![\"obamafool\"](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/obamafool.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWe can let go of our breath now.\u00a0 It really looks like the U.S. bombing of Syria is off.\u00a0 It sure didn\u2019t look that way at the end of August. \u00a0The first videos of large numbers of corpses without apparent wounds appeared on August 21.\u00a0 Shortly afterwards the Obama Administration announced chemical weapons had been used and began sending U.S. warships closer to Syria.\u00a0 \u00a0If you recall it appeared that Obama would bomb not just without waiting for the report of the U.N. inspectors or getting U.N. Security Council approval , but without even taking it up with Congress.\u00a0 With the \u201ceasy\u201d win in Libya and the weakness of the anti-war movement it looked like an attack was a forgone conclusion.\u00a0 Just recently the Jerusalem Post printed an article saying that a U.S. French strike had been planned for September 1st<\/sup>.<\/p>\n Yet within a few days after the march to war began it hit bumps in the road.\u00a0 The usual appeals and strong arming to gather support from the \u201cinternational community\u201d didn\u2019t work.\u00a0 Russia and China, burned over Libya were not going to be fooled twice.\u00a0\u00a0 Obama could live with that.\u00a0 But then the U.S. traditional allies did not rush to join in.\u00a0 France gave its OK, but on August 29 the British parliament voted \u201cno\u201d.\u00a0 That was a thunderbolt.\u00a0 That gave all sorts of weaker countries the cover to hold back.\u00a0 The Arab League, recently a willing puppet of the Saudis and the Gulf monarchies, took forever to come up with a resolution that Obama could use.\u00a0 Ironically the new military regime in Egypt saw in Assad a brother.\u00a0 On the 27th<\/sup> the Arab League did pass a resolution blaming Assad, but it didn\u2019t call \u00a0for any kind of military action.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n An article in \u201cForeign Policy\u201d magazine came out on the 26th<\/sup> of August talking about U.S. complicity in the use of poison gas against Iranians in the 1980\u2019s.\u00a0 For those in the know it was old news, but FP for the first time published declassified CIA documents as proof.\u00a0 While not directly connected to charges against alleged Syrian chemical use, exposure of U.S. hypocrisy on chemical weapons became well known among the well-read. \u00a0(Click here for the article.)<\/p>\n At the same time the polls starting coming in and the results weren\u2019t good for Obama.\u00a0 At first the issue was whether Obama could order the bombing of Syria on his own.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A lot of Americans started standing up for the Constitution.\u00a0 Factor in here the Snowden revelations and the growing understanding and disgust with the Obama war on privacy rights.\u00a0 Then there were polls about whether to attack Syria.\u00a0 The first poll I saw on whether to attack was in Newsmax, a conservative website,\u00a0 and the numbers \u00a0were running strongly against<\/i> the war.\u00a0 A shocker.<\/p>\n Conservative opposition to war was noteworthy.\u00a0 The Tea Party Republicans came out against bombing. Opposition to the war started developing among the right wing radio commentators like Limbaugh and Hannity.\u00a0 They criticized the war plans and started quoting Russian sources, RUSSIA SOURCES, rather than U.S. intelligence on Syria.\u00a0 Now of course some of that sentiment was sheer hatred of Obama, but very, very uncharacteristically these commentators were not following the Israeli government line.<\/p>\n One of the reasons was Libya.\u00a0 It hadn\u2019t turned out so well after all.\u00a0 Al Qaeda types were running around freely and some of them had attacked the U.S. embassy in Benghazi killing the ambassador and several other Americans.\u00a0 The Right was using the issue as their Big Foreign Policy Attack Stick against Obama (since they could hardly find any other way to be to the right of the Assassinator- in- Chief).\u00a0 It was well known that some of these Al Qaeda Libyans had gone to Syria to fight Assad and the Right seized on this.<\/p>\n They had plenty of ammunition available.\u00a0\u00a0 The \u00a0reports about Al Qaeda types in Syria (more generally they\u2019re called takfiris<\/i>) among the rebels kept popping up again and again.\u00a0 Back two years ago \u201cforeign policy makers\u201d were eager to use them to stiffen the spine of the \u201cFree Syrian Army\u201d. \u00a0Yes, they knew all about Afghanistan in the \u201880\u2019s and \u201890\u2019s and the blowback from the U.S. pampering of the \u201cmujahedeen\u201d, but \u201cforeign policy makers\u201d were much smarter now and would take care of the extremists later.\u00a0 Yet all the troubling videos of the Syrian takfiris in action were adding up, the suicide bombers, the head choppers, the mass executions and that rebel \u201ccommander\u201d who ate a body part of a fallen Syria soldier.