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Is the military intervention by France, Israel and the United Kingdom in Syria legal?

On the 20th November, in order to launch their new war in Iraq and Syria, France, Israel and the United Kingdom forced the Security Council to adopt resolution 2249 [1]. In the opinion of the French representative at the UNO, who is the author of the text, the resolution authorises collective action in accordance with article 51 of the United Nations Charter, in other words, as a means of “legitimate defence”. For the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, it supports “any action against this murderous and diabolical sect, both in Iraq and Syria” [2].

However, according to the experts of the Research Service of the Library of the House of Commons, this is entirely false. After a careful study of the legislation concerned, Arabella Lang states that the resolution in no way authorises the use of force, but enjoins everyone who has the legal possibility to do so to redouble their efforts [3]. This means that the resolution only applies to states which have been requested to intervene by Iraq and Syria.

For the purposes of the cause, Iraq therefore addressed a letter to the General Secretary and the Security Council confirming that they were under attack by Daesh from Syrian territory, even though the Islamic Emirate was founded in Iraq. Since France and the United Kingdom had been solicited by Iraq, the two states – excluding Israel - pretend that they are exercising their right to “legitimate collective defence”. Besides this, each of them pretend that they have been attacked by Daesh from Syria, and therefore claim they also have an individual right to legitimate defence. Unfortunately, these arguments are only valid if Paris and London can provide proof that Daesh is preparing imminent attacks from Syria, which is not the case [4].

Consequently, military intervention in Syria by France, Israel and the United Kingdom remains illegal in the absence of prior agreement from the government of the Syrian Arab Republic.

Let us remember that the United Nations Charter and the pertinent resolutions of the General Assembly formally prohibit military support for non-state groups seeking to overthrow members of the UNO. This is why France and the United Kingdom have long been pretending that they were sending only defensive equipment to the armed groups in Syria. Unfortunately, these groups also receive large quantities of offensive weaponry – notably rifles, mortars, anti-tank and ground-to-air missiles, explosives, and even combat gases. In August 2014, French President Hollande admitted, in an interview with Le Monde, that he had delivered offensive weapons to the Syrian “rebels” [5]. He later specified, in interviews with journalist Xavier Panon, that he has been delivering [6] 20 mm cannons, machine guns, rocket-launchers, and anti-tank missiles since 2012, which unambiguously violates international law, and drags France down to the level of a “gangster state” [7].

The unavowable project of France, Israel and the United Kingdom

Since the 20th November, France has been attempting to form a coalition – yet another – to fight Daesh, and more specifically, to take Rakka. This rhetoric, which is all it takes to convince the French population of their government’s determination to respond to the 13th November attacks in Paris, is nonetheless a poor disguise for the colonial intentions of President Hollande. Indeed, chasing Daesh out of Rakka is all well and good, but with which ground troops and to whose profit?

The Russian aerial campaign is lending support on the ground to the Syrian Arab Army, while according to the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Laurent Fabius, the Franco-British campaign could support the Free Syrian Army (organised by the members of Al-Qaïda in Libya), the Sunni Arab Forces (in other terms, the Turkmen militias supported by the Turkish Army), and the Kurds (both the Syrian YPG and the Peshmergas of the Regional Kurdish Government of Iraq).

In case these forces should manage to take Rakka, the city would be handed over to the Regional Kurdish Government of Iraq, who would annex it. The goal is to proclaim a “Kurdistan” straddling the border between Iraq and Syria, and then expel the Syrian populations who live there, followed by the transfer of 10 million Turkish Kurds to this new state.

In 2011, Alain Juppé (France) and Ahmet Davutoglu (Turkey) came to a secret agreement to employ a terrorist organisation (Daesh) to force the creation of a Sunni state and a Kurdistan, both straddling Iraq and Syria. Their project was supported by Israel and the United Kingdom.

The Juppé plan

In 2011, Alain Juppé, then French Minister for Foreign Affairs, and his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, signed a secret treaty. We know that it included several reciprocal engagements, including that of “resolving the Kurdish question” without “damaging the integrity of Turkish territory”, in other words, the creation of a pseudo-Kurdistan in Syria.

Still convinced that he is a Gaullist, the French have apparently not noticed his about-turn in 2005. At that time, he had been condemned to a suspended 14-month sentence and one year of ineligibility for having financed his political party by the misappropriation of public funds. He left France and went to teach in Montreal. However, he was present in Canada only infrequently, and followed a training course in a third country. Today, although he is a member of the opposition, he is one of the main inspirers of France’s Near-Eastern policies, which President Hollande continues to implement in contempt of History and the interests of France.

