Syria, S400’s, Russia, Israel, and US Failed States

By Steve Brown…

Reports vary about the state of Syria’s air defense, but this is certain:  Syria is under constant attack from Israel, usually from Lebanese air space. In 2015 Syria Invited Russia to assist in its defense versus US-Israeli aggression there, and the western-sponsored insurgency which began in 2011. Since 2015, Russia has provided air defense systems and some ground troops to Syria. We will explore S400 systems in detail, but first, a brief history of the Israeli-Syria war and US failed state-creation as US policy.

History

In 1973 when the Ramadan war was going badly, Golda Meir threatened the Middle East with nuclear destruction via the Samson Option.  https://archive.org/details/Sampson_Option . That’s because a Watergate-embattled regime in Washington stalled on supplying weaponry to Israel, when Israel needed advanced US weapons to maintain Israel’s Third Temple ambitions https://www.jewishvoice.org/read/article/update-building-third-temple. Meir’s ‘Samson Option’ nuclear scare worked. The US supplied much-needed weaponry – especially F4 Phantom aircraft to Israel – to turn the tide of the war. After that, an Agreement on Disengagement was signed in 1974. The agreement led to a cessation of hostilities, but no armistice or peace agreement was ever settled upon between Israel and Syria. So, Syria and Israel have been at war ever since.

Then, subsidized to be a militarist outpost in the Middle East by the US (and aided by division within the Arab world) Israel invaded, occupied, and annexed: Shebaa Farms, West Bank, Golan, and the Jordan Valley* among other areas of Palestine. However by 2011, Israel’s Third Temple and ‘Greater Israel’ ambitions were stalled, so the US Secretary of State (with Israel complicit and the complicity of US-subsidized regimes in Morocco and Tunisia) provoked the Arab Spring in part by leveraging a major global media campaign when Syrian troops opened fire on protestors.  Originally sponsored by the US Security State in collaboration with Israel, the CIA’s participation in the “Arab Spring” plot was revealed when details of CIA Operation Timber Sycamore became public.

The CIA / Israeli regime-change agenda for Syria was a key component of Robert Loewenberg’s 1996 construct, The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.  The IASPS  plan to destabilize the Middle East created a blueprint for failed states, and was called, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm . https://ia902909.us.archive.org/7/items/acleanbreak/A%20Clean%20Break%3A%20A%20New%20Strategy%20for%20Securing%20the%20Realm.pdf The ‘Clean Break’ blueprint for the Middle east was first published in 1996 for Binyamin Netanyahu.**  Here, the US and Israel understood that their Axis could not ‘conquer’ the Arab world, but could divide it, and create failed states in the Middle East, providing an hegemonic and economic advantage to the west.

Failed States

The US State agenda miscalculated however with its ‘Arab Spring’ , regarding the wishes of Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates, being dictatorial monarchies that shun evolutionary or democratic political thought, or democratically-inspired movements from emerging. For example, Egypt’s democratic election of the Muslim Brotherhood was forced from power and made to spectacularly fail by demand of US ally Saudi Arabia and even NATO; not just by its own mis-steps; Morsi was then replaced by a military dictatorship which rules Egypt to this day.

Now, since its defeat in Afghanistan, the US goal in Asia is the same as Brzezinski’s was fifty years ago: to create unrest in Afghanistan to destabilize Russia, China, Pakistan, and Iran. The former United States  economically creates havoc in the Afghan border regions today, by actively funding, arming, and backing the Pakistani Taliban or  (an Afghan Taliban foe) which engages in violent hijinks to provoke the Pakistani government, which has been moving closer to China, to the detriment of Saudi-Pakistan relations. Of course the Russian Federation will views such developments with alarm.  And were Brzezinski alive today he and Robert Loewenberg must agree that Syria, too, has become the perfect trap to ensnare the Russian Federation’s military. (The Russian Federation’s position in Syria is complicated by Turkey, but, most importantly, by the complication of Russian relations with Israel.)

Russia and Israel

Alfa Bank is a large international bank. Israeli-Russian Mikhail Fridman is founder of the Alfa group, and Fridman’s allegiance to Israel is unquestioned. Fridman helped found the Genesis Philanthropy Group, which funds the Genesis Prize, a $1M US prize in recognition of services to Israel. Likewise, Alfa Group is closely allied to the Russian leadership.  Alfa Bank’s operations are underwritten by ABH Holdings Luxembourg to allow for SWIFT transactions, where these transactions occur despite US sanctions on Russia.  According to a financial source, SWIFT banking transactions are ‘validated’ by Israel’s Central Bank, working with SWIFT and the Alfa Group through ABH Holdings of Luxembourg.

Like Israel itself, Luxembourg has long been known as a money laundering capital with a reputation for illicit financial transactions that provide its raison d’etre. (Public details are vague, but some insight may be gained from this 2015-linked Jewish Business News report) In effect, this arrangement regarding the Israeli banking system and ABH Holdings, allows SWIFT transactions to occur, enabling large Russian Federation financial transactions to be made, in order to evade US sanctions.

With the cooperation of Israel and dark money site Luxembourg, the rather corrupt US government — riddled by hypocrisy and duplicity — turns something of a blind eye to sanctions enforcement that might impact the world’s largest and most criminal banks.  As such, the Importance of ‘financial détente’ for the Russian Federation becomes paramount, by allowing the Russian Federation’s larger markets to operate. Without SWIFT, financial disaster for Russia might quickly ensue. In return, Israel’s central bank must cooperate with the Russian leadership to allow their respective financial success. So, where King Dollar is concerned, any threat to Russian-Israeli relations at a political level must by definition pose a precarious financial threat, too.

Ethnic consideration

Beside Russian and East European lineage of Ashkenazim who comprise about one-half the population of Israel, nearly 2 million Jews and their relatives have emigrated from the former USSR to Israel on Aliyah since 1989, called the Oleh Chadash. In 1989, Ex-USSR dissident Sharansky’s book Fear No Evil influenced an Israeli-friendly media in the west, and many dollars flooded to global propaganda networks in support of Israel’s agitprop, as exists to this day. So, there is indeed an historic and incestuous component regarding the link between Israel and Russia.

We’ve established that the US- Israeli goal in Syria is only to create a failed state so that Israel may claim and annex the Syrian territory that Israel occupies.  Accordingly, since Israel is at war with Syria, why would the Russian Federation aid Syria against this western-backed takfiri insurgency? No other words,   why did the Russian leadership accept Syria’s invitation to create a defensive coalition there in 2015, when the Israeli regime opposed it?

Syria

Russia’s historic support for Syria began in the 1970’s, and Russia’s naval base in Tartus does not rely on cooperation from NATO ally Turkey to exist on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. Likewise, Russia has financial interests shared with many nations including Syria, but most of all Russia is likely reluctant to see US-Israeli sponsored takfiri terror states developing in the Middle East, via the US “domino effect” of terror as Washington wishes.  Such exported takfiri terror has taken a toll in the Caucasus region, in Chechnya, and in Russia. As such, Russia may find it more useful to confront US and Saudi-backed Chechen terrorists in Syria, rather than closer to home in the Caucasus region.

After US State’s ‘Arab Spring’ provocation began in 2011, by 2012 Chechen and Georgian terrorist groups such as Katibat Al-Muhajireen began operating in Syria by the thousands. Some were under direction of Umar Al-Shishani more appropriately known as ‘Tarkhan the Rodent’. He is now deceased and another western-backed takfiri from Caucasus Georgia, Murad Iraklievich Margoshvili, also known as “Muslim Al-Shishani” has a straggling militia which has been decimated by nearly ten years of war. He is the last known in command of the Chechen terror group called Junud Al-Sham.  Other Chechen fighters joined the Jabhat Al-Nusra terror militia, now known as Hayat Tahrir al Sham, or HTS. At that time, with an escalating Syrian insurgency largely funded by US State and Saudi Arabia and with support from Israel, the Syrian government asked the Russian Federation for help.

