It was reported just days ago that US policymakers have signed and dated plans drawn up for the US invasion and occupation of Syria. The plan as described by the Fortune 500-funded Brookings Institution – a corporate think-tank that has previously drawn up plans for the invasion, occupation, and “surge” in Iraq – is to occupy border regions of Syria with US special forces to then justify a nationwide “no-fly-zone” if and when Syrian forces attempt to retake these “safe zones.”

The “safe zones” are to be used by various terrorists fronts Brookings admits are tied to Al Qaeda, to take refuge from Syrian air power and from which to stage and launch attacks deeper into Syrian territory. The end game is the Balkanization of Syria into ineffectual vassal states the US can later stitch together into a larger client regime.

It was also reported that this signed and dated conspiracy to invade, occupy, and destroy Syria would be followed by widespread propaganda aimed at selling the policy paper under the guise of “defeating” the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS/ISIL). In reality, hundreds of trucks a day, originating deep within NATO-member Turkey’s territory, cross the Turkish-Syrian border unopposed, destined for ISIS territory, keeping the terrorist front well supplied and armed, along with its ranks full of fresh fighters.

It is clear that US, British, and other regional allies conducting airstrikes on ISIS in Syria are doing so with full knowledge that whatever damage they are doing is quickly absorbed by the logistical torrent they themselves allow, even underwrite, to freely flow into ISIS territory. No attempts have been made by the US or any of the NATO nations involved in the Syrian conflict, to first stem ISIS’ supply lines – an elementary and obvious strategic goal necessary if the West was truly interested in stopping ISIS.

The Propaganda Begins

The Brookings policy paper is now demonstrably manifesting itself as talking points across the Western media. The Guardian in an op-ed titled, “Why British air strikes in Syria would be pointless,” argues:

[Defence secretary Michael Fallon’s] aim merely to spread the RAF’s targets across a greater area? If, on the other hand, he has a secret plan to transform coalition strategy into something more ambitious, perhaps he should share it with us. Syria does not want for bombs. What it lacks are suitable ground forces who could drive out and destroy Isis under the coalition’s military umbrella. A more aggressive approach is possible. It would require American leadership, sweeping changes in the programme to train and equip Syrian rebels, and more direct air support in their battles. It would, eventually but inevitably, bring rebels into greater contact with the Assad regime. Such an approach seems unlikely to survive the parliamentary test at home.

Fallon does have a “secret plan,” US and British special forces are already operating in Syria alongside terrorist militants. The “secret plan” is actually now published on the Brookings Institution’s website, and involves openly occupying Syrian territory with Western special forces supporting these “Syrian rebels” who are admittedly tied directly to Al Qaeda.

Conveniently, the mentioned anticipated parliamentary impasse will get a boost in public support in favor of greater intervention in the wake of ISIS attacks in Tunisia where mostly British tourists were targeted, maimed, and killed. Attacks in France, and another wave of overtly sensationalist execution videos seems almost intentionally providing the West with the perfect pretext with which to sell an otherwise unjustifiable act of military aggression by Western forces against Syria.

The Guardian op-ed is only the carefully worded first of many to come in a propaganda campaign aimed at justifying the invasion and occupation of Syrian territory in a piecemeal military campaign meant to “sleepwalk” the Western public into yet another lengthy and costly war. Anyone who is even semi-conscious will, the West hopes, be convinced that ISIS is a perfectly justifiable pretext with which to carryout this premeditated military adventure.

US Plans to Use Al Qaeda in 2007, Now Fully Realized

It must be repeated that even as early as 2007, under the administration of then US President George Bush, it was reported that the United States, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and other regional allies planned to fund, arm, and support a wide terrorist front – affiliated with Al Qaeda – to wage proxy war against Iran, Syria, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his article, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” which explicitly stated (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

It is clear that this premeditated and documented conspiracy has been fully implemented, manifesting itself as the “Islamic State” which is clearly being used both as a proxy military force with which to wage war against Western enemies, as well as a pretext for justifying Western military aggression around the world. It is also being used conveniently to maintain an iron grip at home via an increasingly Orwellian police state predicated on “fighting the threat of terrorism.”

As others have hinted at, the West is also intentionally promoting a strategy of tension to predictably divide the world’s population into two camps – those that back Western neo-liberalism, and those that back the medieval methods of ISIS and periphery ideologies. Those in the middle are intentionally marginalized by the vast Western media, and even in the alternative media, cognitive infiltration has helped mute the voices of reason and accelerate this global conflict.

At the end of the day, empires using proxies and even manufactured enemies is par for the course. Unfortunately, unlike empires in the days of old, the weapons and technology available to modern-day imperialists have such devastating and wide-ranging impact, few will escape the fallout.

Exposing both the West’s military aggression and the fact that those it claims it is attempting to “protect” the world from are monsters of their own intentional creation, and expounding the merits of a multi-polar world where extraterritorial military adventures thousands of miles from one’s shores is an intolerable crime against humanity, is a good first step in disarming this latest round warmongering creeping toward Syria’s battered borders.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.