Something is Happening in Damascus

by Farid Ghadry

The events of the last 24 hours in Syria leads me to believe that there is something big that just happened beyond what we read in the news.

Yesterday, the Russians sent special military units into Syria and an oil tanker dropped anchor in Tartus port with support from a Russian Equator reconnaissance ship off the Syrian coast. All under the pretext their mission is to protect the Russian cadre of diplomats and nationals. Some 200,000 Russians make Syria their home. However, in the history of the Middle East, Russians have never dispatched special forces to any country to protect their own.

Oil? Reconnaissance? Russian special forces? There is more to this story than the public cover.

Parallel to the Russian invasion, the threats of both WMD and the large arsenal of missiles the Russians and the Iranians have equipped Assad with is a high concern issue for the international community. Not just because these may fall in the wrong hands but also because Assad is imbalanced enough to think of launching them. If Assad‘s brother Majd died of mental illness, that vein exists in every Assad who is descendent of Suleiman, father to Hafez, Rifaat, and Jamil.

Further, the Mazzeh battle yesterday between the Assad loyalists and the rebellious Syrians fighting for life and liberty has had an impact on the psyche of Assad, especially in light of major attacks on the Air Force Intelligence buildings two days earlier in Aleppo; this makes the WMD concerns legitimate enough for covert operations against his rule.

As of yesterday, fighting could erupt anyplace, anytime and no area is safe in Syria. In my book, this qualifies as a full blown-out civil war.

The Russian equation backing Assad so conclusively and overtly has never been witnessed before in the region; even during the height of the Cold War when the US and the Soviets were battling each other through Arab-Israeli wars. The vacuum left behind by a hurried US exiting the region and implementing an Erdogan caretaker policy provides the Russians with an opportunity to stick it to the Americans and to re-emerge as a powerhouse through a full-throttled support of Assad. The ultimate price would be levied by the Syrian people dying while waiting for help and the Israelis sensing Obama has abandoned them to the radical wolves of the region.

Whoever gave Obama this idea of outsourcing US interests to Erdogan should appear in front of Congress to explain himself.

With all these events taking place so suddenly, would it be safe to assume that something extremely important has just happened in Damascus? What if a failed military coup prompted the Russians to back Assad and Iran’s heavy infiltration with added reinforcements? What if these special counter-terrorism forces have entered Syria to protect Assad from putsches?

Since when Russia cares about its people to send special forces to protect them? Russian Spetsnaz forces, under Putin, chemically gazed the Chechnyan terrorists with their hostages in the 2002 Nord-Ost siege of the Dubrovka theater killing four times the number of hostages than the number of terrorists. This on top of a Stalinist history that recorded 40 million Soviets killed by his regime of terror.

Something is really up in Damascus and If I have to make a bet, it must be regime supporters flipping against their boss. Who would not after reading their emails?

Farid Ghadry

Source: http://ghadry.com/2012/03/20/something-is-happening-in-damascus/

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