{"id":108958,"date":"2018-04-09T12:01:08","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T11:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=108958"},"modified":"2018-04-08T08:59:26","modified_gmt":"2018-04-08T07:59:26","slug":"us-isnt-leaving-syria-but-media-lost-it-when-possibility-was-raised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/04\/us-isnt-leaving-syria-but-media-lost-it-when-possibility-was-raised\/","title":{"rendered":"US Isn\u2019t Leaving Syria\u2014but Media Lost It When Possibility Was Raised"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Washington Post photo<\/p><\/div>\n

6 Apr 2018 – <\/em>At a rally in Cleveland last week, President Donald Trump said that the US will get out of Syria \u201cvery soon.\u201d It is now clear that the 4,000 US troops currently occupying Syria (Washington Post<\/strong>, 10\/31\/17<\/a>) will in fact stay in Syria (Independent<\/strong>, 4\/4\/18<\/a>), even though keeping troops in another country in defiance of that country\u2019s government is a violation of international law<\/a>. Yet the very possibility of US withdrawal from Syria rendered apoplectic journalists who are convinced of the legitimacy of Washington\u2019s domination of the country\u2014international law be damned.<\/p>\n

Some writers want America to occupy Syria to weaken Russia. In the Washington Post <\/strong>(3\/30\/18<\/a>), Josh Rogin claimed that \u201cthere are a lot of good arguments for maintaining an American presence in Syria after the fall of the Islamic State,\u201d but stressed that the \u201clarger US mission in Syria\u201d was necessary for \u201cstopping Russia from exerting influence over the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The White House made clear that Trump\u2019s talk of pulling out of Syria was just talk (Independent, 4\/4\/18)\u2013but not before numerous media figures expressed alarm that the illegal occupation might end.<\/p><\/div>\n

Michael Gerson, writing in the same paper (4\/2\/18<\/a>), was concerned that a US departure \u201cwould leave Russia as the undisputed power broker at the heart of the Middle East,\u201d a dubious claim in a region that includes Saudi Arabia (whose military budget by some counts<\/a> exceeds Russia\u2019s) as well as nuclear-armed Israel, both close US allies.<\/p>\n

CNN<\/strong> ran two articles that made the same point about Russia, with Dan Merica and Jim Acosta (3\/30\/18<\/a>) writing \u201cTrump Promise to Get Out of Syria \u2018Very Soon\u2019 Could Be a Win for Russia,\u201d and Zachary Cohen and Ryan Browne (3\/31\/18<\/a>) telling readers \u201cthat most foreign policy experts agree that\u201d the void left by US forces in the event of a withdrawal \u201cwould likely be filled by Russia.\u201d The Syrian government\u2019s alliance with Russia supposedly justifies Washington\u2019s occupying Syria, in defiance of international law. Partnership with Russia is unacceptable; only submission to the US is permissible.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Gerson fretted, a US pull out \u201cwould cede [Syrian] oil fields under the control of US-allied forces,\u201d an intolerable outcome if one accepts that the US is the rightful owner of other countries\u2019 resources.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

\u201cThe United States and its partners control almost all of the oil\u201d in Syria, writes the Washington Post (3\/30\/18). \u201cAnd if the United States leaves, that oil will likely fall into the hands of Iran.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

Rogin worried that \u201cif the United States leaves, [Syria\u2019s] oil will likely fall into the hands of Iran.\u201d What he described is the possibility that the Syrian and Iranian alliance could lead to an arrangement wherein Iranians have access to some amount of Syria\u2019s oil, the type of agreement between states that exists the world over. The prospect of two states in the Global South working together in this fashion alarms Rogin, who therefore calls for America to maintain control over Syrian oil. He said Trump should<\/p>\n

remember that he has constantly complained that in Iraq, \u201cWe should have kept the oil.\u201d Of course, we can\u2019t and shouldn\u2019t take or keep Syria\u2019s oil. But there\u2019s a grain of truth in Trump\u2019s idea. Control over oil is the only influence we have in Syria today.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently Iran has no right to make use of Syria\u2019s oil, even if the Syrian government agrees to that, but the US has a right to \u201ccontrol\u201d Syria\u2019s oil irrespective of the wishes of Syrians.<\/p>\n

