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<div dir="ltr"><big><big><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/06/pers-o06.html">http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/06/pers-o06.html</a><br>
<br>
<font style="font-size: 20pt;" size="5"><big><big><b>Biden’s
admission: US allies armed ISIS</b></big></big></font><br>
6 October 2014<br>
<br>
Speaking to students at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy Forum
Thursday, US Vice President Joseph Biden committed what the
US media characterizes as a "gaffe." In other words, he told
an embarrassing truth about US government policy, one that
is usually obfuscated in the remarks of government officials
and the commentaries of media pundits.<br>
<br>
Asked about US policy in Syria, Biden touched on the dirty
secret of the current US-led war against the Islamic State
in Iraq and Syria. ISIS (or ISIL as the Obama administration
terms it) is essentially the creation of the United States
and its allies who fomented civil war in Syria against the
government of President Bashar al-Assad.<br>
<br>
Referring to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates, Biden said, "They were so determined to take down
Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did
they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and
tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would
fight against Assad—except that the people who were being
supplied were al Nusra and al Qaeda and the extremist
elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world."<br>
<br>
"Now you think I’m exaggerating," he continued, to emphasize
his point. "Take a look! Where did all of this go?" Biden
claimed that the US opposed arming these al Qaeda-linked
groups, which included ISIS, adding, "We could not convince
our colleagues to stop supplying them."<br>
<br>
According to Biden’s narrative, only in the summer of 2014
did these countries realize that ISIS was a threat to them
as well as to Assad, and shifted, joining in the US campaign
of air strikes against ISIS targets in Syria. He gave as an
example the position of Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, suggesting that he had admitted the error of a
permissive policy towards the extremists: "President Erdogan
told me, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let
too many people through, now we are trying to seal the
border."<br>
<br>
It is testament to the degeneracy of the American political
system that the circumstances behind ISIS’s rise, alluded to
in Biden’s remarks, have not been the subject of any
investigation. There have been no calls in Congress for
hearings to examine the origins of an organization whose
actions have been seized on to proclaim a new war in the
Middle East.<br>
<br>
As for the media, it merely serves as a government
mouthpiece. Significantly, no US media source reported or
commented on these portions of Biden’s remarks at Harvard.
But once the comments were publicized, first by the
Russian-based RT network, then throughout the Middle East,
Biden hastened to mend fences with the offended client
states.<br>
<br>
The US embassy in Ankara released a statement that Biden had
called Erdogan personally to "clarify recent comments made
at Harvard University." According to the embassy, "The Vice
President apologized for any implication that Turkey or
other Allies and partners in the region had intentionally
supplied or facilitated the growth of ISIL or other violent
extremists in Syria."<br>
<br>
Whatever the level of "intentionality" involved, ISIS was
the recipient of the US-supported arms aid to the Syrian
rebels, routed by the CIA through Saudi Arabia, the UAE,
Turkey and other Mideast client states. The State Department
and CIA were well aware that the Syrian rebels included many
Islamic militants, including those linked to al-Qaeda,
because it had previously employed many of these fighters in
the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime in Libya in 2011.<br>
<br>
Originally established as Al Qaeda in Iraq during the eight
years of warfare that followed the US invasion of Iraq in
2003, the group only took the name ISIS in April 2013, long
after it had built up significant strength in Syria as part
of the US-backed rebel forces fighting the Assad regime.<br>
<br>
In other words, as Biden admits, ISIS was created by the
methods pursued by the US government and its allied
reactionary regimes, both the Islamist government of Erdogan
in Turkey and the Gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia and the
UAE.<br>
<br>
Another confirmation of this relationship came in the form
of a Washington Post report Sunday on the supposedly
contradictory role of the sheikdom of Qatar, another of the
Persian Gulf despotisms that is a client state of American
imperialism. Qatar hosts the huge Al-Udeid Air Base,
headquarters for US air operations in the region and the
directing center of the air war in Syria and Iraq.<br>
<br>
Only 20 miles from the base is the Grand Mosque in the
Qatari capital, Doha, which "has served as a key outpost for
al-Qaeda-linked rebels fighting the Syrian regime," the Post
noted, including the al-Nusra Front, the official al-Qaeda
affiliate in Syria, which was formerly part of ISIS until a
split last year.<br>
<br>
Despite the presentation in the Post, there is nothing
surprising in Qatar hosting the US Air Force and raising
money for al-Qaeda militants in Syria. As long as ISIS
gathered strength in Syria, as part of the US-backed
"rebels" opposed to Assad, it was encouraged in its
ambitions. It was only when ISIS moved its forces back
across the border from Syria into Iraq—and in particular
threatened oil-rich regions in northern Iraq—did the Obama
administration move against it.<br>
<br>
The contradictions in US policy persist. Even as it seeks to
forestall ISIS’s advance, the US is arming and promoting
"moderate" forces within Syria that are openly allied with
al-Nusra and other Islamic fundamentalist groups. The main
target of American imperialism remains the Syrian
government, which is also the reason why Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Turkey and other countries that fostered ISIS and are
hostile to the Assad regime are now supporting the
operation.<br>
<br>
The "war against ISIS," America’s erstwhile ally against the
Assad regime, is only the latest episode in the intervention
of US imperialism in the Middle East, whose goal is not
freedom, or democracy, or the struggle against "terrorism,"
but the domination of the oil-rich region and the
preparation of new and even bloodier wars against Iran and
against the main targets of Washington: Russia and China.<br>
<br>
Patrick Martin</big></big><br>
<br>
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