January 15, 2012

Qatar Emir Call For Troops In Syria Is Two Month Old

NATO denies military intervention plans in Syria, January 13 2012

"At present, there is no discussion at all of a NATO role with respect to Syria," NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero told Xinhua by phone.

Haven't we seen such before? Oh, yeah:

NATO has no plans to intervene in Libya: Rasmussen, February 24 2011

"I would like to stress that NATO has no plans to intervene and we have not received any request," Rasmussen said after talks with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

We documented the Rassmussen/NATO headlines which followed after the one above.

But there is another more curious headline that ran yesterday: Emir of Qatar calls for Arab troops in Syria

The Emir of Qatar says that Arab troops should be sent to Syria to stop a deadly crackdown that has claimed the lives of thousands of people in the past ten month. Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani's comments to CBS "60 Minutes", which will be aired Sunday, are the first statements by an Arab leader calling for the deployment of troops inside Syria.

That dictator emir was also the one who pressed arranged for the Arab League to invite NATO to attack Libya.

But what is really curious here (and what only Qatar's AlJazeera(!) reports) is that the CBS interview is old:

In an interview due to be aired on Sunday with US broadcaster CBS for the news programme 60 Minutes, Sheikh Hamad was asked if he was in favour of Arab nations intervening, to which he replied: "For such a situation to stop the killing ... some troops should go to stop the killing." The interview was recorded in mid-November.

Why and on who's request did CBS hold back this interview for two month?

Were the preparations not yet finished for the NATO intervention in Syria? Was some additional time needed to make the Arab League observer mission fail to convince other Arab states to agree to the next war phase?

The interview was given after Syria in early November agreed to an Arab league cease fire plan which the rebels immediately rejected. "Western" news by now is always forgetting that last point. Despite continuing attacks from the opposition the Syrian government has largely followed the agreement, pulled back tanks, released prisoners and is implementing reforms. The observer mission was agreed to on December 19. Unless renewed it will run out in five days.

But it seems that all along the plan was not to allow for a peaceful solution for Syria. Why else would the Emir of Qatar, in an interview for the U.S. public, call for troops to attack Syria back in mid November?

Russia now anticipates an imminent wider war in the Middle East and is preparing its options.

Posted by b on January 15, 2012 at 13:42 UTC | Permalink

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