



The US escalates the confrontation with Russia and Iran, their two main competitors in the region, demanding a new division, more convenient to themselves and their allies. The Americans, however, do not even keep any pretexts by presenting some plausible evidence.



Washington sends a powerful message to Moscow and Tehran through Damascus, making the two countries jointly responsible for a possible use of chemical weapons on Syrian territory. Meaning that the White House could use any provocation to escalate the diplomatic - and not only - attacks on Russia and Iran.





It is perhaps ironic that this is exactly the scenario in the latest series of episodes of the US television series House of Cards: The president and vice president of the United States "set up" a chemical attack in the city of Homs in Syria to solve internal problems, and at the same time, to hit Moscow, underground, which cooperates with the Syrian government. The only possible difference is that President Trump's "reality" is far worse directed compared to the TV series.





Without presenting any essential evidence linking the Assad regime with the use of chemical weapons (apart from some "movements" observed on an air base allegedly used in a previous attack), the White House launched a proactive threat with many recipients. An indication of sloppiness was that in the first 24 hours since the announcement of the White House, top Pentagon officials and secret services were stating ignorance concerning the issue.





Trump's threat, which puts a dynamite in any possibility of conciliation with key players in the region, comes just 24 hours since the veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, relying on senior US officials, revealed that Syria had not used chemical weapons in early April - as Washington claimed at that time to justify the missile attack ordered by Trump against Syrian army facilities. Without excluding the use of Sarin-type chemicals by local forces, the sources of the award-winning journalist explicitly excluded that this was related to government forces.





On the contrary, according to Seymour Hersh, the Syrian army on that day had bombarded a building where leaders from groups of jihadists had gathered to determine their next moves. As Hersh explained, the only thing Trump had in his hands when he ordered the attack, was some photographs of the victims of chemicals - whose source does not seems anyone knows, even today. Despite the fact that the US Tomahawk missile attack had zero value in operational level (the United States allegedly warned Russia and Syria, while the targeted airport was operating normally just hours after the attack), Trump sent a clear message to the US deep state that he is prepared to meet all its demands - and especially the escalation of confrontation with Russia.





It is worth noting that the Pulitzer award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, who has in his backround some of the most important revelations about the role of US forces since 1968, has been put in an informal "blacklist" of the dominant US media for years. It is characteristic that after he found closed doors in the magazines and newspapers he was cooperating with for decades, he turned to British press and eventually managed to publish his latest research only in the large German newspaper Die Welt.





While White House's theories of what really happened in April 2017 were in danger of collapsing as a tower from playing cards, a UN agency rushed to "support" Donald Trump's arguments. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons argues that in the beginning of April, Sarin (or a chemical "similar to Sarin") was used in the region. However, the organization's experts, who, according to Seymour Hersh have not visited the region, reported that they are unable to identify which of the opposing parties has used these chemicals.





However, the time they have chosen to publish their findings, only 24 hours after the White House's threats of a possible use of chemical weapons, raises several questions: whether the agency is actively involved in offering political coverage to the White House, or, Trump was aware of the announcement of the findings and use it to orchestrate his communication policy. In any case, the United States seems to be setting, globally, a climate for escalating military operations, which could also bring them into direct conflict with Russia.





American raids are increasing already on a daily basis, and with them, the number of civilians among the victims is rising too. On Monday, the Pentagon struck prisons in the Islamic State, in which about 70 civilians held by ISIS reportedly killed. Independent organizations, far from being described as Assad-friendly, report that 1953 civilians have lost their lives since the recent US bombings in Syria, including 456 children and 330 women.





Article by Aris Chatzistefanou translated from the original source:



