Raqqa Syria civil war destruction
© Erik De Castro / ReutersRaqqa, Syria
'Not the Onion'

Washington DC appears to be engaging in a standard attempt to 'flip the script', making a bizarre announcement which seems to beg a number of questions.

The United States will only qualify Syria for provisions of any additional assistance to the reconstruction of Syria if Iranian forces are expelled from the country, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

The statement was made on Wednesday during Pompeo's strange speech at the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security (JINSA).

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking to a pro-Israel group, vowed an aggressive push to counter Iran across the Middle East and said that Syria was a decisive battleground.

"The onus for expelling Iran from the country falls on the Syrian government, which bears responsibility for its presence there," Pompeo told the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.

"If Syria doesn't ensure the total withdrawal of Iranian-backed troops, it will not receive one single dollar from the United States for reconstruction," Pompeo said.

Pompeo acknowledged that Assad was stronger thanks to Iranian and Russian help and said that, with ISIS "beaten into a shadow of its former self," new priorities had emerged.

"Defeating ISIS, which was once our primary focus, continues to be a priority. But it will now be joined by two other mutually reinforcing objectives," Pompeo said, revealing that Iran was always one of the primary reason for the imperialist war against Syria.

"These include a peaceful political resolution to the Syrian conflict and the removal of all Iranian and Iranian-backed forces from Syria."

In late September, the director of the US National Security, John Bolton, said at UN headquarters in New York, talking about Syria, which the US "will not go away as Iranian troops are outside the borders" of their country.

Currently in Syria there are about 2,000 US soldiers, mainly in military training missions, AFP writes. US troops were deployed to the Arab country in 2014 under the pretext of fighting against the terrorists of the Daesh group (banned in Russia).

It has of course occurred to Pompeo and other U.S hawks that Syria is in no way interested in having the U.S further capitalize on any contracts relating to rebuilding the very country which the U.S has itself specifically set out to destroy. Syria will not be allowing the U.S to be involved in rebuilding the country. Therefore, threats that the U.S will not have a different motive.

The pronouncement itself is absurd, and is part of a known practice of twisting the narrative in order to frame historical realities in such a way that obfuscate the actual events which hitherto transpired.

What we can however discern from this, is that the U.S has de facto admitted defeat.