General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Path to Persia Brookings Institute for regime change in Iran
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA05Ak03.htmlWhat we are seeing in Syria is a deliberate and calculated campaign to bring down the Assad government so as to replace it with a regime "more compatible" with US interests in the region.
The blueprint for this project is essentially a report produced by the neo-conservative Brookings Institute for regime change in Iran in 2009. The report - "Which Path to Persia?" - continues to be the generic strategic approach for US-led regime change in the region.
A rereading of it, together with the more recent "Towards a Post-Assad Syria" (which adopts the same language and perspective, but focuses on Syria, and was recently produced by two US neo-conservative think-tanks) illustrates how developments in Syria have been shaped according to the step-by-step approach detailed in the "Paths to Persia" report with the same key objective: regime change.
The authors of these reports include, among others, John Hannah and Martin Indyk, both former senior neo-conservative officials from the George W Bush/Dick Cheney administration, and both advocates for regime change in Syria. [5] Not for the first time are we seeing a close alliance between US/British neo-cons with Islamists (including, reports show [6], some with links to al-Qaeda) working together to bring about regime change in an "enemy" state.
Is this the playbook we are following?
lovuian
(19,362 posts)Bush has admitted on the record that the "minds" of his administration are "borrowed" from the right-wing think-tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which rents office space in Washington to the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) - the people who conceived the Iraq war (see This war is brought to you by ... of March 20, 2003).
Vice President Dick Cheney's concentration of power under Bush II will be even more complete. Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld - despite Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, the quagmire in Iraq - remains in place. The CIA under Porter Goss has been through a Soviet-style purge and is being turned into an ersatz Office of Special Plans (OSP), which everyone remembers was a Rumsfeld-sponsored operation that specialized in fabricating false pretexts for the invasion of Iraq. The OSP was directed by neo-conservative Douglas Feith (who now wants the US to attack Iran). The new CIA is Feith's OSP on steroids. Goss' job is to make sure the CIA agrees with everything Bush and the neo-conservatives say. Expect more wars.
The road to Damascus
The road to Damascus is the key node in the Bush/neo-con roadmap for a new Middle East.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FL17Ak01.html
tabatha
(18,795 posts)The Arab League monitors were to prevent any foreign intervention.
I would say NO.
Edit: asiatimes is full of crap.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)lovuian
(19,362 posts)if the Syria situation changed with the new news today