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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| The Real News From Syria |
| 2012-06-11 |
| There’s a lot of noise coming out of Syria and the various international chat-fests being organized around it these days. Stern warnings from the State Department, charges and counter charges of massacres and atrocities on the ground in Syria, soothing platitudes from Kofi Anan, diplomatic warnings from Russia: most of it can be summarized as “blah, blah, blah.” None of this has much bearing on what will happen. It is mostly posturing — the Russians are trying to look like they matter, the Turks want to look busy while minimizing their risks, the Americans want to feel good about themselves by mounting rhetorical assaults against atrocities they have no will to prevent, and so it goes. The legacy press covers this stuff because it can, and because it often buys into the establishment’s diplomatic narrative, but serious students of international affairs should not be misled: most of what is written about Syria these days is fluff and filler rather than news. For insight into the future of Syria, try this story in the (paywall protected) Financial Times. Support for arming the rebels is growing, as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and wealthy Syrian expats and others step up funding for the military resistance to Assad. The weapons being provided include light infantry arms and, increasingly, anti-tank weapons. Better armed rebels are credited with increasing the death toll among Assad’s soldiers as well as growing numbers of tanks destroyed. ...radical and Salafist sheikhs and organizations in the Gulf are getting into the weapons delivery act. For many jihadis, the fight against Assad is first and foremost a struggle against Alawite “heretics”, and the goal is to build a radical Islamic state on the ruins of Ba’athist, secular Syria. It’s been a classic Saudi ploy to keep the radicals quiet at home by letting them fight and support fighters abroad; this dates back at least as far as the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and has been a pattern in many conflicts since. It seems likely that in this case, when the Saudi state interest in weakening Iran and strengthening the Saudi voice in both Lebanon and Damascus coincides with the jihadi hunger for a Syrian religious war, that Saudi authorities will see radical enthusiasm for Syria as an asset. IMO, the most important thing to remember re Soodia vs. MM is that here enemy of my enemy is not my friend |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #4 Let's see now, Ali was killed in 638 AD(?) correct me if the date is wrong. The murder is the basis for the Sunni avs. Shia conflict. Bill, according to Wikipedia, Ali died In 661 A.D. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2012-06-11 13:39 |
| #3 IMO, the most important thing to remember re Soodia vs. MM is that here enemy of my enemy is not my friend IMO, the Syrian regime isn't really our enemy. And it isn't even Israel's enemy either. What we are seeing there is the beginning of the end of Arab nationalism. Good riddance - it unified Syrians in opposition to the West, whereas now, its core of Sunni Arab irredentism will have to stand alone, stripped of its claim as a force that binds all of the Middle East together. The Alawites, Christians, Kurds and so on will now each go their own way. Is the Alawite faith irrevocably bent on global conquest against non-Alawites, the way the Sunni faith is bent on world conquest against non-Sunnis? When was the last time you heard of Alawites conducting terrorist attacks against non-Alawites? |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-06-11 10:41 |
| #2 Let's see now, Ali was killed in 638 AD(?) correct me if the date is wrong. The murder is the basis for the Sunni avs. Shia conflict. Imagine fighting over a disagreement on succession to a ruler lasting over 1300 years and causing the creation of numerous backward, brutal, repressive rulers, all in the name of one side of the dispute or another. I actually believe the Muslim antipathy for Christians is just a sideshow and a diversion for the main event, the Sunni vs. Shia war. The only time we really come into the picture is a diversionary tactic used by incompetent repressive rulers such as Assad to turn people's attentions away from the misery at home. The Soviets did the same thing with the US during the Cold War and Hitler used the Jews as a scapegoat for the excesses of his regime. The US is the boogey man in the closet. The Sunni/Shia down the road is the real enemy. |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2012-06-11 10:29 |
| #1 A large collection of individuals with long held plans to kill everyone they disagree with. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2012-06-11 06:34 |