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'Buffer zone along Syrian border, national
suicide for Turkey’: Webster Griffin Tarpley
27.3.2012 |
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March 27, 2012
ISTANBUL,— Members of the Syrian
opposition say Turkey has promised them to establish
a buffer zone on the Turkish-Syrian border.
On Monday, Syrian opposition groups gathered in
Istanbul, ahead of the second so-called “Friends of
Syria” meeting which will be held in Turkey on April
1.
Turkey shares a 900-kilometer border with Syria. It
has allowed thousands of Syrian gunmen to take
shelter and regroup on its soil.
Damascus has been grappling with year-long unrest
that has claimed thousands of lives-- including
those of its security forces.
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The opposition blames the deaths on the government,
however; Damascus holds foreign-backed armed gangs
responsible.
Iranian Press TV has interviewed Webster Griffin
Tarpley, author and historian from Washington, to
further discuss the issue. Below is a rough
transcription of the interview.
Q: Some analysts believe that a buffer zone
would be a declaration of war on the part of the
Turkish government as it would require the
militarization of the border area. Do you agree with
that assessment?
Tarpley: I think that is right and that maybe even
understanding the danger. This is an act of
incalculable folly on the part of [Turkish] Prime
Minister Erdogan and Foreign Minister [Ahmet]
Davutoglu.
I have been looking at reports from the Associated
Press, from Reuters, the Washington Post, all
suggesting that there has been a meeting between
Obama and Erdogan on the occasion of that conference
on Controlling Nuclear Materials in South Korea and
that some kind of a deal has been struck in this
direction. We should be very clear.
The so-called buffer zone is a euphemism for an act
of war that means occupying a strip of Syrian
territory. The idea being that the NATO-backed death
squads along with their fellow travelers, the
various deserters and fanatics and other people,
mercenaries that they have accumulated would then
use that buffer zone for further actions against
Syria.
But if you do that, of course you have simply moved
the line and at that point, it would become a
fighting front and if the Syrians shoot back, they
would be shooting against the Turkish forces. So it
is a big step towards war maybe not automatically
but one or two steps further down the road, you can
see a war.
I recall a conversation I had last November in
Beirut with General [Michel] Aoun of Lebanon, a very
experienced military man. He pointed out that Turkey
is the last country in the world that should be
looking for foreign adventures like this.
They have one split which is between the political
parties which are Islamic and the generals which are
secular. But they have also got a 25 percent of
their population who are Kurds. Now if it looks like
Syria is going to break up and be attacked by NATO,www.ekurd.net
the Kurds will rise in rebellion and that rebellion
will spread into Turkey and Turkey would be most
targeted by that rebellion.
Q: Some critics have drawn parallels between
the autonomy of Iraq's Kurdistan region after the US
occupation and what is now happening in Syria, as
most rebels are from a Kurdish background. Would you
also say that this may be step-two in Western plans
for propping up a pro-US Kurdish state in the
region?
Tarpley: If you have got a de facto Kurdish entity
in northern Iraq, a de facto Kurdish entity in
northern Syria, then there is going to be a
gravitational pole on the Kurds in Turkey to join
that, to say nothing of Iran and you can see through
this what the goal of the imperialist is.
The adventurism and the lunacy of the imperialist
has reached a new height. The rebellion in Syria has
essentially been defeated. The Syrian army is now in
the process of mopping up these NATO-backed death
squads and the fellow travelers. That has happened
in Homs; it has happened in Idlib; it has happened
Daraa; it has happened also along that Iraq to Syria
border.
But now in some bid to snatch something from the
jaws of defeat, Obama and Hillary Clinton seem to be
shooting the works but they are doing it at Turkish
expense. This is the key thing. This is known as
buck passing. This is essentially playing Turkey
against Syria and possibly other countries with the
goal of destroying all of them.
This is the kind of thing that Zbigniew Brzezinski
is noted for. Do not have the US attack Syria or
some other countries maybe Iran but get Turkey to do
it and then you can arbitrate the entire thing. You
can destroy all of the parties involved which is
ultimately the goal of imperialism.
Q: All this is being done in preparation of
the 'Friends of Syria' meeting to be held soon. What
can we expect to see coming out of it other than
just pledges and promises of support for Syrian
armed groups?
Tarpley: The last ‘Friends of Syria’ conference we
had was in Tunis and that was a debacle. Right as
everybody said, with friends like that, Syria does
not need enemies. It is an ‘Enemies of Syria’
conference.
The previous one failed because the goal was really
to get up a hysteria in favor of an armed
intervention against Syria that failed. Now this
time the pressure will be even greater. What you can
look for is a bidding war of inflationary body
counts among the forces of the Syrian national
council, the coordination, the observatory, the free
Syrian army.
All of them are going to be pumping up their
estimates of how many people have gotten killed to
try to create a world hysteria that would then push
the Turks into the step. It is a national suicide
for Turkey if they do it. Ataturk would have known
that.
The Kurd-Turkish leadership scorns Ataturk. If they
had followed his wisdom, they would not be in this
situation and they need to pull back.
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