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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |
| Iran: No More Make Believe | |
| 2018-03-06 | |
Israel wants to keep Iran out of Syria and Lebanon and avoid a war with Iran. Russia wants to get Turkey out of NATO, keep the Iranians from starting a war with Israel and make the Americans look bad. At the same time Russia needs to do this on the cheap and make Russia look good, especially to Russians back home. Turkey wants to create a security zone on the Syrian side of the border that has no Kurds or Islamic terrorists in it. Turkey also wants to show the Sunni Moslem world that it can handle Iranian aggression (without going to war with Iran) and keep the Israelis out of Lebanon and Syria. Turkey is willing to play diplomatic games with Russia and Iran to achieve these goals. The U.S. wants to ensure that ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) does not reestablish itself in Syria. To help with that the American are doing what they can to help the local Kurds maintain autonomy in northwest Syria (east of the Euphrates) where the Kurds have always been dominant. Secondary objectives are keeping Iran, Turley and Russia out of Syria. The U.S. and Israel are allies and any attack on Israel will trigger American intervention on the Israeli side. Syria in general wants all the fighting to stop but the minority Assad dictatorship wants to resume ruling all of Syria and the Syrian rebels want Assad gone. Iraq would like less violence in Syria and less Iranian interference in Iraq. Israel has persuaded Russia to do what it can to prevent Iran from assembling, arming and positioning a large force of non-Iranian forces to attack Israel. Russia has limited ability to block Iranian efforts but does what it can. Iran is building bases to support a large force of Lebanese (Hezbollah), Syrians (whichever Shia Syrians it can recruit) and lots of foreign Shia mercenaries (mainly Afghans, Iraqis other non-Iranian Shia) in parts of Syria where Russia does not have much military power on the ground and Russian air power cannot occupy ground or otherwise interfere with what Iran is doing. Russia does not want Iran starting a war with Israel but as a practical matter Iran is pretty irrational when it comes to Israel. Russia has publicly criticized Iran for regularly calling for the destruction of Israel. Russia has also sided with Turkey in disagreements with Iran over strategy and tactics in Syria. Russia still considers Iran an ally, but a flawed one that really should work on their bad habits. Meanwhile Turkey is becoming troublesome with its offensive into northwest Syria. Then there are the Kurds and their American allies in the northeast. That has become particularly nasty and embarrassing especially when American troops repulsed a Russian effort (using Russian military contractors and some Syrians) to occupy oil fields east of the Euphrates. The Russian force suffered about 50 percent casualties and that was a great embarrassment for the Russians. | |
| Posted by:3dc |