By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

A new document published in the Western media suggests what we have known for years that the CIA began plotting to overthrow the Syrian government since at least 1985 and that the current war has nothing to do with so-called "democracy” and "freedom”.
The declassified memorandum offers different possible scenarios that could lead to the ouster of President Bashar Assad’s late father Hafiz Assad and other dramatic changes in Syria.  It is under the same plan that decades later the CIA in yet another declassified memorandum is urging the White House officials to arm the so-called Free Syrian Army in 2012 to give them a chance to overthrow President Bashar Assad as well. This was before the terrorist group of ISIL broke away from Al-Qaeda, and before the refugee situation that led to a mass exodus from the Middle East.
In August of 2011, President Obama called on President Assad to "step aside” for the good of the Syrian people. Over the next several months, Obama repeated that call for Assad’s ouster. Now, the memorandum published this week reveals the plan supported by most of the intelligence community to overthrow the Syrian dictator and make good the president’s words had existed since at least 1986!
This is not surprising. It’s long been known that then-CIA Director David Petraeus recommended a program to secretly arm and train "moderate” terrorists in 2012 to topple the Syrian government. But the new CIA memorandum is revealing that senior CIA officials were actually pushing a multi-tiered plan to engineer government’s ouster much longer before that. Former American officials involved in the discussions have already confirmed that to the Western media outlets as well.
They say an "ops plan” that included all the elements they believed were necessary to remove Bashar Assad. They also say the White House and CIA leaders "had made it clear from the beginning that the goal of our task force was to find ways to remove President Assad from office.” They had come up with 50 options to facilitate that. Their ops plan laid them out in black and white. And the political leadership gave them the go-ahead to implement it.
Meaning, the ongoing chaos and bloodshed in the war-torn country has nothing to do with freedom and democracy and everything to do with the United States and its colonial designs for the Middle East and North Africa. Into the argument, this should help us understand who is really responsible for the current humanitarian catastrophe in Syria and the rest of the Muslim world.
The "moderate” terrorists and their principle backers have never shown the slightest interest in peace and humanitarian assistance. They are the ones that should be targeted by the international civil society, not Damascus and its Iranian-Russian allies which are fighting terror and trying to stabilize the war-torn country.
The uncomfortable truth is that there can be no peaceful solution to the crisis under these awful circumstances. The U.S.-backed war is the main culprit for the perils of sectarian polarization. In recent days this has been reinforced by the U.S. decision to send even more troops to Syria and by the Saudi-led camp – Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar and the Arab Emirates - which has ratcheted up the rhetoric against Iran plus the ongoing violent turn across the terror-held areas.
On that score, it’s a wild card war without end. The dig-in parties will continue to place Damascus in their gun sights, pitting Sunnis against Shias, or Kurds against Christians - today, tomorrow, and for as far as the eye can see. They will continue to provide cash, weapons and assistance to their terror proxies. They won’t stop the proxy war short of total destruction of Syria. After all, the new declassified memorandum makes it absolutely clear that’s been the plan since at least 1986!