"Victory may not come quickly or easily, but it will come. And the payoff will be substantial. Iran would be strategically isolated, unable to exert its influence in the Middle East. ...
"For Israel, the rationale for a bolt from the blue attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be eased. And a new Syrian regime might well be open to early action on the frozen peace talks with Israel. Hezbollah in Lebanon would be cut off from its Iranian sponsor since Syria would no longer be a transit point for Iranian training, assistance and missiles. ...
"With the veil of fear lifted from the Syrian people, they seem determine to fight for their freedom. America can and should help them -- and by doing so help Israel and help reduce the risk of a wider war."
Although some mainstream commentary on Clinton's email has insisted that her war plans for Syria were not implemented, they actually were, to a significant degree. Although President Obama was a reluctant warrior regarding Syria, he did adopt Clinton's plan for training and arming rebel forces in Turkey and Jordan to fight in Syria.
The supposedly "moderate" rebels never materialized as a significant fighting force, but the assistance from the United States and its Mideast allies, including Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, fueled a bloody civil war driven by Sunni jihadists, led by the Islamic State, Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and Nusra's close ally, Ahrar al-Sham.
Armed with sophisticated weapons such as U.S.-manufactured TOW anti-tank missiles, the Islamist forces achieved dramatic gains in early 2015, including the Islamic State's capture and partial destruction of the ancient ruins of Palmyra. Only Russia's decision to support the Syrian military with air power turned the tide of the war in fall 2015, including the liberation of Palmyra this spring.
Beheading the Apostates
If Clinton's larger scheme of orchestrating Syrian "regime change" were to succeed, the likely outcome would be horrific, with the powerful Islamist groups as the almost certain winners, benefiting from Clinton's proposed aerial devastation of the Syrian military, which would be conducted under the "humanitarian" cover of creating "safe zones" and "no-fly zones."
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton honor the four victims of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, at the Transfer of Remains Ceremony held at Andrews Air Force Base, Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on
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With Al Qaeda's Nusra Front or the Islamic State marching into Damascus, the situation for Syria would be cataclysmic, even worse than now. Millions of Syrians -- Alawites, Shiites, Christians, secularists and other "infidels" -- would have to flee the beheading swords of the terror groups and would pour into Europe in greater numbers. That might well force a full-scale U.S. and European invasion of Syria with the bloody outcome probably similar to the disastrous Iraq War.
But Clinton and her neocon/liberal-hawk advisers never seem to anticipate events not turning out as they dream them up.
Since Clinton's April 2012 email, the situation in Libya deteriorated, too. On Sept. 11, 2012, Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. personnel. Later, the U.S. and other Western embassies in Tripoli were abandoned as Libya descended into a failed state with the Islamic State seizing territory and carrying out its characteristic brutality, such as the beheadings of Coptic Christians.
Despite these bloody setbacks, Clinton's views apparently have changed little. During the 2016 presidential campaign, she has announced her intention to follow Israel's strategic lead in the region, vowing to take the relationship to "the next level." She still views the chaos in Libya through rose-colored glasses and can't wait to broaden the U.S. invasion of Syria into "no-fly zones" and "safe zones," again ignoring the risks of a violent clash with Russian forces.
If there were any doubts that Clinton is a committed neocon (or "liberal interventionist" since there is very little real difference between the two), she dashed them once she seized firm control of the Democratic presidential nominating race this spring.
With her dominance in unelected "superdelegates" giving her an insurmountable lead over Sanders, Clinton expressed her obeisance to Israel in a speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and in her last debate against Sanders. She was pivoting to what the mainstream media calls "the center," signaling to neocon Republicans that she should be their choice for president. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Yes, Hillary Clinton Is a Neocon."]
In a normal world, Clinton's reiteration of her plans for invading Syria should have sparked a firestorm of controversy and debate -- since her ideas are completely illegal under international and U.S. law as well as operationally dangerous -- but her statements passed largely unnoticed since Official Washington's foreign-policy establishment and mainstream media are so firmly in the neocon camp.
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