Paris Conference Gives Green Light to New Middle East War
By Patrick Martin
Global Research
September 16, 2014
A French-sponsored, US-backed international conference on “peace and security in Iraq,” held in Paris Monday, brought together most of the world’s great powers along with a majority of the Arab states to offer political, economic and military backing to the government in Baghdad.
The conference issued a communiqué that committed all participants to work together to “eradicate” ISIS and support the newly formed Iraqi government “by any means necessary, including appropriate military assistance.”
This sweeping agreement was backed by 13 NATO members, including the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Turkey, and 10 Arab states—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman and Qatar—as well as by Australia and Japan, the two principal Pacific allies of Washington.
The communiqué was also signed by the foreign ministers of Russia and China, which have been at odds with US policy in the region, and particularly with its efforts to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
It was to gain the support of Russia and China, as well as several of the NATO countries that might otherwise have balked, that the communiqué made no mention of action against ISIS in Syria. However, the commitment to “eradicate” the group, which controls nearly all of the eastern half of Syria, opens the door to such action.
In a clear signal that the Assad regime remains the central target of the US-led campaign against ISIS, both Syria and its ally Iran were excluded from the Paris conference, even though these two countries have done more to fight ISIS than any of those participating.
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