Although the armed clashes are not completely over in the embattled district of Homs and that the Syrian and Lebanese authorities have yet to inform public opinion of their recent actions, Thierry Meyssan appeared Monday night on the leading Russian television channel to make an initial assessment of the operations, giving first-hand information which he is sharing with the readers of Voltaire Network.

 
by Thierry Meyssan, Damascus
Voltaire Network
14 February 2012
 

For eleven months, the Western powers and the Gulf States have lead a campaign to destabilize Syria. Several thousand mercenaries infiltrated the country. Recruited by agencies in Saudi Arabia and Qatar within the Sunni extremist community, they came to overthrow the “usurper Alawite” Bashar al-Assad and impose a Wahhabi-inspired dictatorship. They have at their disposal the most sophisticated military equipment, including night vision systems, communication centers, and robots for urban warfare. Supported secretly by the NATO powers, they also have access to vital military information, including satellite images of Syrian troop movements, and telephone interceptions.

This has been falsely portrayed to the Western public as a political revolution crushed in blood by a ruthless dictatorship. Of course, this lie is not universally accepted. Russia, China and the Latin American and Caribbean member states of ALBA repudiate it. Each has a historical background that allows them to quickly grasp what is at stake. The Russians are thinking of Chechnya, the Chinese of Xinkiang, and the Americans of Cuba and Nicaragua. In all these cases, beyond ideological or religious appearances, the methods of destabilization by the CIA were the same.
 



Group of Syrian government opponents, belonging to the hotchpotch commonly known as “Free Syrian Army.”
 
The strangest thing about this situation is to observe the Western media deluding themselves that the Salafists, Wahhabis and Al-Qaeda fighters are motivated by democratic principles, while they continue to demand on Saudi and Qatari satellite channels the head of the Alawi heretics and the Arab League observers. What difference does it make if Abdel Hakim Belhaj (number 2 Al Qaeda and current military governor of Tripoli, Libya) came personally to install his men in northern Syria, and Ayman Al-Zawahiri (current leader of al Qaeda since the official death of Osama bin Laden) has called for a jihad in Syria: the Western press pursues its romantic dream of liberal revolution.

Even more ridiculous is to hear the Western media slavishly disseminating the daily dispatches put out by the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood ranting about the crimes of the regime and its victims, under the signature of the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. And besides, since when has this Brotherhood of putchists been interested in human rights?
 



Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s number one following the official death of Osama Bin Laden, reiterated his call for hijad to overthrow the Baasist regime in Syria.
 
All it took to turn “terrorists” into “democrats” was for Western secret services to arrange for the puppet “Syrian National Council” to enter the scene, with a Sorbonne professor as President and as spokesperson the mistress of the former head of the DGSE. In a sleight of hand, the lie has became a media reality. Those abducted, mutilated and murdered by the Wahhabi Legion are transformed by the press as victims of the tyrant. Conscripts of all faiths who are defending their country against aggression are painted as sectarian Alawite soldiers oppressing their people. The destabilization of Syria by foreigners are treated as one more episode of the “Arab Spring.” The emir of Qatar and the Saudi king, two absolute monarchs who have never held national elections in their countries and incarcerate protesters have become the champions of revolution and democracy. France, the United Kingdom and the United States, who just killed 160,000 Libyans in violation of the mandate they received from the Security Council, have turned into philanthropists responsible for the protection of civilian populations. Etc..

However, the low intensity war that the Western press and the Gulf have hidden behind this masquerade came to an end with the double veto by Russia and China on 4 February 2012. NATO and its allies were ordered to cease fire and withdraw, at the risk of sparking a war on a regional, or even global, scale.
 



Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with Russian Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov on 7 February in Damascus.
 
On 7 February, a large Russian delegation, including the highest ranking foreign intelligence officials, arrived in Damascus where it was greeted by cheering crowds, knowing that Russia’s return to the international scene marked the end of their nightmare. The capital, but also Aleppo, the second largest city, were decked out in white, blue, red, and people marched behind banners written in Cyrillic. At the presidential palace, the Russian delegation joined those of other states, including Turkey, Iran and Lebanon. A series of agreements were reached to re-establish peace. Syria has returned 49 military instructors captured by the Syrian army. Turkey intervened to obtain the release of the abducted Iranian engineers and pilgrims, including those held by the French (incidentally, Lieutenant Tlass who sequestered them on behalf of the DGSE was liquidated). Turkey has ceased all support for the “Free Syrian Army”, closed down its facilities (except the one on the NATO base at Incirlik), and turned over its commander, Colonel Riad el-Assad. Russia, which is the guarantor of the agreements has been allowed to reactivate the former Soviet listening base on Mount Qassioum.

The next day, the US State Department informed the Syrian opposition in exile that it could no longer count on any military aid. Realizing that they have betrayed their country to no avail, the Syrian National Council members went in search of new sponsors. One of them even went so far as to write to Benjamin Netanyahu asking him to invade Syria.
 



Deployment of the Lebanese army during its operation in the north of the country.
 
After a period of two days required for the implementation of the agreements, not only the national armies of Syria, but also from Lebanon, stormed the bases of the Wahhabi Legion. In northern Lebanon, a massive arsenal was seized in the town of Tripoli and four officers were taken prisoner in Akkar, in a school abandoned by UNRWA and transformed into a military HQ. In Syria, General Assef Shawkat in person commanded the operations. At least 1,500 fighters were captured, including a French colonel of the DGSE technical communication services, and more than a thousand people were killed. At this stage it is not possible to determine how many among the victims are foreign mercenaries, how many are Syrians cooperating with foreign forces, and how many are civilians trapped in the embattled city.

Lebanon and Syria have restored their sovereignty over their entire territory.

Intellectuals debated whether Vladimir Putin did not err in protecting Syria at the cost of a diplomatic crisis with the United States. The question is wrongly put. Having reconstituted its forces for years and asserting itself on the international stage today, Moscow has put an end to two decades of a unipolar world order, enabling Washington to expand its hegemony to achieve global domination. The choice was not whether to ally with tiny Syria or the powerful United States, but whether to allow the first world power to destroy one more government or upset the balance of power and create a more just international order in which Russia has a say.