UK Prime Minister Cameron said yesterday that the UK supports US airstrikes against the IS not with boots on the ground, but by other means and that the UK was ‘ready to take whatever steps are necessary’.
Cameron did not recall parliament and did not say that he was ready to bomb Syria without the permission of the Syrian government. He did say that the most important part of his programme was the ‘constant reinforcement of the formidable counter-terrorist operation at home to prevent attacks and hunt down terrorists’. The main effort for Cameron is to be at home!
US Secretary of State John Kerry has already said that it is inappropriate for Iran to join the coalition that the US is seeking to build, and both Obama and Cameron are on record as saying that they will not accept the Syrian government’s offer, along with the government of Iran, to form a common front to crush ISIS and the IS.
Speaking on a visit to Turkey, Kerry said he was confident the US could build a broad international coalition of European and Arab countries.
Ten Arab nations have agreed to help the US in its fight against the group. Last Thursday, ministers representing Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates offered their support.
Turkey, which has for over two years opened its frontiers with Iraq and Syria so that fighters from ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda) can cross over to join the fight against the Syrian government, with the full support of the US and the UK, has refused to sign up with Kerry and break with the terrorist gangs.
France and Australia have also offered their support for military action against IS, as part of a coalition being formed by Washington.
The UK is less vocal in its support. Cameron is too frightened by what the Parliamentary and popular response to his plans would be, to spell them out.
At the centre of the group of ten are the oil-rich Gulf dictatorships, many of which have played a major part in financing counter-revolutionary movements in the region.
Qatar financed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the armed bands that created the NATO chaos in Libya, as well as the Syrian opposition, in its three-year war against President Assad. It has also financed both ISIS and the Al-Nusra front.
The Saudis have also been financing the Syrian opposition and have poured billions into the coffers of ISIS.
While the Gulf states put up the cash, the Western imperialist powers supplied the jihadists, turning a blind eye to young Muslims going to Turkey and Jordan to be trained as fighters in Syria and Iraq.
This is how hundreds of UK, US, French, Belgian and German citizens ended up in Syria and Iraq with US weaponry, which they took with them as they joined ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front.
Meanwhile, Paris is expected to host international talks on the US campaign today. At his press conference in Ankara on Friday, Kerry said Iran had not been invited.
On Friday, Kerry held talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in an effort to secure more co-operation from the Turkish government in the fight against IS. Turkey refused to allow the use of its air bases to launch attacks on the jihadist group.
Without the support of Turkey, Kerry was reduced to saying: ‘We believe we can take on ISIS in the current coalition that we have.’
The plan is that Saudi Arabia and Qatar will stop financing ISIS and recruit new armed bands to bolster the Syrian opposition. The prospect is that ISIS will be hit by a series of bombing raids to keep the movement in check, while the revamped, rearmed and once again wealthy Syrian opposition will seek to overthrow Assad, backed by US airstrikes that will be described as anti-terrorist operations.
Workers in the West must continue to support Assad and the Syrian people and to be for the defeat of all of the efforts to remove Assad and to destroy Syria, and then Iran. Our main enemy is at home, and is British imperialism!