Kurdistan and Syria

The Kurds are a people who for several centuries have lived in a territory which is shared today between Turkey, Iraq and Iran. The 1962 census revealed that there were only 169,000 Kurds in Syria, which is an infinitesimal portion of the general population. But during the Turkish civil war of 1980-90, 2 million Turkish Kurds took refuge in Syria. The idea of France, Israel and the United Kingdom is to carve them out a state, not in their true home in Turkey, but by colonising the country which has generously sheltered them.

Syria had already been divided by France and the United Kingdom during the San Remo Conference (1920) according to the terms of the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916). Historically, it included not only the present Syria, but also Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Sanjak of Alexandretta (Turkish Antioch), and part of Iraq. The current project thus aims to continue this dismemberment.

The representative of the Syrian Kurds, Salih Muslim, was received in Paris on the 31st October 2014 by François Hollande and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The three men agreed to create a pseudo-Kurdistan in Syria from which they would expel the Sunni and Christian population, and to which they would transfer the Syrian Kurds.

Who are the Kurds?

The Kurds form a single culture, but speak different dialects – Kurmanji (northern Syria), Sorani (Iraq and Iran) and Pehlwani, (eastern Iran and western Iraq), to which we must add a fourth and totally different language from the former three, the Zaza-Gorani dialects (north-western Iran).

During the Cold War, the Kurds divided into two distinct groups, the first of which was supported by Israel and the United States, while the second was supported by Syria and the USSR.

During the Turkish civil war, the PKK, the main Kurdish party (of Marxist-Leninist obedience) and its chief Abdullah Öcalan, were militantly in favour of the creation of an independent Kurdistan in Turkey. They specified that they had no territorial ambition in Syria. Öcalan was welcomed as a political refugee in Damascus, from where he directed military operations in Turkey. Fleeing the repression, 2 million Kurds found refuge in Syria. But in 1998, Ankara threatened Damascus with war if it continued to shelter the PKK. President Hafez el-Assad finally asked Abdullah Öcalan to find another refuge, and continued to protect the Kurdish refugees.

At the start of the war against Syria, President Bachar el-Assad gave Syrian nationality to many of the Kurdish refugees from Turkey. He encouraged them to create local militias, and to participate in the defence of the territory. During the first two years of the war, their cooperation with the Syrian Security Forces was total, but in 2014, the situation began to deteriorate.

On the 31st October 2014, Salih Muslim, the director of the Kurdish Democratic Union of Syria, was received by François Hollande in annex to an interview with the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, just after the battle of Kobani. The two heads of state, who until then had refused to help the Syrian Kurds, managed to convince Salih Muslim that he would have a personal interest in betraying the engagements of the PKK and joining their project.

One year later, Salih Muslim launched an operation consisting of the forced “Kurdisation” of Northern Syria, which provoked the uprising of the local populations, mainly Assyrian Christians and Sunni Arabs [8].

However, when France, Israel and the United Kingdom launched the operation of the creation of a Kurdistan in Syria, Salih Muslim encountered great difficulty in mobilising combatants. The young Kurds who had found refuge in Iraq refused en masse to participate in the colonial project [9].

Salih Muslim was once again in Paris on Friday the 27th November.

The destruction of the Russian Sukhoi 24 by Turkey

The Russian military intervention, on the 1st October 2015, upset the plans of the colonial powers. For President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it once again pushed back the implementation of the Juppé Plan and his dream of the purification of Turkey. Consequently he gave orders to his army to prepare an incident with a Russian plane, as the whistle-blower Fuat Avni noted at the time.

On the 16th November, Russia extended its military operation against the terrorist groups in Syria by attacking, politically, their sources of finance. President Vladimir Putin provoked astonishment at the G20 meeting in Antalya by accusing, without naming him, the President of the session, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He showed the diplomats present satellite photographs of convoys of tanker-trucks travelling from locations in Syria to Turkish ports, and denounced the laxism of those who allowed Daesh to accumulate billions of dollars by this trafficking [10].

Over-estimating the support that he expected from Washington, or under-estimating the power of Russia, on the 24th November, President Erdogan ordered the destruction of a Russian Sukhoi which had entered Turkish air-space for 17 seconds [11]. Without hesitation, Moscow reacted by imposing heavy economic sanctions against Ankara, broadcasting the radar recordings of the incident [12], deploying S-400 missiles, and finally, on the 2nd December, by broadcasting, during a Press conference with their Chief of Staff, the satellite photo-based proof of the responsibility of Turkey in the financing of Daesh [13].

Immediately, the international Press, which had been denying the truth for a year, was suddenly swamped with reproaches against the autocrat of Ankara and his family.

On the 29th November 2015, the European Union rolled out the red carpet for Turkey. It re-booted the negotiations for Turkey’s adhesion, freed up entry visas, and offered it 3 billion Euros.