\u00a0 \u00a0Somehow it made a bad impression.<\/p>\n And the administration had no nice looking rebel leader they could bring to a joint session of Congress to make a plea for aid.\u00a0 I doubt any Congressman or Congresswoman could even name a single rebel leader.<\/p>\n Finally there were the anti-war demonstrations. \u00a0True they were small.\u00a0 Even in New York and in DC they were no more than 400 or 500.\u00a0 Yet they made their mark.\u00a0 The bright yellow signs of \u201cANSWER\u201d were in the news, one being featured on the web edition of the New York Times.\u00a0 The United National Anti-War Coalition put out a call for rallies and there were a goodly number on the East Coast, the West Coast and Chicago.\u00a0 Code Pink had its \u201cbloody hands\u201d in back of Kerry as he testified to Congress.<\/p>\n On August 31 President Obama announced that while he had decided to attack Syria, he would first take the matter to Congress first.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0 Peace activists took heart.<\/p>\n If you recall, those in the know said it was just a trick.\u00a0 Obama would attack whatever Congress said.\u00a0\u00a0 For a while it did look like the move to go to Congress was the usual, merely getting a\u00a0 rubber stamp for war.\u00a0\u00a0 Ha\u2019aretz revealed that AIPAC was about to send 250 lobbyists into the halls of Congress to twist arms.<\/p>\n Arch foe of Obama Sheldon Adelson and his friends in the Republican Jewish Coalition came out for bombing.\u00a0 \u00a0In my state Connecticut there was a \u201ctown hall\u201d meeting called by Congressman Larson (September 2).\u00a0 When I arrived there were 60 Syrians and Syrian-Americans in front of the West Hartford town hall holding a rally with graphic pictures of the chemical weapons massacre.\u00a0 They called for loudly for U.S. action and the media was all over it (neglecting the speakers inside the hall who were generally against military action).\u00a0 Again it looked like the familiar path to war.\u00a0 The pictures of Assad\u2019s horrors would be used to excuse another imperial attack.\u00a0 Just one Democratic Congressman, Alan Grayson of Orlando, said he would vote against war.<\/p>\n But then a strange thing happened.\u00a0 The opposition of the public to the war wasn\u2019t just an airy \u201copinion\u201d.\u00a0 Americans were prepared to do a bit about it.\u00a0 They started calling Congress and writing letters and overwhelmingly they said, \u201cNo war, no way\u201d.\u00a0 Grayson (formerly very sympathetic to AIPAC) started a website, Don\u2019t Attack Syria \u00a0\u00a0and after a while other members of Congress starting speaking out against an attack.<\/p>\n The very scientific Pew research group issued a poll saying that at the start of September half of the Americans polled opposed the war and only 29% favored a strike on Syria.<\/p>\n On September 5 the New York Times website showed a gruesome video of a rebel group beating and executing seven Syrian soldiers and it went viral.\u00a0 They published a five column color photo picture from the video in the print edition of the paper that day.<\/p>\n The vote count against war in Congress continued to climb.\u00a0 Would Obama lose the House and win the Senate and take that as all the permission he needed to wage war?<\/p>\n I happened to be re-reading Trotsky\u2019s history of the Russian Revolution through all of this and I was reading about the fall of 1917 when the Russian government tried to stamp out the Bolsheviks while they attempted to stage an uprising.\u00a0 On paper all the force was on the side of the government, but as the conflict reached its peak all the government\u2019s power just melted away.\u00a0 Its supposedly absolutely secure allies, got confused, wavered, \u00a0sat passive or went over to the Bolsheviks.\u00a0 OK, there\u2019s no revolution going on in the U.S. , \u00a0but as I read more and more the parallels did not seem so totally off base.<\/p>\n Then from an offhand comment on September 9 \u00a0by Secretary of State Kerry<\/span> about the U.S. refraining from bombing if Syria agreed to give up its chemical weapons, \u00a0there was another surprise.\u00a0 Russia turned the idea a formal proposal and Assad\u2019s government said \u201cyes\u201d.<\/p>\n Now at this point in a \u201ccrisis\u201d the U.S. president usually says the other side is not really \u201cserious\u201d and that they\u2019re just \u201ctrying to delay\u201d.\u00a0 His rhetoric gets angrier and the bombs start to fall.\u00a0 Not this time.\u00a0 Obama said the proposal had merit and postponed the Senate vote on war.<\/p>\n On September 11 (of all days) the \u00a0New York Times published a masterfully written op-ed<\/span> by Russian President Vladamir Putin.