S200’s S300’s S400’s and S500’s

Much popular confusion exists about deployment of S300’s and S400’s in Syria and the Pantsir defenses. The Israeli press claimed that Syria has fired or can fire S300 missiles at its aircraft, and says that the S300’s lack of success in Syria is due to ‘clever’ piloting. Truth is however that Russian S-series air defenses in Syria have been handicapped by programming that prevents the S-series from locking on to Israeli aircraft.  Thus we illustrate that Russo-Israel relations are such that Israeli aircraft may not be targeted, and also, so that a wider war will not result.

In 2018, an Israeli F16 was downed over Northern Israel by an S200 allegedly operated by Syria, although the brigade was located quite close to Hmeimim Air Base, causing speculation that a Russian battery may have downed the warplane. Israel first claimed that a bird hit the jet, then said that the jet was downed due to the pilot’s failure to properly use evasive measures. Of course such Israeli military statements are false, and Israel pressured Russia to ensure that no S-series battery would again be programmed to defend versus Israeli air aggression in Syria.  The point here is to illustrate the ‘special relationship’ that exists between Russia and Israel.

But Turkey has no such qualms about targeting Israeli aircraft bombers, and Turk S300’s in Syria have also been programmed such that they may not target US Israeli F35’s or other Israeli warplanes. [Reports in the western media, incorrect, say that S400’s in Turkey are not operational. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/06/unanswered-israeli-air-strikes-against-syria-raise-s-400-questions/ ] The Pantsir air defense systems in Syria have been programmed to target projectiles however, such as incoming missiles, rockets, and drones. By all accounts such Pantsir functionality has been acceptable, if not perfect.

Recently Turkish militants in al Hasakah fired on Russian helicopters, there allegedly with one S300 battery. https://generico.ru/2021/09/28/turkey-fired-on-russian-helicopters-in-syria/ The attack failed and the Turk paid a dear price.  This incident occurred just prior to Erdogan’s meeting with Russia’s president. And yet the Turk is calling for more S400’s..!   Why?

Since Turkey’s S400 air defenses are useless against aircraft that the defense is not allowed to target – such as Israel’s US IF35 – we can only wonder.  There is not much Turkey can do versus aircraft except perhaps mistakenly target a Russian aircraft, which it did in 2016. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-turkey-jet-idUSKCN0ZD1PR So why is Turkey in the S400 business at all?

We must assume that the Turk predilection for S400’s is largely symbolic… and mainly political. The reason is to pressure the US over its support for the YPG and PKK in the KRG. By leveraging the S400, Turkey can pressure the United States to retreat from its support for SDF and Kurd terror groups in northeastern Syria. This fully explains why Turkey is once again pressuring the US with promises of more s400 purchases.  But so long as the US knows Russia is providing no real support to Turkey for pragmatic use of those air defenses, Washington is less impressed, and only encourages the Turk to behave more like a NATO member.

As for Syria’s use of the S200 S300 and S400’s (and potential deployment of S500’s!) we can only assume that they will be debased by the same limitations, ie that no defense versus Israeli warplanes will be enabled, and only the subsidiary Pantsir anti-projectile, anti-missile and drone defense will be effective versus Israeli aggression.

And so we are reduced to the expectation that some form of advanced weaponry will save us from our oppressors. But the best weaponry and greatest access to their use has always been possessed by those very oppressors. Instead of weapons of war, we should hope for real leaders who truly advocate for peace, statesmanship, freedom of commerce, natural law, and emphasis on production and creativity instead of destruction.

In other words, the goal of civilization is by definition the rule of law and appreciation for peace among men and nations. But by man’s own hand — at least in the west — this civilization is apparently done for. Is that so? 2022 brings us a new year and new hope a brighter one, so let’s hope that past performance is not a harbinger for future lack of success.

 * intends to annex

** Netanyahu supposedly rejected the blueprint; but the IASPS agenda was welcomed wholeheartedly  before 2000, and by the George W Bush regime