toni solo, september 3rd

The US government is working hard with its partners in Britain, France, Israel and Saudi Arabia to recoup after conceding ground last week so as to buy time for a redoubled assault against the Resistance alliance of Syria, Iran and Hezbollah. The US Congress will certainly approve an illegal attack against Syria in order to defend US prestige and the interests of Israel and Saudi Arabia against the interests of Russia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, China. The issue of chemical weapons use and the role of the UN have become almost completely irrelevant.

The absurd allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian army have faded into the background. Here in Latin America, no one familiar with NATO country psychological warfare against the region's progressive governments gives the least credence to North American and European television, press and fellow-travelling alternative media coverage. Foremost in that coverage now are news items justifying NATO country political machinations to consolidate the next stage of what has been a strategic test for the Western oligarchies from the start.

If the NATO powers and their regional allies cannot get their way in Syria, Western countries' global dominance will be over. That will greatly weaken both Israel's genocidal project to completely colonize Palestine and too Saudi Arabia's efforts to isolate Iran. But while war is probably inevitable, no one can predict the likely consequences of a conflict which risks becoming global.

The US government and its allies want a much wider offensive against Syria leading to conflict with Iran and with Hezbollah. The US and its allies will attack Syria because they believe they will prevail for now come what may. In a matter of a few years, they may well face a much stronger reaction from Russia and China than at present seems likely.

Since 2011 the two year war against Syria - and the criminal aggression against Libya that year - mark the categorical end of the United Nations as a credible mechanism for arbitrating conflicts and promoting peace. NATO country abuse of the limited mandate provided by Security Council Resolution 1973 clearly convinced Russia and China that only uncompromising use of their veto - as ruthlessly as the US has always used it - will protect their legitimate interests. The US and its allies will attack Syria directly because the UN has become redundant.

Western claims to global moral authority have become completely ridiculous. From 2008 onwards the massive transfer of wealth from the public sector to Western financial and corporate elites made absolute nonsense of Western claims to champion democracy. The countries of North America and Europe are very obviously ruled by ruthless oligarchies desperate to preserve their power and control.

Now, that power and control is being used to advance the Western elites' perceived interests in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine against Iran and ultimately against Russia and China. Whether or not popular majorities are against involvement in the war in Syria hardly matters. The elites know they have a window of barely a few years in which they can still secure control by military means of global natural resources and strategic locations.

President Obama will go to war because the elites he and his fellow NATO country mass-murderers front for have said they must. For them, it is only a question of when and how. For the rest of us, complete solidarity with the Syrian government and the clear majority of Syrians it represents is our supreme moral obligation.