The WSWS report (below) comports with our observations over the past year of the buildup for a US/NATO war against Syria:

• The majority of the Syrian people support President Assad and his government.
  
  
• The US war in Syria already began through proxy terrorists organized in Benghazi and used to overthrow the Libyan government in 2011.
  
  
• Their attempts to invade and control Damascus and Aleppo in July and August failed miserably with the Syrian army defeating and expelling them from these cities.
  
  
• The Syrian people and the world have seen through the US/NATO lies about the Houla Massacre. It was carried out by their proxy terrorist groups and not by the Assad government.
  
  
• The US/NATO inspired bombing of Syrian National Security Headquarters in Damascus that killed Syrian Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, his deputy Assef Shawkat and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani was another failure. These key government officials were quickly replaced by the Syrian government and the Syrians demonstrated their strength with retaliation by in all probability, assassinating the man who organized the attacks, Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al-Saud (Bandar Bush - inside Saudi Arabia.
  
  
• Iran has gained international support for its opposition to the US/NATO war against Syria, led by Russia and China. On August 11 meeting of 30 countries in Teheran, including Russia, China and Pakistan attended a meeting in Iran to thwart the invasion threatened by US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. The meeting was a resounding victory for Syria.
  
  
• After Russia and China have vetoed UN resolutions for the third time and the US made clear its intention to disregard the veto, Russia deployed troops and warships to the Syrian border to defend the country against attack.
  
  
• Russian President, Vladamir Putin and PM Dmitry Medvedev have made clear their intention to defend Russia and it's neighbors militarily, including Syria from US/NATO aggression.

The US/Israeli/NATO plans to overthrow the Syrian government through Al Queda and other international terrorists appear to have unraveled. This amounts to an enormous failure as the US wanted more than anything to hide behind it's psuedo "rebels," i.e. proxy terrorist groups, to avoid the appearance of another unilateral war against another sovereign country in the eyes of the world. In desperation, the Obama regime is now resorting to the same blatant lies about "weapons of mass destruction" they used as a pretext for invading Iraq. Time will tell if Washington and their international mafia are foolhardy enough to attack Syria directly.

This much is as clear as crystal: their intention is not to "save Syria." Their intention is to destroy the country as they have destroyed Iraq and Libya to destabilize the Middle East, invade Iran and eventually gain control of the vast natural resources of Iran and Central Asia and thwart the economic growth and sovereignty of Russia and China.

- Les Blough, Editor

Obama threatens to invade Syria
By Johannes Stern
22 August 2012

Yesterday US and NATO officials discussed plans for a US military invasion of Syria to bring down Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, after US President Barack Obama announced that the US was contemplating a direct attack on Syria at a press conference Monday night.

A delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Beth Jones discussed US military plans with Turkey. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that Defense Department and US intelligence officials met their Turkish counterparts “to share operational pictures, to talk about the effectiveness of what we’re doing now, and about what more we can do.”

Senior US officials said that contingency plans for US intervention in Syria include scenarios requiring tens of thousands of American troops.

At a press conference at the White House Monday, Obama declared: “I have indicated repeatedly that President al-Assad has lost legitimacy, that he needs to step down. So far, he hasn’t gotten the message, and instead has double downed in violence on his own people. The international community has sent a clear message that rather than drag his country into civil war he should move in the direction of a political transition. But at this point, the likelihood of a soft landing seems pretty distant.”

Obama said that he would order “military engagement” if chemical or biological weapons are moved or used in Syria. He said that Syria’s alleged stockpile of chemical weapons “concerns our close allies in the region, including Israel. It concerns us. We cannot have a situation in which chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people.”

Obama added that the US “have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region, that that’s a red line for us, and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front, or the use of chemical weapons.”

The cynicism with which Obama is seeking to justify the next US imperialist aggression in the Middle East is staggering. The main groups in Syria who could seize chemical weapons from Syrian government stockpiles are Al Qaeda forces promoted by the US and its allies as shock troops against Assad. (See also: “Washington’s proxy in Syria: Al Qaeda”)

Having armed Al Qaeda-linked groups and sent them into Syria to carry out bombings and assassinations, the US and its allies now plan to justify their invasion of Syria by citing the need to protect the world’s population from Al Qaeda’s terrorist atrocities!

The Obama administration advances its arguments today with total disregard for the fact that they clash with the lies used until now to justify its support for Sunni anti-Assad “rebels.”

For months it maintained the pretense that it would not directly attack Syria, and that the Syrian regime’s statements that it was fighting US-backed terrorists were “propaganda.” Now, the White House is admitting that terrorist groups play a major role in the anti-Assad forces, and citing this as a pretext for war.

By proceeding in this fashion, the Obama administration demonstrates its complete contempt for the American electorate, which voted him into office in 2008 in large part based on hopes he would stop the US military aggressions against countries in the Middle East. Today, as during the 2003 invasion of Syria’s neighbor, Iraq, Washington is preparing to invade a country based on cynical lies about weapons of mass destruction.

A US invasion of Syria would be a crime of historic proportions, like the war in Iraq—a country whose population is only slightly larger than Syria’s. This war led to the deaths of over a million Iraqis and thousands of US and allied soldiers. Iraq became a battleground for US occupation forces, as well as for sectarian bombings and massacres carried out by Sunni and Shiite death squads.

A US invasion would threaten similar carnage inside Syria, which is already being torn apart by sectarian fighting in which Washington is working with right-wing regimes in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to back Sunni Islamist forces against Syria’s Alawite regime. However, the far greater tensions in a region already destabilized by a decade of US and Israeli wars in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Libya now threaten to spread the violence over the entire Middle East.

Sectarian bloodshed provoked by the intensifying US intervention in the region is already spilling over into Syria’s neighbors. On Tuesday four people were killed and more than 60 wounded in firefights between Sunni Muslims and Shiite Alawites in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. Tensions in Lebanon have been growing for months, with Western-backed forces seeking to provoke the Lebanese government which is led by the Shiite organization Hizbollah, a close ally of Syria and Iran.

A US war against Syria would be the next step in an ongoing campaign by US imperialism to deepen its hegemony over the energy-rich and geo-strategically vital regions of the Persian Gulf and Central Asia.

The Syrian regime responded to US threats with warnings and proposals for negotiations. Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil described Obama’s statements about chemical weapons as a pretext for Western intervention in Syria. “The West is looking for an excuse for direct intervention. If this excuse does not work, it will look for another excuse.” He warned that an attack on Syria would turn the conflict into a regional war, saying: “Those who are contemplating this evidently want to see the crisis expand beyond Syria’s borders.”

Jamil announced that the Syrian regime is willing to talk with the opposition to work out a transition, however. He even declared that Assad’s presidency is negotiable, stating: “We are ready to discuss Assad’s resignation—but not as precondition.”

Obama’s war threats against Syria are also deepening tensions with Russia and China, who have already vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions backed by the US and its Western and Arab allies aiming to give a pseudo-legal fig leaf for US aggression against Syria.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov spoke at a meeting in Moscow with China’s State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who also met Russian President Vladimir Putin and his top security adviser, Nikolai Patrushev, on Monday. Lavrov said that both Russia and China base their diplomatic cooperation on “the need to strictly adhere to the norms of international law and the principles contained in the U.N. Charter, and not to allow their violation.”

Lavrov said that only the Security Council has the authority to approve the use of external force against Syria, warning against imposing “democracy by bombs.” Russian officials have reportedly stated that they hope to avoid a repetition of the attack on Libya last year. Moscow abstained from the Security Council vote on Libya, and a resolution was passed which was subsequently used by NATO to justify its bombing of the country.

Source: WSWS