War By Another
Name in Syria

By Franklin Lamb

June
19, 2013 "Information
Clearing House -   The Group of Eight leaders meeting in Lough
Erne, Northern Ireland, having called for an
international conference on the ongoing crisis in Syria to be
held “as soon as possible” could not agree on much else that
might end the civil war anytime soon there. The White House now
is reportedly in private agreement with Russia and Iran that the
Assad government will remain in power until next year’s
election.
Consequently, an 18
month old US-led Plan B has been dusted off by the Obama
administration according to Washington Congressional and Beirut
diplomatic sources. If successful, there is growing confidence
among pro-Zionist neocons in Congress that while Syrian
regime-change has failed for several reasons that thwarted the
Gulf funded military campaign, Syria can still be brought to
heel through an economic campaign dressed to look, well, down
right “humanitarian.”
The term
“equivalent of the Marshall Plan” is being employed by some in
the White House and Pentagon this month to describe a proposed
large-scale “humanitarian rescue program” being prepared for
Syria, according to some Western diplomats based in Lebanon.
However, the 1948
Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program or ERP)
was an American program to aid
Europe,
through which the United States provided $ 13 billion, in
today’s monetary terms, approximately 100 billion dollars of
economic support, to help rebuild European economies devastated
by war.
With respect to
Syria, the “ equivalent of the Marshall Plan”  currently being
finalized is very different from what General George |C.
Marshall explained to his Harvard University audience, 66 years
ago this month, when he announced the post WW II initiative.
The already 
project Syria amounts to 19th century economic
imperialism as a means to achieve control of Syria by hijacking
its economy while shielding Israel from the rising tide of
protests in this region, as armed groups across the spectrum are
beginning to focus on directly confronting the Zionist theft and
continuing occupation of Palestine.
What Washington has
in mind constitutes an attempt to gain control over Syria by
controlling its economy via contracts for rebuilding the country
and “lending” the hoped for post-Assad Syrian government as much
as 300 billion dollars to be secured by Syrian assets.  IMF
economists estimate the value of the public sector in Syria,
exceeds half a trillion dollars. Under the US-led pan, creditors
can take control of ownership of the public sectior, if Syria
accepts the plan for pledges to secure debt.  The buyers of the
debt will be largely American and indirectly Israeli businessmen
as well as from the Gulf.  Qatar specifically is gambling on
this plan, to work with “international parties”, to immerse
Syria in debt, and then drive the country to sell the private
sector at a very small fraction of their true values.
Some who are
warning against the scheme point out that Syrians are capable of
rebuilding their own country and have the labor force and raw
materials to do it.  Foreign aid will be welcomed by the Syrian
government but not at the price of ceding the Arab Syrian
Republic to a new western crafted economic order. What is hidden
in the war on Syria is reported to be much bigger than has been
divulged to date, and involves winding down the military actions
in favor of economic aggression against the Syrian population
which the layers of US sanctions to date is  just a harbinger.
In this context,
according to Western Diplomatic sources, the US government and
some Gulf countries have tried to bribe Rami Makhlouf, a cousin
of Syria’s President, to break with the government and leave the
country. Some other well-known figues have also been offered
large sums of cash to break ranks.  Last month, one prominent
Syrian nationalist who works with the government told this
observer of receiving a $ 50 million dollar offer to defect and
leave Syria. The official rejected the bribe and ridiculed the
government that made the offer by explaining that as proud
Syrian nationalists, no amount of money would break the sacred
bond between Syrians and their country.
With respect to Mr.
Maklouf, he did not react to being placed on the US Treasury
Department’s “Specially Designated Nationals” (SDN) list which
blocks assets and prohibits, under severe penalties, U.S.
citizens from dealing with them, nor did he dignify an American
clemency offer with even a reply. Rather he has maintained his
steadfast support for Syria in the face of several attempts to
assassinate him as well as targeting him, as a leader of the
Syrian business community, with American orchestrated (OFAC)
defamatory media campaigns, to pressure  Presidenrt Bashar
al-Assad to break with him.  Rather than rejecting Syria for 
American offers of protection, Makhlouf  channeled much of  his
assets for the benefit of  domestic charities and
 rehabilitative projects,  providing  jobs for the unemployed
and loans for small investors as well as “at cost”  family
housing for many of the internally displaced. This initiative
continues.  Makhlouf has provided his borse shares in the
largest telecommunications companies in Syria to charity
associations  in order to insure  financial independence and
resources that the Authority can rely upon, to ease somewhat,
the devastating effects on the current crisis on the Syrian
civil society.