\u00a0 It reminded readers about some of the more unsavory fundamentalist groups among the rebel fighters and wondered aloud,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cMight they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? \u201c \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He deftly skewered Obama\u2019s remarks about \u00a0American \u201cexceptionalism\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0He wrote, \u201c\u00a0It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.\u201d He talked about the proposal to get rid of Syrian chemical weapons.\u00a0 \u00a0He also included a lot of nonsense about his devotion to international law and why there was \u201cevery reason to believe\u201d that the rebels has used the chemicals against themselves, but the article made a huge public impact.<\/p>\n On September 16 the U.N. released its report by its inspectors in Syria.\u00a0 They had some pretty solid evidence, \u00a0pieces of missiles with traces of sarin gas and estimates of missile trajectories whose origin were in the most secure area of the Syrian government \u00a0(for a full analysis click here). \u00a0Administration claims (they never showed the public any evidence) seemed confirmed.\u00a0 Yet surprisingly there was no public shift towards \u00a0approval of \u00a0war.<\/p>\n As the days and weeks passed, \u00a0the Russians and the U.S. worked out a deal and created a Security Council resolution.\u00a0 The Syrians would get rid of their chemicals, and if they didn\u2019t the Security Council would \u2026take notice (there was no military consequence in the resolution).<\/p>\n So who won?\u00a0 It\u2019s true that without the chemicals weapons the Syrian government is much weaker in the face of Israel, but on the other hand Assad never reacted directly to Israeli attacks so what good were the chemicals? \u00a0\u00a0As far as the rebels are concerned they have one less thing to worry about, but Assad\u2019s forces are already overarmed with Russian \u201cconventional\u201d weapons.\u00a0 Obama was able to save some face.\u00a0 Instead of facing a humiliating defeat in Congress he could claim that U.S. threats had weakened Assad.\u00a0 Putin seemed the biggest winner.\u00a0 His ally\u2019s air force and missiles were not smashed by the U.S.\u00a0 \u00a0He came up with the idea for a settlement.\u00a0 He was the man of the hour.<\/p>\n Despite being helped by Syria giving up chemical weapons, the biggest loser in the story may have been Israel and AIPAC.\u00a0 MJ Rosenberg, a former AIPAC staffer and now fierce AIPAC opponent, wrote in his blog<\/span> that AIPAC\u2019s work was a complete failure.\u00a0 On September 13 he said, \u201c\u00a0AIPAC\u2019s big lobbying day for war with Syria changed no votes. Not one.\u201d\u00a0 This is staggering.<\/p>\n On the 17th<\/sup> Israel doubled down. \u00a0\u00a0Michael Oren, its ambassador to the U.S. announced that \u00a0Israel\u2019s policy was seek the downfall of Assad.\u00a0\u00a0 Israel had never said that before.\u00a0 Yet instead of getting reluctant Congressmen in line\u00a0 the \u00a0proclamation had no effect <\/span>.<\/p>\n Obama did made the deal with Putin.\u00a0 What is more he\u2019s responding to the overtures of the new president of Iran and that\u2019s driving Netanyahu bonkers.<\/p>\n So what changed things?\u00a0 Michael Karadjis an Australian sociologist had a long piece printed in the \u201cSocialist Worker\u201d of the ISO.\u00a0 He properly boxed the ears of the Imperialsm-is the-Only-Bad-Thing-in-the-World groups on the Left that were willing to explain away Assad\u2019s chemical attack and defend his regime no matter what.\u00a0 Yet Karadjis noted the small size of U.S. anti-war actions and wrote, \u00a0\u00a0\u201cIs it just possible that \u2026. <\/i>the U.S. did not want a war on Syria, did not want to intervene in any way?\u201d\u00a0 He speculates that all the U.S.and Israel wanted was war without end in Syria.<\/p>\n My answer to his question is, \u00a0\u201cno\u201d.\u00a0 It is not possible that this was all a charade. \u00a0Yes, Israel and Obama had been happy to let Syria bleed indefinitely, but after the chemical attack they went for the jugular and they overplayed their hand.\u00a0 \u00a0Obama wanted to attack and went through all the usual steps to prepare for it only to see almost all his support fall away.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true that anti-war rallies over Syria in the U.S. were insignificant compared to the gatherings and marches of hundreds of thousands in the streets in 2003.\u00a0 Yet why did the U.S. public turn against the war?\u00a0 The corporate TV news played the usual ominous warlike music, showed the usual heart wrenching scenes and called on the usual \u201csecurity\u201d experts.\u00a0 But something has changed.\u00a0\u00a0 After war upon war with nothing to show for it Americans are finally wising up.\u00a0 They were listening to what \u00a0dissidents had to say on Syria and honking their horns in support as they passed by their anti-war demonstrations.<\/p>\n Ten years of rallies have had their effect.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n