Several reporters argued that the US should continue an illegal military occupation of Syria as a cudgel against Iran. Rogin said that American forces should stay in Syria to guard against \u201cIranian expansionism,\u201d without explaining what he means by \u201cexpansionism\u201d or offering any evidence that it\u2019s taking place. Gerson, similarly, contended that taking US troops out of Syria \u201cwould reward Iran\u2019s search for regional hegemony,\u201d and would amount to \u201csurrender[ing] Syria to Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rogin continued:<\/p>\n

In May, Trump is expected to pull the United States out of the Iran deal, meaning that he will reimpose US sanctions on Iranian oil. It would be profoundly counterproductive to hand Iran control over a swath of Syria that contains huge amounts of oil at the exact same time.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cohen and Browne likewise suggested that Syria should continue to serve America\u2019s proxy war against Iran, writing,<\/p>\n

If the US were to leave its base located at the At Tanf garrison in southeastern Syria, Iran would be able to secure its overland route from Damascus to Tehran, further securing its regional influence.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Such approaches devalue the lives of Syrians, who are cast not as humans with intrinsic value and rights to self-determination and self-governance, but as pieces on a geopolitical chessboard that America can use as it sees fit to try to outmaneuver Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

CNN (3\/30\/18) warned US withdrawal from Syria could help the Russians by \u201cmak[ing] their job of combating forces hostile to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad considerably easier.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

Another common theme in reporting was the idea that US forces need to stay in Syria to keep the war in that country from getting worse. Rogin claimed that the US military presence in Syria is about \u201cpreventing a new refugee crisis.\u201d Gerson declared that \u201cthe immediate result of an American withdrawal would be a major escalation of the conflict in eastern Syria.\u201d Cohen and Browne said that the possibility of American forces leaving Syria<\/p>\n

is raising concerns among some national security officials who warn that withdrawing now would not only undermine American credibility in the region but prompt a significant escalation to an already devastating conflict.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the US military exists to fight wars. It is the most heavily armed, most violent organization in the world. Saying that it should continue to occupy Syria is a way of saying that the war in that country should continue. In fact, it\u2019s a call for escalation of that war, because eventually the Syrian government will want to reclaim the portion of its country America controls, and that will mean a military confrontation with the US. The US has already killed fighters allied with the Syrian government who the US claimed were trying to take back land from the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (Reuters<\/strong>, 2\/7\/18<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Underlying all of these positions is the assumption that the United States has the right to determine Syria\u2019s future. Merica and Acosta explicitly worried that removing US troops from Syria would interfere with regime change efforts: \u201cA US withdrawal would make [Russia\u2019s] job of combating forces hostile to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad considerably easier.\u201d Cohen and Browne were troubled that \u201cthe Syrian regime could also benefit from the economic advantages of seizing oilfields currently controlled by US-backed allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to this perspective, US allies are entitled to Syrian oil, while it\u2019s a frightening possibility that the Syrian government might use Syrian resources to strengthen the Syrian economy, which has been ravaged by war and Western sanctions, with profound effects on the Syrian population.<\/p>\n

Rogin says that \u201cfighting extremism\u201d is one purpose of America\u2019s presence in Syria, and Cohen and Browne warn that \u201ca US withdrawal could help ISIS\u201d\u2014despite the fact that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and US policies throughout the Syrian war were central to the birth and proliferation of ISIS and comparable organizations (Extra!<\/strong>, 11\/14<\/a>; Jacobin<\/strong>, 3\/29\/16<\/a>; Newsweek<\/strong>, 12\/14\/17<\/a>).<\/p>\n

That Syrians might not want to be occupied by the US is never considered in any of these articles, such is the extent of the authors\u2019 imperial hubris.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Gregory Shupak teaches media studies at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto. His book,<\/em> The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, is published by OR Books.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 Apr 2018 – The very possibility of US withdrawal from Syria rendered apoplectic journalists who are convinced of the legitimacy of Washington\u2019s domination of the country\u2014international law be damned. Some writers want America to occupy Syria to weaken Russia. In the Washington Post, Josh Rogin claimed that \u201cthere are a lot of good arguments for maintaining an American presence in Syria after the fall of the Islamic State.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}