The US has claimed it will begin reconnaissance flights over Syria – a tentative first step toward direct military intervention it has sought in attempts to overthrow the Syrian government since 2011. While the US is using the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) as a pretext to carry out these intrusions into Syrian territory, it was the US itself that created and to this day perpetuates ISIS and other extremist militant fronts amid a documented attempt to reorder the entire Middle East.

What is expected to follow is an incremental expansion of US military intervention in eastern Syria that will include further arming and funding of the very terrorist networks it claims it is violating Syria’s borders to attack, culminating in eventual military operations carried out against the Syria government itself.

The US’ justification for directly intervening in Syria however, only further undermines the very “international norms” it claims to champion, and opens the door for other nations it is menacing to use more direct means to confront its agenda of global military aggression, including along Russia’s border with Ukraine.

Untying Russia’s Hands 

In CNN’s report, “Obama authorizes reconnaissance flights over Syria, U.S. official says,” it states:

In a discussion about whether the United States military would need Syrian government approval to act against ISIS in Syria, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest referenced the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011. 

“The President has already demonstrated a willingness, where necessary, to protect the American people, has demonstrated a willingness to use military force to protect the American people, regardless of borders,” Earnest said Monday.

By exercising policy “regardless of borders,” the US has just hung itself politically in its efforts to protect the newly installed regime in Kiev, Ukraine, and prevent Russia from intervening against what are literally battalions of Neo-Nazi militants operating along Russia’s border with Ukraine. Citing the need to “protect the Russian people” resonates clearer in regards to legitimate concerns, considering Ukraine’s proximity to Russian territory, than America’s claims that a region on the other side of the planet, where one of its citizens voluntarily chose to put himself into harms way by covering an ongoing armed conflict, somehow now requires direct US military intervention.

ISIS is America’s Monstrosity 

What is perhaps the most troubling aspect of all about America’s attempts to begin military intervention in eastern Syria using ISIS as a pretext, is the fact that it and its regional allies including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, created ISIS in the first place to use as a proxy mercenary force for the purpose of overthrowing the government in Syria and confronting pro-Iranian forces across the region from Lebanon to Baghdad. With Syria effectively containing ISIS in eastern Syria and routing them in the more heavily populated regions of western Syria, the West’s designs for regime change in Syria appear effectively defeated.

It was predicted, at the onset of ISIS’ incursion into northern Iraq, that it would be used as a pretext to effect regime change on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border. The West’s feigned surprise at the immense funding, armament, and organization of ISIS attempted to create ‘distance’ between itself and the mercenary force they themselves created.

In a June 2014 NEO Journal article titled, “NATO’s Terror Hordes in Iraq a Pretext for Syria Invasion,” it was explicitly predicted that:

The alleged territorial holdings of ISIS cross over both Syrian and Iraqi borders meaning that any campaign to eradicate them from Iraqi territory can easily spill over into Syria’s borders. And that is exactly the point. With ISIS having ravaged Mosul, Iraq near the Turkish border and moving south in a terror blitzkrieg now threatening the Iraqi capital of Baghdad itself, the Iraqi government is allegedly considering calling for US and/or NATO assistance to break the terror wave. Adding to the pretext, ISIS, defying any sound tactical or strategic thinking, has seized a Turkish consulate in Mosul, taking over 80 Turkish hostages – serendipitous giving Turkey not only a new pretext to invade northern Iraq as it has done many times in pursuit of alleged Kurdish militants, but to invade Syrian territory where ISIS is also based.

The report would also state (emphasis added):

Invading northern Iraq will allow NATO to then justify cross-border operations into eastern Syria. In reality what NATO will be doing is establishing their long desired “buffer zone” where terrorists can launch attacks deeper and more effectively into Syrian territory. With western Syria returning to peace and order after a series of victories for the Syrian government, the last front NATO’s proxy forces have is Al Qaeda’s arch of terror running along Turkey’s border and now, across eastern Syria and northern Iraq. NATO’s presence in northern Iraq would also provide an obstacle for Iranian-Syrian trade and logistics.

Indeed, the US claims that the Syrian government holds no control and therefor no jurisdiction over its eastern most territories, allowing the US and its partners to invade, occupy, and control the region. Under the pretense of fighting ISIS, the US has already declared it would provide greater funding, arms, and support for “moderates” who would then be able to seek refuge in eastern Syria with absolute impunity from Syrian forces, allowing the West’s terrorist proxies to operate deeper and more effectively in territory closer to Damascus.

In reality, these so-called “moderates” demonstrably never existed. The West has so far failed to explain how their funding, arms, training, and aid programs amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars and representing the collective resources of America, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey have somehow been “eclipsed” by ISIS forces. This is of course because the collective resources of the West and its regional allies were intentionally directed into the hands of ISIS and other extremists from the onset of the Syrian conflict.

Order Out of Chaos

By creating ISIS, directing it to this very day, while simultaneously using it as a pretext for direct military intervention, the West sets a dangerous precedent where in any nation that is able to create sufficient chaos within the borders of another nation, can then use this chao to reorder politically and economically any society they will.

What it also does, however, is untie the hands of Russia, who is currently managing a crisis along its borders not of its own creation, but tipped off by the successful US-backed violent overthrow of the elected government of neighboring Ukraine, resulting in a fascist regime coming to power and its subsequent waging of war against Ukrainians who refuse to recognize its illegitimate claim over Kiev.

If the US can invade Syria thousands of miles from its own shores, surely Russia can intervene in Ukraine. As America refers to “international norms” determining what is and isn’t acceptable, the “norm” it has established with its creeping intervention in Syria justifies all that it has denounced Russia for allegedly doing in neighboring Ukraine.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.