The Islamic State scored a major victory today over Syrian leader Basher Assad's forces when they broke through after a two week siege to capture the strategic Tabqa airbase southwest of their northern stronghold of Raqqa. Hundreds of the 1,000 Syrian soldiers trapped there were killed.
Islamic State killed army commanders and pro-government militiamen, decapitating them before putting their bodies and heads on display.
This was the last Syrian base in the northeastern province of Raqqa, which means the Islamic Stae has now gained full control of an entire Syrian province for the first time in the civil war.
Islamic State is also close to complete control of the rebel-held; province of Deir el-Zour. They are picking off rebel strongholds one by one, and many members of other rebel groups are flocking to join them.
The next move by Islamic State could be towards the strategic city of Aleppo.Assad's regime troops, Hezbollah fighters and Iranian Revolutionary guard are close to completing their capture of the strategic city from the Syrian rebels, but they could then end up encircled and cut off by Islamic State forces.
One of my sources told me that Islamic State is withdrawing its fighters from the central Syrian province of Homs, after handing over its headquarters to its allies, the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front. This could mean a two pronged assault on Aleppo from both the south and from Tel Abayad and Raqqa in the east.
Meantime, the official Saudi news agency reported that the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan are meeting in the Red Sea city of Jeddah for a major conference.
Here's what I'd bet money they're discussing:
What are Barack Obama and the Americans going to do? Islamic State is not only a threat to Iraq and Syria, not only a threat to the Sunni Arab countries but a huge security threat to the United States.Aside from a few arms shipments and air strikes, thus far the U.S. has not been overtly involved, certainly not the way President Obama was in Libya.
Islamic State has already rolled back almost a year of advances made by the Syrian military and their Hezbollah allies against the insurgency.Is President Obama going to go in full bore? And if he does, is he going to extend the U.S. military action to Syria?
If the president decides to go into Syria, Obama is basically preserving the rule of Basher Assad, and relieving pressure on Iran and Hezbollah, allowing them to consolidate their own Shi'ite bloc, something the Saudis, Egypt, the UAE and the other GCE countries see as just as much a threat to them as Islamic State...while Qatar sees Islamic State as a major force to combat the Shi'ites and supports them more or less covertly.
After declaring for nearly four years that 'Assad must go', Barack Obama is in a position where he just might end up sending in U.S. troops and air power to save Assad, believe it or not.That of course would put America on the same side as Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. And it would also have a direct effect on the security of Jordan and Israel, both of whom border Syria because taking out Islamic State would simply remove the counter weight to Iran and Hezbollah and facilitate their consolidating their own nuclear armed Shi'ite bloc.
Just to show you how convoluted this all is, at the same time the Obama regime is making air strikes on Islamic State (who are largely armed with SOTA U.S. weaponry captured in Iraq from the fleeing Iraqi army)an dmaking common cause with Hezbollah. Assad and Iran, the U.S. is completing an $11 billion arms deal with - wait for it - Qatar, who had been funding Islamic State and Hamas! Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is in this particular transaction with both hands.
Another point of discussion, probably on the sidelines is what to do if America does nothing much, a not unlikely scenario. What defense arrangements can be made to counteract both Islamic State and the Shi'ites if that happens, especially with Iran on the verge of going nuclear? Or should the Sunnis give limited backing to Islamic State against Iran and the Shi'ites?
And what role can Israel play? Yes, believe it or not. Faced with a war on two fronts and a dysfunctional American president, the Sunnis may even be looking at Israel, the most powerful country in the region in a new light.
According to the Wall Street Journal, The U.S. has benn flying drones in small numbers over the areas of Iraq now occupied by ISIS. The drones are unarmed and for surveillance only..at least so far.
Someone described as a senior U.S. official was quoted as saying that the intelligence collected under the small program was shared with Iraqi forces, but added: "It's not like it did any good."
There's an understatement for you.
But with all that intelligence, the offensive by ISIS reportedly, 'caught the U.S. by surprise.'
Following the takeover of the two Iraqi cities, administration officials have asked the U.S. military and intelligence agencies to draw up options that include limited U.S. military action in Iraq, officials said.