The Franco-British intervention

However, on the 29th November, the European Union organised a special summit with Turkey. Ignoring the declarations of Vladimir Putin at the G20 and the unpublished reports of High Representative Federica Mogherini attesting to the fact that the petrol stolen by Daesh is sold throughout the EU by Cyprus, Italy and France, the participants concluded – “In the context of the final declaration of the last G20 summit, held in Antalya, as well as resolution (2015) 2249 of the Security Council of the United Nations, Turkey and the European Union re-affirm that the fight against terrorism remains a priority” (sic) [14].

In application of the Juppé Plan of 2011, the negotiations for the adhesion of Turkey to the EU were re-activated, the visa régime is in the process of being repealed, and, as icing on the cake, the Union agreed to transfer 3 billion Euros to Turkey, allegedly to help manage the Syrian refugee crisis.

The French Parliament [15] and the British House of Commons [16], convinced that resolution 2249 authorises them to intervene in Syria without the agreement of Damascus, gave their Executives the go-ahead for military intervention in Syria. These interventions, which are exclusively aerial, have been presented as targeting Daesh. During the debates, none of the Chambers concerned evoked the question of a pseudo-Kurdistan.

Contrary to the declarations made to the Press, no-one has changed their policy regarding Daesh. The terrorist organisation is still supported by its creators – US personalities close to David Petraeus and John Negroponte, and the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Only the Iraqi Shias, the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Syrian Arab Army and Russia are fighting Daesh. The operations of the US Coalition have never had any other objective than “containing” Daesh, never to eradicate it. The game today consists of “liberating” Northern Syria in order to implement its immediate occupation by the Iraqi Kurds, and to push back Daesh in Iraq to the district of Al-Anbar which has been reserved for it. The only difference since the Russian intervention is that the Western Alliance has given up the idea of forcing Daesh to occupy the Syrian desert.

Keep in mind:

-        France and the United Kingdom have managed to make their public opinion believe that Resolution 2249 authorises them to intervene in Syria against Daesh. On this basis, they have obtained the authorisation of their parliaments to begin bombing, but without the authorisation of Syria.

-        On the ground, they believe they can count on the Turkmen militias (supported by the Turkish army) and the Kurdish YPG (supported by Israel and the Regional Kurdish Government of Iraq).

-        The aim of these interventions is not to eradicate Daesh because of its programme of ethnic cleansing, but to displace them to Al-Anbar, and to continue the ethnic cleansing, this time in Northern Syria, to create a pseudo-Kurdistan.

Notes

[1] “Resolution 2249 on combating ISIS”, Voltaire Network, 20 November 2015.

[2] “PM statement on the United Nations Security Council Resolution”, 10 Downing Street, November 20, 2015.

[3] “Legal basis for UK military action in Syria”, by Arabella Lang, Voltaire Network, 26 November 2015.

[4] “La Résolution 2249 n’autorise pas à bombarder en Syrie”, par Nicolas Boeglin, Réseau Voltaire, 1er décembre 2015.

[5] “François Hollande confirme avoir livré des armes aux rebelles en Syrie”, Le Monde, 20 août 2014.

[6] Let us remember that President Sarkozy had also delivered heavy weapons in 2011, notably Milan missile systems, although he has never admitted so in public.

[7] Dans les coulisses de la diplomatie française, par Xavier Panon, L’Archipel, 13 mai 2015.

[8] “The United States and Israel begin the colonisation of Northern Syria”, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 2 November 2015.

[9] “Le YPG proclame la conscription obligatoire des réfugiés kurdes syriens”, Réseau Voltaire, 24 novembre 2015.

[10] “Vladimir Putin’s Responses to journalists’ questions following the G20 summit”, by Vladimir Putin, Voltaire Network, 16 November 2015.

[11] “Why did Turkey shoot down the Russian Soukhoï 24 ?”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 30 November 2015.

[12] “The radar recordings of the Turkish attack on the Russian Su-24”, by Valentin Vasilescu, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 5 December 2015.

[13] “Russia shows proof of petrol trafficking by Daesh via Turkey”, by Valentin Vasilescu, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 3 December 2015.

[14] “EU-Turkey statement”, Voltaire Network, 29 November 2015.

[15] “Débat à l’Assemblée nationale française sur l’engagement militaire en Syrie”, “Débat au Sénat français sur l’engagement militaire en Syrie”, Réseau Voltaire, 25 novembre 2015.

[16] “UK House of Commmons Motion on ISIL in Syria”, Voltaire Network, 2 December 2015.

Courtesy Thierry Meyssan; Translation Pete Kimberley

http://www.voltairenet.org/article189562.html