Destroying Arabs to reach the Russians and Chinese
A statement by the late American Senator, John McCain from 2011 Halifax International Security Forum showed that the US viewed countries affected by the Arab Spring as the periphery of Russia's and China's interests, by stating that the Arab Spring was a virus that would attack Moscow and Beijing. Therefore, the crises in the Middle East then constituted the US (and NATO) attacking Russia and China from the periphery, heading to the core. Noteworthy, Wesley Clark had revealed Washington's plan from 1991 to destroy all soviet allies before the next superpower arose. Noteworthy, Russia and China are geographically, technologically, and militarily placed to become superpowers.
Therefore, they must have been in Washington's crosshairs, making the Arab Spring a NATO's preemptive action to curtail the rise of Eurasian powers using rioters, militants, and terrorists as NATO's proxies. However, this plan has failed to materialize since. While Ukraine's EuroMaidan Coup of 2014 and the resulting Ukraine-Russia conflict constituted an ideological and even military march on Moscow, it only reached Donbas, before being beaten back after February 2022. To further link the Ukraine and Syrian wars, even the latter, which began in 2011, remained frozen from 2022, when NATO hoped to achieve some positive results by attacking Russia's core using Ukrainian proxy. However, Ukraine is on its back foot in all fronts and NATO's leeway for escalation is narrowing.
McCain's Arab Spring 'virus' setback 13 years
McCain's Arab Spring 'virus' seems to have summersaulted back to Syria, on 27th November 2024, when terrorists attacked the Syrian army and its Russian, and Iranian allies. This attack, which Ukrainian security services participated in, meant that initiators of both conflicts have been set back from their achievements in Ukraine (in 2024) to Syria (in 2011). Frustration began setting in earlier, which resulted in Joe Biden's allowing Ukraine to attack Russian territory using American long-range missiles, a decision that was echoed by France and the UK, and was thought to be a 'game changer'. However, Ukraine's use of these missiles as directed by Biden elicited a stern warning through Russia's launch of a new hypersonic Oreshnik Missile, on 21st November 2024. The West has no defense against this missile. Oreshnik was a game changer, which may have sobered NATO, reminding it that attacking Russia's core will be costly, and may have promoted the West's warmongering group to scale back to Syria, only 6 days later.
The West's return to the Syrian conflict constitutes a shift to lower-risk, lower-return attacks on peripheries of Russian interest, as can be inferred from the 2019 Rand Corporation report, Overextending and Unbalancing Russia, which listed courses of actions designed for its stated purposes. The report's first option was Giving Ukraine Lethal Weapons, and the second was Arming Syrian Rebels (terrorists). The former action was assessed as having moderate likelihood of extending Russia, and with high benefits, while the latter had low likelihood, and moderate benefits. Other actions with lower chances of success and equally lower benefits included liberalizing Belarus, and expanding ties with southern caucuses which have either failed or are faltering. Therefore, the US seems to have lost a stronger option, and is resulting to a weaker one by activating the Syrian terrorists through proxy.
The Israeli and other proxies
The latest flare-up of the Syrian war is beyond what Israel or the local situation can create without NATO's help, despite being displayed by the western media as such. While it began on 27th November, the first day of the Israeli-Hezbollah ceasefire, and that it is conveniently labeled as Israel's attempt to disrupt Hezbollah's link to Iran, this view is weak and diversionary. Israel, which could not even call a ceasefire, could not assemble and coordinate the large number of terrorists that swept across Syria's Aleppo and Hama. Therefore, both the ceasefire and terrorists' rampage in Syria must have been called from Washington, with Biden and Netanyahu playing good-cop-bad-cop.
Washington tries to acts as a sober player but may be unsuccessful in concealing that it supports the rabid Israeli military, rioters, rebels, and terrorists. Interestingly, the Rand Corporation report mentioned earlier described how strengthening Syrian rebels (products of the Arab Spring) is in the American's interest, revealing a connection between both. Likewise, McCain's statement on the same matter confirmed that Syrian (and other Arab rebels) were and still are Washington's tools. Both Washington and Ankara enriches these groups with Central Asian and Turkic mercenaries, while simultaneously preparing them for deployment against Moscow and Beijing respectively, to achieve American's known policy of destroying former soviet allies and preventing the rise of other powerful countries. Russia has been particularly tempting for McCain and his club that cannot resist stealing other peoples' oil and gas.
Downscaling anti-Russian war from the core to the periphery, and consolation oil
The West's reactivation of the Syrian War which began as the Arab Spring reflects a downgrading of the West's attack on Russia's interest from the core to the periphery, reflecting a setback to at least 2011. NATO is hence reviving failed policies such as the Syrian and Georgia wars, which have lower chances of success. It is dawning on Washington's Establishment, for which McCain worked, that NATO's plan to escalate through Ukrainian can invite a devastating response using Oreshnik and other systems. Therefore, attempts to destabilize Russia and China through the Arab Spring process have clearly failed since the virus has not attacked Moscow or Beijing 13 years later, but seems to have fallen back to Syria. The closest that the Arab Spring style invasion came to reaching Moscow was in Donbas between 2014 and 2022, but the scourge has been progressively pushed back over the last two years.
In addition to fixation on destroying current and potential great powers, Washington' establishment's and McCain have obsessive attraction for Russia's oil, a factor that informed the creation of the Arab Spring virus strain suitable for Moscow. Noteworthy, countries invaded by the US and its vassals, including through the Arab Spring, were oil-rich. Additionally, The incoming US president, Donald Trump openly declared that the US military remained in Syria to keep oil, while McCain labeled Russia as a gas station masquerading as a country, a justification for plunder that stem from the notion that other countries cannot manage their resources well, and that Washington should take these assets.
While the oil that NATO stole from Iraq, Syria, and Libya helped the US and European citizens, it deprived citizens of victim countries, which is criminal. The West's narrative must not be used to justify theft. Washington and its allies have been unable to reach Russia's oil and will only have Syria's as a consolation. Russia and China should also defend their allies comprehensively, to prevent them from being used by the west to breed threats.
About the Author:
Simon Chege Ndiritu is a political observer and research analyst from Africa.
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