According to
analysts among the Western diplomatic corps in Beirut, many
wealthy Syrian capitalists fell into the U.S. trap, wherein SDN
economic sanctions prompted them to leave Syria and defect from
the regime. The United States and its European partners continue
to wage an economic war against Syria by imposing  crippling
sanctions which are affecting the lives of ordinary  citizens in
many ways from food and fuel costs to medical care.
Why Rami Makhlouf
and other strong nationalists in Syria’s business community are
being targeted as a prelude to fully launching the US-led
“Syrian Marshall Plan” is that their bonds with Syria as well as
their business acumen are blocking the Western scheme because
they provide the Syrian government with much needed additional
financial strength to rebuild Syria, in cooperation with other
countries, but without being subject to the economically fatal
conditions the US-led plan envisages. Many in the financial and
academic community view the proposed SMP plan as nearly certain
to hold the Syrian economy hostage to foreigners for scores of
years.
The US Treasury
Department considers Makhlouf and others like him in the Syrian
business community as fully capable, if allowed, of helping
Syria’s government to collect huge sums from international
investors to help rebuild Syria without being subject to Western
domination.
“The anti-Mahhlouf
black propaganda campaign, according to a Washington DC source
familiar with the intensified preparations, commented that the
SMP was  designed to include a wide ranging assault   in the
visual and written media, audio, as well as in the electronic
media: “  Almost certainty funded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia,
both of which like their western partners who are actually
constructing the SMP project, view Makhlouf as a key obstacle to
realizing their plans to hijack and control the Syrian economy
as part of a soft war, whereby the US and its allies, western
and middle eastern, controls Arab economies while keeping US
boots off the grounds of Arabia or spending more US treasure in
this region.”
Targeting Rami
Makhlouf, and other Syrian businessmen by Qatari media and other
Arabic paid media outlets, is designed to hit Syria
economically, because weakening the Syrian economic security at
its core, is  a more certain path, than endless military
campaigns, to quickly smash the state. Makhlouf and his
colleagues are seen as preventing this.
The ultimate goal
of Qatar and certain Gulf countries, with US complicity, is not
just expanding their investments in this region, as much as Doha
is intent on connecting the Arab world to the American-Zionist
axis politically and economically. The speed with which Israeli,
Gulf, and Western businessmen showed up at the Corinthian,
Radisson, and Rixos hotels in Tripoli, Libya, literally within
days of the murder of Maoammar Qaddafi, “to help rebuild this
country”  is instructive on these same interests seeking to
control a war damaged country by removing obstacles.  Indeed,
Russian intelligence reported at the time that the salafists who
apprehended Qaddafi in Serte on October 20, 2011, as he
attempted to flee, received verbal instructions from a Gulf
country (UAE) to kill him in order to eliminate competition for
dominating the Libyan econnomy and to silence those who might
torpedo their best laid plans..
The targeting of
Mr. Rami Makhlouf and dozens of like-minded Syrian businessmen,
who refused to abandon their country, continues.  Yet today,
like thousands of other Syrian volunteers including the
approximately 10,000 who work with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent
Society (SARCS) their time and resources serve their country in
order to lessen the suffering of the civilian population.  They
have stood firm and did not flee, as did some corrupt former
supporters and officials of the government.
This week, Syria’s
President put the goal of the Marshall Plan for Syria
succinctly, without identifying it, “What is happening in Syria
is a project for those states to push a non-submissive state
towards the brink and to look for a new president who says ‘yes’
(to their orders). They have not found and they will not find in
the future,” Assad stressed while adding, “The interference is a
blatant violation of international law and the sovereignty of
this country; they (western states and their Gulf allies) want
to destabilize the country and spread chaos and backwardness.”
Franklin
Lamb is doing research in Syria and Lebanon and can be
reached c/o fplamb@gmail.com