Regime Change Efforts in Syria

Challenging the West's narrative that Bashar al-Assad's government used chemical weapons on protesters in 2013, 2017 and 2018

In 2013 (Obama), 2017 and 2018 (Trump) the US and its allies blamed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.  Though it appears chemical attacks did happen in 2013 and 2017 , it's more likely that the attacks were carried out by opponents of Assad, and not by the Assad government. 

In the April 2018 alleged incident , no evidence has been made public to support the West's claims that a chemical attack even took place, let alone was carried out by the Syrian government. It appears to be a staged event. Just days prior to the alleged attack, Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to begin withdrawing troops from Syria , and the Army of Islam - Assad's opponents in the Eastern Ghouta town of Douma (where the alleged chemical attack took place), had agreed to leave following an arrangement with the Syrian government.  So why would Assad then turn around and use chemical weapons?

In all three cases, Western-backed NGO's like the White Helmets and the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) have been among the primary sources of "intelligence" used by the U.S. and its allies in their bid to oust the Assad government.  And also in all three cases, the Assad government had nothing to gain and everything to lose by using chemical weapons.


Although attempts to overthrow the Assad government have failed since Obama's initial attempts in 2013, the US under Donald Trump, and now Joe Biden  maintains a military presence, and a belligerent stance towards Assad. 

News about the alleged Syrian chemical attacks

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Timeline 2018: Why it makes no sense that Assad would gas his own people

The U.S. has not produced evidence that a chemical attack actually occurred on April 7, 2018.  In fact, evidence suggests that it was a staged event, as Russia had been warning: On March 14, Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov said that "provocations involving chemical weapons are being prepared," by the US to justify their desire for a permanent military presence in Syria.  And on March 17, Russia's Defense Ministry said that US instructors were training militants to stage false flag chemical attacks in Syria. 

On March 27, 2018, about 6,700 anti-Assad militants began leaving Syria's Eastern Ghouta by bus.

On March 29, Donald Trump told a crowd in Ohio, “we’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon".

Three days later CBS News reported that the Army of Islam -- who for years were in control of the Eastern Ghouta town of Douma which is on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus -- had reached an agreement with Syria and Russia to leave town. CBS called it a "huge" victory for the Assad government.

Two days later, on April 4, Donald Trump bucked the advice of his top national security team and announced that the U.S. military's mission in Syria was "coming to a rapid end,"  and he ordered the Pentagon to begin a troop withdrawal. Trump's statement was certainly welcome news to the Syrian government, who have never invited the U.S. to be in its country.

But just 3 days later, on April 7, another alleged chemical attack was claimed to have occurred in Syria, and the West immediately blamed Assad without providing any evidence.

As US journalist Rania Khalek said, the timing of the alleged attack was "crazy" because it has emerged when the Syrian government was in its strongest position during the whole conflict and Trump said he wanted US troops out of the country. Does anyone really believe Assad wanted to give Trump an excuse to hang around longer?

On April 12,  U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said that the US and its allies "don't have evidence" that the Syrian regime carried out the April 7 attack. “I cannot tell you that we have evidence, although we certainly have a lot of media or social media indicators that either chlorine or sarin were used,” (NOTE: He really did say "social media")

Also on April 12, the Russian Ministry of Defense said they had "evidence that Britain had a direct involvement in arranging [the alleged chemical attack]... We know for certain that between April 3 and April 6 the so-called White Helmets were seriously pressured from London to speed up the provocation that they were preparing.”

Despite logic, Mattis' statement, and Russia's warnings, just 1 day later, on April 13, the U.S again launched airstrikes in Syria under the unproven guise that Assad gassed his own people.

This is the third time an alleged chemical attack occurred in Syria that the West blamed Assad - the previous two attacks in 2013 and 2017 have been shown to be wrongly pinned on Assad:

In 2017, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the U.S. was no longer pursuing regime change in Syria. This major policy shift was more than welcome news to Assad, and came at a time when the Syrian and Russian militaries were forcing ISIS to flee.  Just days later, an alleged chemical weapons attack occurred, and the Trump administration was quick to point the finger at Assad, without providing evidence. WATCH THIS VIDEO that dispels the claims that Assad gassed his own people in 2017.

Assad would have to be either unintelligent or masochistic to have used chemical weapons on his own people.  Given he graduated from the medical school of Damascus University, and attended postgraduate studies in London, specializing in ophthalmology, Assad is clearly intelligent. [WATCH THIS VIDEO of Assad debunking the chemical weapons claims and decide for yourself if he's unintelligent or masochistic.]  Assad's wife, Asma, was born and raised in London where she graduated from King's College with a bachelor's degree in computer science and French literature. She had a career in investment banking with Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan, so like her husband, she is clearly intelligent. WATCH THIS VIDEO about Asma al-Assad.

"Odd how every time Trump suggests he might leave Syria or back off, Assad (who would love the US out) suddenly inexplicably uses chemical weapons and screws himself. How convenient for the players who are desperate to get the US more deeply involved ," freelance journalist Danielle Ryan astutely pointed out.

In 2013,  the Syrian government allowed chemical weapons inspectors into Syria to investigate alleged Sarin gas attacks.  Then on August 21, with the inspectors on the ground, a chemical weapons attack occurred in Damascus, and then-president Barack Obama immediately blamed Assad, and pushed for a U.S. military intervention in Syria.

But Obama's accusations were not supported by facts. Indeed, it appears that the Sarin gas attack was carried out by U.S. supported Islamic extremists as a way to make up for battlefield losses, and to try and convince the U.S. to intervene militarily.  WATCH THIS SLIDESHOW that debunks Obama's claims that Assad gassed his own people in 2013.

