Did you know the U.S. and Iran are on a direct collision course in Syria?

May 30, 2017 at 2:37 pm
Written by Darius Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA) While celebrities are vehemently criticizing Donald Trump’s recent lack of manners on his first foreign policy trip as president, the mainstream media and our beloved celebrities appear to be completely oblivious of the warpath the Trump administration is taking America down. This time, that warpath is set against another Russian ally: Iran.

As Foreign Policy aptly asked last week, “Are the U.S. and Iran on a collision course in Syria?” The answer to this question appears to be far worse than the media is letting on.

As Anti-Media has previously explained, Iranian-aligned troops who were operating under the banner of the Syrian Arab Army have been advancing toward a U.S. training base in Syria. These troops have subsequently been struck by the U.S.-led coalition. The proposed aim of these Syrian-Iranian-aligned troops is to open up the al-Tanf border crossing to be positioned under the control of the Syrian government in order to open up direct routes to Iraq and Iran (for supplies, reinforcements and the like.) Not to mention, as one U.S. defense official told Foreign Policy, the Syrian government maintains a military outpost in Deir Ezzor, another strategic area where Syrian forces are battling one of the last major remnants of ISIS.

This outpost is isolated, making complete control of the area is almost meaningless without the opening of the al-Tanf region, as Foreign Policy explains:

“The base has long been cut off from other areas of regime control and can only be resupplied by airdrops, but it was recently reinforced by about 1,000 Syrian soldiers, giving the regime in Damascus some fighting power in the area.”

The reclaiming of this territory by the Syrian army and its associated forces is a deal-breaker for Washington. Last Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters that if the Iranian-backed militia continues its advances, the coalition will continue to defend itself, as reported by Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy also reported that the U.S.-led coalition is tracking their movements carefully in their advance towards Deir Ezzor.

If the U.S.-led coalition is, indeed, tracking these troops movements towards Deir Ezzor, the U.S. should be well aware of the photographs produced by regional outlet al-Masdar, which show that the Russian air force is currently deploying air power to cover these advances. The Telegraph, too, confirmed that Russian jets provide air cover for these Iranian-backed militias.

Donald Trump’s childish instinctual decision to push another official out of his way to get to the front of a photo-op is surely worthy of our criticism, yet one has to wonder why this behavior outrages celebrities and commentators who are hardly bothered by the thousands of Iraqis and Syrians who are dying needlessly at the behest of the same man’s foreign policy strategy.

And what should we make of the thousands more who will be unnecessarily pummeled into rubble by Donald Trump’s decision to put America on a direct warpath with Iran and Russia?

The media wants you to believe Donald Trump is compromised by Russia when in actuality, his administration is closer to transforming the Cold War 2.0 into World War 3 than any other administration before him. Meanwhile, in tandem with the mass media, Trump’s administration has been sowing the seeds for a new conflict with Iran, which may involve over 55 countries that have just signed a military pact with the express intention of confronting Iran in Iraq and Syria.

Whatever one’s thoughts on Iran, Russia, and Syria, any human rights organization should be able to vouch for the fact that the United States’ military strategy cannot be a realistic solution to the problems currently engulfing the Middle East region. It will only bring more death and destruction and ignite a ticking time-bomb in the process. And that is something we all need to be talking.