By Tony Cartalucci

Despite Syria’s ongoing conflict, life in many parts of the nation goes on. Syria’s election schedule is no exception. The last parliamentary elections before the latest held this month were in 2012. Since these elections are held every 4 years, the recent elections were far from a “political stunt” to bolster the legitimacy of the current government, but instead represented the continuity of Syria’s ongoing, sovereign political process.

Attempts to undermine the credibility of the elections have become the primary objective of US and European news agencies, however, even the US government’s own election monitoring nongovernmental (NGO) agencies have conceded the last presidential election in 2014 saw soaring voter turnout, and despite attempts to leave voter turnout this year omitted from US-European press reports, it appears to also have been high.

The Washington-based, USAID-funded “Election Guide” reported a 73.42% voter turnout in Syria’s 2014 presidential election, a turnout that would be astounding had they been US elections. Voter turnout for the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections in the US, for example, were 57.1% and 54.9% respectively. The 2016 Syrian parliamentary elections appear to have also enjoyed a high turnout, with the International Business Tribune in its article, “Syria Elections 2016 Updates: Geneva Peace Talks Resume Amid Scrutiny Of Country’s Ballot Process,” reporting that:

Voting hours for the Syrian parliamentary elections Wednesday were extended for an additional five hours because of such a high voter turnout. A religious leader there lauded the number of voters participating, saying that it was an indication to voters’ apparent opposition to the “cruelty, terrorism and destruction” experienced in Syria’s civil war.

Despite high turnouts in previous elections and indicators like that reported in the International Business Tribune regarding this latest poll, US papers like the New York Times (NYT) decided to sidestep facts and intentionally indulged in unconfirmed, anecdotal stories to portray turnout as low as possible and the credibility of the elections nonexistent.

Anne Barnard’s questionable NYT article titled, “Syrian Parliamentary Elections Highlight Divisions and Uncertainty,” claimed that:

Large parts of the country that are controlled by insurgent groups did not participate in the voting on Wednesday. Despite a fragile partial cease-fire, government and Russian warplanes have continued to hit areas controlled by nationalists and Islamist rebels, as well as territory held by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL. An American-led coalition is also bombing areas held by the group.

Throughout Barnard’s NYT piece, she categorically fails to inform readers that while the geographical areas “controlled by insurgent groups” might be “large,” the majority of Syria’s population does not reside within them, and clearly chose to vote in large numbers both in 2014 and 2016 for the current government.

Claims that Kurdish regions also did not participate, omitted the fact that Syria’s total Kurdish population is less than 10% of Syria’s population and that not all Syrian Kurds reside in these regions and refused to vote.

Dispelling the Displacement Myths

It is usually the US that reminds the world of Syria’s displaced population. What it often doesn’t mention is the fact that most of these displaced Syrians have not fled abroad either to Turkey or Jordan or further beyond to Europe, but have instead sought safe haven in Syria’s capital of Damascus and the protection of its government and the Syrian Arab Army.

The US-EU-funded Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) would reveal precisely this in its 2012 report, “Syria: No safe haven – A country on the move, a nation on the brink,” stating:

Syria’s two biggest cities Damascus and Aleppo were seen as safe havens from the violence and gradually saw a large influx of IDPs [internally displaced persons] fleeing from the zones of conflict.

It is clear that the majority of Syria’s population are fleeing from US-EU backed “freedom fighters” and seeking sanctuary under the protection of the “regime” Western powers have attempted to convince the world led by villains. With this in mind, poll results in favor of the ruling government should be of no surprise, despite rhetoric circulating in US-European media.

The West’s Worst Fears Confirmed

This reality confirms the West’s worst fears, that despite all attempts to divide and destroy the modern nation-state of Syria, the people remain relatively united in cause to restore peace and order within the nation, and to do so with the current government leading the way.

It is also ironic that the United States and Europe endlessly expound the virtue of self-determination but now attempt to undermine an exercise in that very self-determination by the Syrian people.

It is clear by the statements made by the United States and several European nations regarding the recent elections that the problem was not necessarily the manner in which the elections were held, but who they included. It was not candidates Syrian law excluded from the elections, but candidates the United States and Europe simply do not approve of. In other words, the US and Europe are doing precisely the opposite of promoting self-determination in Syria and are in fact attempting to undo or otherwise undermine the credibility of the results of the recent elections.

NPR in an article titled, “Parts Of Syria Vote In Parliamentary Elections That Critics Say Are A Sham,” would report that:

Mark Toner, U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson, said this week that “to hold parliamentary elections now given the current circumstances, given the current conditions in the country, we believe is at best premature and not representative of the Syrian people.”

A French Foreign Ministry spokesman called the elections a “sham,” while his German counterpart said that country “will not accept the results,” Reuters reported.

It should be remembered that the US and its European allies eagerly supported elections held in Ukraine amid fierce fighting in the nation’s easternmost region. Despite the inability or unwillingness of many in Ukraine to vote, the elections were both held and recognized by the US and Europe. The reason for this hypocrisy should be clear. Those running in Ukraine’s elections were candidates the US and Europe approved of, supported, and knew would win, while those running and most likely to win in Syria’s elections are not.

Thus, “democracy” from an American or European point of view, is more about special interests in the West selecting a foreign nation’s future government, not its people, unless of course, the people can be convinced to back those candidates Washington and Brussels supports as well.