  In 2013,  the Syrian government allowed chemical weapons inspectors into Syria to investigate alleged Sarin gas attacks.  Then on August 21, with the inspectors on the ground, a chemical weapons attack occurred in Damascus, and then-president Barack Obama immediately blamed Assad, and pushed for a U.S. military intervention in Syria.

But Obama's accusations were not supported by facts. Indeed, it appears that the Sarin gas attack was carried out by U.S. supported Islamic extremists as a way to make up for battlefield losses, and to try and convince the U.S. to intervene militarily.  WATCH THIS SLIDESHOW that debunks Obama's claims that Assad gassed his own people in 2013.

 

Debunking Obama's Case for War on Syria

Barack Obama's rationale for war is simple: Assad gassed his own people. But the chemical weapons attack in Damascus on August 21, 2013 was most likely carried out by U.S. supported al-Qaeda rebels, not by Assad.

But just like there was no evidence that Saddam had WMD, there is no evidence that Assad gassed his own people.

Obama is betting everything that people will believe his premise. And most media outlets in the U.S. have continued to widely report Obama's assertions not as unsubstantiated claims, but rather as facts, just as they did with Bush's claims during the lead up to the Iraq war.

Virtually no one denies that a chemical weapons attack took place on August 21 in Syria, but the evidence points to the attackers being al-Qaeda rebels and not the Assad government:



  • Why would Assad order a chemical attack just days after UN inspectors arrived at his request ? Assad asked the UN to carry out investigations into alleged rebel usage of chemical weapons in Aleppo in the Spring 2013. Just days after the UN inspectors' arrival in Damascus, the chemical attack of August 21 took place.
  • The Syrian rebels DO have chemical weapons capability . The Washington Post noted in December 2012 that fighters from a group that the Obama administration has branded a terrorist organization were among rebels who seized a military base where research on chemical weapons had been conducted.
  • Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) stated: "The administration is asking us to go to war on the basis of a four-page document and a 12-page document and none of the underlying evidence."
  • Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) stated: "Yes, I saw the classified documents yesterday (September 2). They were pretty thin . The case that can be made that actually Assad was the one who pulled the trigger is suspect."
  • Ron Paul stated : "The group that is most likely to benefit from (a chemical attack) is Al-Qaeda. They ignite some gas, some people die and blame it on Assad."
  • Pat Buchanan said : "I would not understand or comprehend that Bashar al-Assad, no matter how bad a man he may be, would be so stupid as to order a chemical weapons attack on civilians in his own country when the immediate consequence...might be that he would be at war with the United States. So this reeks of a false flag operation."
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin: "[T]here is every reason to believe [sarin gas] was used not by the Syrian army , but by opposition forces to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists."
  • U.N. commission member Carla Del Ponte stated that there were "strong, concrete suspicions but not incontrovertible proof" that rebels used the nerve gas agent sarin in the Spring of 2013.
  • Enrique Baron, head of Madrid's National Police counter-terrorist intelligence stated that Al Qaeda may have chemical weapons, "The Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb has acquired and used very powerful conventional arms and probably also has non-conventional arms, basically chemical , as a result of the loss of control of arsenals."
  • Syrian rebel groups sought sarin gas material , Turkish prosecutors say.
  • Who would gain from use of chemical weapons? In the months prior to the August 21 chemical attack, fractured Syrian opposition offered little resistance to Assad's forces . Using nerve gas would have been strategically unnecessary for Assad.
  • Whose sarin? By Seymour Hersh
    Obama cherry-picked intelligence
    Like Bush and Iraqi WMD, Obama cherry-picked intelligence on the Aug. 21 chemical attack as a way to justify war on Syria. One high-level intelligence officer called Obama's assurances of Assad's supposed chemical weapons attack a 'ruse' , and that the attack was not the result of Assad.

    Obama failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army was not the only entity with access to sarin. Even though it knew the al-Nusra Front, al al-Qaeda affiliated group fighting against the Syrian government, had mastered the mechanics of creating the nerve gas in quantity. But Obama cherry-picked the intelligence to justify a strike against Assad, in part, as a way to not lose political points for the Democratic party since he had set a "red line" on chemical weapons use.

    A former senior intelligence official told Hersh that the Obama administration had altered the available information – in terms of its timing and sequence – to enable the president and his advisers to make intelligence retrieved days after the attack look as if it had been picked up and analyzed in real time, as the attack was happening. The distortion, he said, reminded him of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident , when the Johnson administration reversed the sequence of National Security Agency intercepts to justify one of the early bombings of North Vietnam. The same official said there was immense frustration inside the military and intelligence bureaucracy: "The guys are throwing their hands in the air and saying, "How can we help this guy (Obama) when he and his cronies in the White House make up the intelligence as they go along ?

    In trying to justify an attack on Syria, the White House claimed it knew about the sarin attack 3 days before it killed an estimated 1400 people. If this were true, why did it not give any warning to the Syrian people? After this question was raised, the administration retracted its statement saying that it did not know beforehand. (read)


The Obama administration needs to address the hypocrisy of being on the same side as al-Qaeda in Syria while concurrently saying that they are an enemy in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and other Muslim countries. It has been widely reported that rebels in Syria include al-Qaeda fighters:



Gambling on the same strategy that Bush did with Iraq, the Obama administration is counting on media complicity to accept and report his unproven, illogical assertions as evidence-based fact.

History proved Bush's WMD claims to be wrong and the Iraq war to be a mistake. If Obama eventually carries out a war on Syria based on the "he gassed his own people" pretext, history will leave Obama and all of those in the media who acted as his stenographers in the dust.

A number of people have pointed out that even if Assad did gas his own people, what gives the U.S. the right to bomb Syria given the history of the U.S. using chemical weapons around the world and at home.