Russia and the Middle East
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Interesting piece I came across on Twitter or X
https://x.com/VanessaBeeley/status/1955535498119639526
“Let us be very clear. If Russia is to be given the green light to effectively occupy southern Syria – it will be done in collaboration with Israel. Israel will benefit because there will be a military force that will maintain security in the south while Israel expands north-eastwards towards the David’s Corridor with Kurdish and US cooperation. This ultimately means that Russia is an ally of Israel and if you are an ally of Israel, you are automatically coming to agreement with the US deep state on some level.
Since the fall of Damascus, Israel has lobbied the US to enable Russian presence to remain in Syria. Now, the Russian presence is consolidating and potentially expanding to include the north-east, the south, and the coastal region, thus utterly containing Erdogan.
For Russians. revenge is a dish served cold – when Turkey shot down a Russian Sukhoi S-24 in 2015, everybody asked ‘why no retaliation?’. This is the retaliation that could not happen without Zionist influence. Russia has control of the anti-HTS militia in the south of Syria since 2018. They were the first to enter Damascus in 2024. Russia will potentially take back control of these forces to patrol the south, while maintaining their surveillance posts on the border with occupied Golan that were increased in 2024, leading up to the November HTS attack on Aleppo.
At the time many people were questioning the Russian role as a replacement for UNIFIL on the Golan demarcation line. Many also asked if Russia would intercept Israeli missiles or would Russia defend Israel from the Resistance attacks from Syrian territory? Questions were being raised about the Russian agenda from 2017 onwards.
What is now unfolding does suggest that Russia was never an ideological ally for Syria or for the Resistance. On the contrary, Russia would have preferred Syria pivot towards Saudi Arabia and eventually, normalise with Israel. What we now see unfolding is the true Russian agenda without the impediment of a Syrian government that had blocked their advancement.
With Jolani desperate for Russian weapons and protection from many perspectives – we see the alliance between Russia and Israel being blatantly displayed for all to see. Anyone who tries to dismiss this as Putin 5D or 10D chess is not seeing the writing on the wall that was there long before 2024.
This is the new paradigm in Syria and it should send a strong message to all who ally with Russia, that Russian interests are the priority and that Russian and US deep states are not perhaps the enemies that they are portrayed as. They will not ever be allies but from a realpolitik perspective, they will come to agreements on the policing of Syria, perhaps as part of the Ukraine deal now being hatched.
I can add many personal conversations with Russian military and officials in Syria since 2017 that now make more sense in the current context. I will write something about these conversations”
This is another article analyzing the same situation. Israel wants to counterbalance Turkey
Exclusive: Israel lobbies US to keep Russian bases in a ‘weak’ Syria, sources say
Summary
Israel lobbies US to keep Syria weak, decentralised, sources say
Israel supports Russia’s military presence in Syria, sources say
Israel concerned about Turkey’s influence in SyriaBEIRUT/WASHINGTON, Feb 28 (Reuters) – Israel is lobbying the United States to keep Syria weak and decentralised, including by letting Russia keep its military bases there to counter Turkey’s growing influence in the country, four sources familiar with the efforts said.
Turkey’s often fraught ties with Israel have come under severe strain during the Gaza war and Israeli officials have told Washington that Syria’s new Islamist rulers, who are backed by Ankara, pose a threat to Israel’s borders, the sources said.This source is also indicating similar situation
Israel’s Strategy: Backing Russian Bases in Syria to Curb Turkish Influence
I don’t think that Vanessa Beeley can be regarded as a useful source of information or analysis. According to her Wikipedia entry, she is known as a purveyor of various conspiracy theories (including that the attack on the twin towers in New York was not the work of Al Qaeda).
The clue is in her tweet when she refers to the “Russian and US deep states”, the term “deep state” being part of conspiracy theorists’ language.
One definition of “deep state” is:
“a body of people, typically influential members of government agencies or the military, believed to be involved in the secret manipulation or control of government policy.”
This makes the ostensible top political decision-makers the puppets of some shadowy group who make the real decisions.
So, in Russia, it would not be Putin and his clique who decide Russian policy but some other, secret clique that gives him orders. But, supposing this to be true, who are they and how are they chosen and renewed? As to the US, to suggest that Trump takes orders from some secret clique is just as absurd. Ironically, many of his more vocal supporters expect him to dismantle the deep state they believe to exist.
There are some cases where the politicians are not really in control. Pakistan for instance (and for a long while Turkey) where the politicians elected to control the government machine can’t go beyond what the leaders of the armed forces want. But there is nothing secretive about this. Who the leaders of the armed forces and what they want are known.
This is not to say that there is nothing in what she says, though saying that Russia is serving Israel’s interests sounds a bit dodgy.
It looks like the Deep State is not secret any more because in the USA Donald Trump government has control over the Department of Justice, the Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Military Apparatus and they have dismantled several governments agencies,
It is widely known who controls the world: The capitalist class and the market system. It is also widely known that the USA has lost the war in Ukraine in the same way that they lost the war in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan
The conspiracy theory of the the Deep State which has been completely debunked is older than the one that was emitted in Turkey in 1990, it started in 1960 with a book titled the Invisible governent.