Not only does the recent election in Syria confirm the West’s worst fears of a failed campaign to divide and destroy the nation, casting doubts on the viability of installing a Western-friendly regime into power during the proposed “transition,” but rather than exposing the alleged illegitimacy of Syrian democracy, it is the West’s brand of selective meddling and manipulation of polls that has been laid out for all the world to see.

With any luck, Syria may serve as an example for other nations to follow in resisting and overcoming foreign interference in their domestic political processes.

Fabulous Win for Anti-Fracking Movement as Another Major Pipeline Bites the Dust

Israel frees youngest Palestinian prisoner

NASSER SHIYOUKHI

Associated Press

April 24, 2016

Russia and China rush to fill Mideast void left by Obama

It started a the airport, when Saudi King Salman sent one of his nephews to greet the US president on arrival in Riyadh. The gesture was specially telling because the Saudi monarch had spent much of the day personally welcoming other leaders at the airport. It ended not much better: forced smiles, unconvincing statements of solidarity.

It was typical of what has become the Obama Doctrine: dropping old allies in the hope of turning adversaries into new friends.

Needless to say, the gamble has failed.

None of America’s old adversaries, be it the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or the Khomeinist mullahs in Iran, have become allies of the United States. At the same time, some old allies of Washington have started looking for new allies in unlikely places as Moscow and Beijing. Some others have simply decided to sit Obama out in the hope that the next US administration would correct at least some of his mistakes.

Across the region, old alliances are falling apart, and with it American influence.

President Obama is greeted in Riyadh. Photo: Reuters

The Arab League, a group of 22 nations that began as British initiative in 1945, is little more than an irrelevant ghost. For almost a year, and despite exceptionally attractive pay and conditions, it couldn’t even find a new secretary-general. It couldn’t even find a safe city to hold a summit.

Similar problems exist with the Gulf Cooperation Council, a grouping of pro-West petro-monarchies set up in 1981 with support from the Reagan administration and designed to counterbalance both Khomeinist Iran and Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

However, partly because of Obama’s confused and confusing tactics, the GCC, too, has ceased to exist as an effective element of regional stability.

The heads of two of the six members states, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, were absent from last week’s summit, ostensibly for health reasons.

It is now clear that Iran has managed to wrest Oman away from the GCC. Oman hosted almost two years of secret negotiations between Tehran and the Obama administration and now regards itself as a third, albeit smaller, element in a triangle with Washington and Tehran. Last year, Tehran all but imposed a treaty on Oman demarcating the borders of the two nations in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea while obtaining the right to use Omani ports by Iran’s rapidly expanding navy that is projecting power all the way to the Mediterranean. Many Arabs believe that Oman wouldn’t have done so without Obama’s tacit approval.

“Obama’s farewell visit resembled a tour of the wreckage not only of decades of efforts to give the region an anchor of stability but also of his own illusions.”

Another GCC member, Qatar, is trying to tone down its high profile of the last decade. It had helped broker Obama’s alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, in the process gaining a much bigger say for itself. The collapse of the Brotherhood in Egypt and Obama’s imminent departure have deprived Qatar of the main ingredients of its strategy. It has tried to compensate partly by trying to woo Iran, angering the Saudis in the process.

To some extent, Kuwait, too, has tried to hedge its bets, including by keeping a line open to the Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad and the mullahs of Tehran.

All in all, the only GCC members still sticking together in a firm way are Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and both are deeply suspicious of Obama.

The absence of US leadership has also led to confusion among NATO and other allies. Turkey is playing its own game, often in direct contrast to that of the US in Iraq and Syria.

Britain and France are competing against one another for future influence in Libya, including by sending separate military missions to the fragile government in Tripoli.

Egypt is spending the cash it gets from US buying fighter-bombers from France and other weapons from Russia.

Israel, too, is trying to diversify contacts as symbolized by this week’s visit to Moscow by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a bête noire of Obama.

Pakistan is taking the US cash but looks to China as its main protector. while rival India is allying itself with Russia and Iran to gain influence in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

President Obama and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman meet at Erga Palace. Photo: AP

Trying to put the “American absence” to good use, Russia is rebuilding its network in the Middle East and strengthening its position in the Caucasian isthmus between the Caspian and the Black seas. On May 11 it will organize a referendum for South Ossetia, a region annexed from Georgia, to formally become part Russia, a repeat of the Crimean scenario.

In October another referendum in Abkhazia, also annexed by Russia in its invasion of Georgia in 2008, will lead to the absorption of that strategically located piece of real estate.

Russia’s next target is the oil-rich south Caucasian Republic of Azerbaijan. Last month, Russia used a three-day war over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan, to test Washington’s resolve to continue as guarantor of status quo.

Washington’s lethargic reaction showed Moscow, and its allies in Tehran, that Azerbaijan may be as defenseless as Georgia was when the Russia snatched 25% of its territory.

Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, has tried to make the best of a bad situation by rushing to Tehran and Moscow signaling readiness to distance himself from Washington.

Obama’s farewell visit resembled a tour of the wreckage not only of decades of efforts to give the region an anchor of stability but also of his own illusions.

Obama says he is practicing 21st century diplomacy. Maybe. But others, notably in the world’s most unstable and dangerous zone, everyone else is engaged in 19th century diplomacy of the deadliest kind.

(New York Post)