perthes V. Syria under Bashar al-Asad: modernization and the limits of change.
Oxford: Oxford University Press,2004, p. 28.136Leverett F. Inheriting Syria: Bashar’s trial by fire. Washington: The Brookings Institution, 2005, p. 57.137President Assad 2000 inauguration speech (July 17, 2000). Web. 15 January 2018.http://www.presidentassad.net/SPEECHES/BASHAR_ASSAD_2000_INAUGURATION_SPEECH.htm.138Perthes V. Syria under Bashar al-Asad: modernization and the limits of change. Oxford: Oxford University Press,2004, p. 95.139Lesch D.W.
The fall of the house of Assad. Yale: Yale University Press, 2012, p. 87.73unchecked, and further growth of dangerous opposition movement. However therewere some results of the reforms: it was allowed to open private banks, moreliberal rules and laws for investments and cooperation with foreign countries wereintroduced, free trade zone was established, it was allowed to sell some foreignproducts, tourism was developing, etc. Mass media were given more freedom,struggle with corruption started (though not successful).
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