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Syria opposition to join peace talks to oust Assad

Saturday, January 18, 2014 15:40

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(Before It's News)

TND Media Context Review: Eric Dubin |

It’s a bit odd that opposition forces would come to “peace talks” with the aim of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The al-Assad government is secure in it’s position. The talks are not going to witness al-Assad stepping down. The exiled umbrella group “National Coalition” is acting somewhat analogous to the Nicaraguan Contra leaders’ visiting the Ronald Reagan White House in the 1980s in an attempt to gain world media legitimization. Ronald Reagan declared that the Contras were the “moral equivalent” of the US Founding Fathers.

Public relations analogies aside, the Contra fighters were largely comprised of Nicaraguan loyalists to the Anastasio Somoza dictatorship overthrown by the Sandinista Revolution — with a few CIA “advisors” tossed into the mix. Whereas the Syrian war theater is attracting external jihadists from the region. The bottom-line: history shows that external forces entering into a domestic conflict typically strengthens the domestic regime’s grip on power. This fact is not lost on European media.

There’s most certainly a healthy and sizable domestic Syrian opposition. They should have a seat at the table. Yet in the case of the Syrian civil war, outsized money, supplies and even jihadists from the region are flooding into Syria, backed by Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Considering this internal (organic) and external (world power manufactured) wellspring behind Syria’s “opposition,” just how should the “National Coalition” opposition umbrella be viewed?

Let’s be clear on how the U.S. frames these talks. As the AFP report below notes, “(U.S. Secretary of State John) Kerry warned the regime it could not divert the peace talks away from the aim of installing a new government.” Come again? Those are the sort of words one would expect from a conquering power organizing post-war settlement talks, not cease-fire and peace negotiations. Bashar al-Assad has not been conquered.

The mainstream media should be asking why the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are meddling in Syrian affairs. By no means is the Bashar al-Assad regime angelic. But let’s not manufacture reality. The fact remains that the majority of the fighting and Syrian civilian deaths have come as a result of international powers escalating the fighting with the Syrian civil war theater.

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Syria opposition to join peace talks to oust Assad (via AFP)

Syria’s deeply divided opposition finally agreed Saturday to join an international peace conference, with the sole aim of removing President Bashar al-Assad from power, a day after Damascus offered concessions. Exiled umbrella group the National Coalition…