How Does the Islamic State Fit Into America’s Syria Master Plan?

Washington is capable of extinguishing the fire of the ongoing Syrian crisis at any moment by shutting down the Turkish-Syrian border and ending Saudi aid to Islamist groups operating in Syria, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer Tony Cartalucci remarks, calling attention to the fact that the US has so far hesitated to do this.

“At any moment, should the US truly be interested in extinguishing this fire, it can shut down the Turkish-Syrian border, end Saudi aid to terrorist groups operating in Syria, and end the conflict in weeks, if not days. That it refuses to do so, illustrates the key role it plays in creating and perpetuating it, and more specifically, the creation and perpetuation of the “Islamic State” itself,” Cartalucci stresses in his article for New Eastern Outlook.

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Since 2007 Washington’s war strategists have been harboring plans aimed at overthrowing the Syrian government through the use of Sunni extremists, more specifically al-Qaeda, the researcher underscored, referring to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s essay entitled “The Redirection.”Proceeding with his narrative, Cartalucci cited a Department of Intelligence Agency (DIA) report drafted in 2012 and published by Judicial Watch, a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation. The researcher stressed that the rise of the Islamic State could have been a part of a premeditated plan for the  “deconstruction” of Syria.

The DIA report contains a number of passages that seem to back up Cartalucci’s narrative.

“If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran),” reads the report.

To clarify just who these ‘supporting powers’ were that sought the creation of a ‘Salafist principality,’ “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime,” the report continues.

“[The] major forces driving the insurgency in Syria [are] the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI,” the report states, which contradicts the Obama administration’s public position on the conflict.

Referring to the neoconservative influential Brookings Institution’s reports, Cartalucci noted that US strategists have considered the possible “deconstruction” and balkanization of Syria through establishing so-called “safe” or “buffer” zones.”The idea would be to help moderate elements establish reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able. American, as well as Saudi and Turkish and British and Jordanian and other Arab forces would act in support, not only from the air but eventually on the ground via the presence of special forces as well,” the June 2015 Brookings document states.

Russia’s military involvement has clearly upset Washington’s applecart.

Cartalucci noted that, in response, the US policymakers “have openly conspired to commit to strategies not aimed at actually fighting ISIS [ISIL] or ending the destructive conflict in Syria they themselves have started, but instead to counter Russia’s attempts to do so, merely under the guise of fighting ISIS, or helping refugees, or virtually any excuse they believe the public might support.”

The researcher suggested that Obama’s “boots on the ground” in Syria could be involved in backing US-trained and armed terrorists in order to take and hold Syrian territories. By fragmentizing Syria, US strategists seek to destroy it as a functioning nation-state ruled by the Assad government.

In order to undermine the plan, “Syria and Russia should seek the expansion of their coalition inside Syria, and in particular, in the regions the US seeks to carve out,” Cartalucci noted.

According to the researcher, Russia and Syria should rush to expand their operations across the Syrian territory faster “than the US can spread chaos.”

He who hesitates is lost: undoubtedly Washington will continue to beef up its presence in Syria, he remarked.

“Calling the arsonists out, and removing them before the fire irreversibly takes over the entire structure that is the current nation-state of Syria, may be the only way to prevent Syria from becoming the Levant’s ‘Libya’,” the researcher emphasized.