Vol. 77/No. 35      October 7, 2013

There are currently five U.S. destroyers positioned near Syria — each capable of launching 90 Tomahawk cruise missiles — along with the USS San Antonio amphibious landing vessel capable of landing 6,000 troops.

Reports in the bourgeois press drew attention to the Navy’s Aug. 28 announcement on deployment of the USS Stout to Syria, ostensibly in response to the Aug. 21 sarin gas attack that killed 1,400 in a Damascus suburb. But naval records show the guided missile destroyer departed for the area from Norfolk, Va., Aug. 18, according to GlobalResearch. And the USS Ramage left Norfolk for the Syrian coast Aug. 13, joining three other destroyers in the Mediterranean. The deployment of the USS San Antonio is more recent. The vessel, along with hundreds of Marines and several attack helicopters, joined the five destroyers “in place for possible missile strikes on Syria,” an anonymous defense official told GlobalResearch Sept. 1. French, British and Russian naval forces have also been deployed to the region.

Meanwhile, the Assad regime continues to unleash murderous assaults on workers and farmers in an effort to deal body blows to both the bourgeois opposition and workers and farmers resisting his rule. In the two-and-a-half-year-long civil war, some 100,000 Syrians have been killed, with 6 million now made refugees, including 2 million forced to flee the country.

On Sept. 21, for example, Syrian army forces assaulted the village of Sheikh Hadid, a Sunni Muslim village near Hama, killing 15, including two children, reported Reuters.

While the majority of the U.S. ruling class appears to have accepted the “diplomatic” course of the Barack Obama administration toward Syria for now, opposition and concern in U.S. ruling circles with how the situation has been handled runs deep. After first announcing his intention to carry out a military strike — albeit a ‘limited’ one — against Assad, Obama backtracked, saying the U.S. military would take no action against Syria without congressional approval and support from Washington’s allies. Secretary of State John Kerry suggested in “off the cuff” comments Sept. 9 that a deal on chemical weapons could avoid it altogether.

All this set up a period of inaction on the part of Washington, putting the initiative in the hands of Moscow for negotiations that provided Damascus with needed time and space, and, in the eyes of the top U.S. ruling capitalist families, made the U.S. government appear irresolute and weak.

In an unprecedented event Sept. 17, two former Obama administration defense secretaries, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, came together to criticize his Syria policy at a forum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “When the president of the United States draws a red line, the credibility of this country is dependent on him backing up his word,” said Panetta, who was also former White House chief of staff under William Clinton. Iran is “paying very close attention,” he added, “and what they are seeing right now is an element of weakness.”

The diplomatic maneuverings between Washington and Moscow over a deal on disposition of Syria’s chemicals weapons unfold as evidence presented by U.N. inspectors point to the Assad government’s responsibility for the Aug. 21 gas attack and against the backdrop of the U.N. General Assembly’s opening session in New York.

On Sept. 24, President Barack Obama told the U.N. that the Security Council should act to enforce Syria’s dismantling of its chemical weapons, a step opposed by Moscow, Assad’s longtime ally. According to the New York Times, Assad met a first deadline by submitting on Sept. 19 a secret list claiming to detail the amount and locations of Syria’s chemical weapons. There are widespread reports that the regime has moved parts of its toxic chemical caches to new, undisclosed locations.

Russia, Syria and Iran are determined to keep the Assad regime in power. Washington and its imperialist allies seek to install a new regime, without Assad, but also without either strengthening al-Qaeda forces or emboldening workers and farmers to assert their interests, a regime that could restore a measure of stability for imperialist interests in the region.

Representatives of the U.S., Russia and the U.N. are expected to meet during U.N. sessions to continue discussions on possible moves toward a “negotiated solution.” Obama also assigned Kerry to begin a round of talks with his counterpart from Iran on that country’s nuclear program.

Among the opposition forces fighting Assad, Islamist-jihadist groups — deadly enemies of Syria’s working people — are seeking to gain territory and political influence. This is producing a parallel “war within a war in northern and eastern parts of Syria — pitting moderate fighters and Kurdish militiamen against extremists with ties to al-Qaeda in recent battles that have left hundreds dead from both sides,” Associated Press reported Sept. 19.
 
 
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