As an article published by the Socialist party says that conspiracy theory are easier for many peoples because they have been created already and there is not need to use any independent thinking or logic, and there is not need to do any profound research to find the real truth
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2018/no-1370-october-2018/conspiracy-theory-vs-socialist-logic/. The New York Towers as the SPGB wrote, It was terrorism vs terrorism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state_conspiracy_theory_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Government.
This concept also served as the basis to write many conspiracy theory about John F Kennedy assassination, that he tried to dissolve the invisible government and the CIA, and it was the opposite, he did expand the secret service and he promoted many coup d’tats in several countries, and asked several dictators placed by the USA, to resign or to be killed.
As the SOYMB said: He was the real conspiracy, his national and international mission was to defend and protect the interest of the US ruling class
Putin is serving the geopolitical interest of the Russian ruling class, as well Israel is serving the interest of its own ruling class and the USA, and Israel is not controlling the USA or Russia, it is pure nonsenses
ALB – It has long been known that the US has a long term strategy of destabilizing Russia with the aim of regime change. Presidents come and go but the aim of global hegemony stays the same – who makes these decisions if not some kind of ‘deep state’?
So what is your explanation, comrades, for Trump changing position vis à vis Russia time and time again, like a shuttlecock batted between Putin one day and Graham, Starmer & Co. the next?
Both sectors of the US capitalist class have used the concept of the ‘Deep State” for their world hegemonic purposes, and at the present time the US ruling class does want not to lose completely its world hegemony which is being challenged by chinese capitalism.
These conspiracy theories are used in order to hide the struggles between capitalist groups, national and international fighting for their own class interests, and many workers without the proper political and economic orientation follow them. The capitalist class is not a secret family, shadow groups or secretive groups
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/17/pers-j17.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/21/deep-j21.html
The Qanon groups have also created false conspiracy theories ( which include religious beliefs ) that had been used by both sides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnonWez: “It has long been known that the US has a long term strategy of destabilizing Russia with the aim of regime change. Presidents come and go but the aim of global hegemony stays the same – who makes these decisions if not some kind of ‘deep state’?
I don’t see why there is a need to posit some kind of shadowy group to explain why different governments consistently pursue the same policy. Capitalist states will have strategic interests that don’t change over the short term and which any group of politicians coming to be charge of running the state will recognise and pursue, simply because they are committed to defend and furthering the general overall interest of its capitalist class.
Are you really saying that, for instance, when Starmer became prime minister last year some member of a ‘deep state’ told he must pursue the general interest of the British capitalist class in keeping trade routes for getting oil out of them Persian Gulf from being controlled by a hostile power? He had no need to be so instructed. He will have been able to see for himself what was in the capitalist interest.
The problem with positing some shadowy group instructing elected politicians what to decide to do is identifying who are the members of this group and how do people get to become members of it. And of course why has nobody, journalist or historian, been able to name names or describe its structure? Why has no member or operative ever spilt the beans?
Answer: because there is no such group. If you think there is, produce some evidence. Who are they? Continuity of pursuit of a policy is not a proof as there is a much simpler explanation for this for which there is plenty of evidence.
That conspiracy theory has been spread thru the third world countries ( Global South ) including Latin America, ironically, there are some Trotskyists and Leninist groups who also support that theory instead of supporting the socialist logic.
In regard to the backing of Israel to Russia, it is not new that capitalists have made temporary alliances in order to advance their own geopolitical interests, the western powers and the soviets made temporary alliance with the Nazis, the fascists, and the soviets, and then they became enemies.
The question is what are going to say those groups who support Russia against Ukraine, or vice versa, and the groups that support Iran against Israel ? That is the importance of taking an independent socialist stand
The reason for such beliefs as Sadean villains behind the scenes is that believers are not materialists.
Idealism is the belief that ideas come first, out of thin air and without material antecedents.
It is the old “battle between Good and Evil” where everything has to be a manufacture. Where everything is guilt and sin.
Dick Dastardly rules in the playground, boys and girls. Batman to the rescue!“… Trotskyists and Leninist groups who also support that theory instead of supporting the socialist logic.”
Of course, Bolshevism is all about punishments and “identifying individual enemies.” Just look at Mao’s “Cultural Revolution”, based on blaming individuals and punishing them. No materialist understanding at all!
” In regard to the backing of Israel to Russia, it is not new that capitalists have made temporary alliances in order to advance their own geopolitical interests, the western powers and the soviets made temporary alliance with the Nazis, the fascists, and the soviets, and then they became enemies.
The question is what are going to say those groups who support Russia against Ukraine, or vice versa, and the groups that support Iran against Israel ? That is the importance of taking an independent socialist stand.”
And earlier: the Pope supported the Protestant William of Orange against the Catholic James II.
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