One of the options being drawn up for the White House would expand the drone flights over Iraq, a step that could aid Iraqi forces or facilitate possible U.S. airstrikes.
"They're looking at everything and anything and have been told explicitly by the White House to think outside the box of what is possible," a senior U.S. official said.
In recent weeks, the U.S. has also stepped up planning for the possible evacuation of the American embassy in Baghdad, a U.S. official said. U.S. military officials say they don't believe an evacuation will be necessary and doubt Baghdad will fall to militant forces, but said expanded planning is prudent.
They were 'caught by surprise' by ISIS but now are saying Baghdad won't fall? Expanded planning is definitely prudent!
What will be interesting is the interaction between U.S. forces and the Iranians, whom already have units of Iran's Revolutionary Guard on the ground. And then there's the Iranian backed Shi'ite militias like Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. The Iranians, as I mentioned before are not at all pleased at their Shi'ite colony changing management,
This seems more and more like deja vu, with American troops being caught in between two sides of a religious civil war.
Based on the 'rewards' we got from intervening last time, I think we might be better off staying out of it, to say the least. Let the two sides work it out. The only people I favor arming in Iraq are the Kurds..if they're willing to be our allies after the sordid betrayals of two consecutive American administrations.
Hassan al-Laqis was gunned down near his house in Beirut as he was coming home from work last night, according to Hezbollah. And by the way, notice the Hezbollah flag on the police tape at the crime scene, a warning that Hezbollah controls the crime scene and is vetting who enters and who doesn't.
Now there's no telling what that 'work' consisted of, but Laqis was formerly one of the main commanders of Hezbollah’s rockets division in charge of firing missiles at Israel which caused major damage during the the 2006 Second Lebanon War ...and he had since been promoted The Lebanese media claims that Israel tried to assassinate him during the war and failed, which is worth about what you'd think it's worth.
Hezbollah, of course, is blaming Israel for the hit, and the Israelis are of course denying it.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor denied that Israel was involved, the Associated Press reported.
“Israel has nothing to do with this incident,” Palmor said. “These automatic accusations are an innate reflex with Hezbollah. They don’t need evidence, they don’t need facts, they just blame anything on Israel.”
Now far be it from me to contradict the Israeli Foreign ministry, but the Lebanese papers are reporting that al-Laquis took five shots in the head and neck according to Lebanon's Daily Star. With an assault rifle, while he was sitting in his car in the parking lot. At midnight. Now, that's pretty good shooting, calling for a highly trained operative capable of getting off that many shots (and head shots no less) in a matter of seconds, which is pretty much how the IDF and Mossad train them...but that in itself doesn't prove anything. On the other hand, the word is that al-Laquis was left alive and died in a local hospital, which definitely doesn't sound like IDF or Mossad procedure in these kind of operations.
According to the Daily Star a group of Sunni Jihadis know as the “Free Sunni Brigades in Baalbek” claimed responsibility for the hit.
Sunni groups also claimed responsibility for blowing up the Iranian embassy in Beirut a few weeks ago, a delicious irony considering the support Iran gives to Islamic terrorism...including their proxy Hezbollah. In any event, al-Laquis is taking the dirt nap, and one only hopes the bullets were coated in pork fat when they entered his body.
Good riddance, and congrats to whomever took out the garbage.
Putin would sell Egypt arms in a heartbeat and would love nothing better than to get another warm water Mediterranean port for the Russian navy.
But more was discussed than just that. The Saudis are fed up with President Obama and his clueless, duplicitous antics, especially his dithering on Iran and his shilling and enablement of the Muslim Brotherhood at every turn. And they're willing to discuss a deal for the Russians to become what members of the Mob refer to in these situations as 'a new sponsor.'
Let me briefly reiterate our relationship with the Saudis and the other GCE countries to spell out what this is important before we get to the grim details.
The Arabs sell us oil, which they make sure that OPEC continues to delineate in US dollars. They also spin a certain amount of that money back at us in the form of buying our debt, rewarding U.S. politicians who see things their way with lucrative business opportunities, investments in businesses and funds owned by influential Americans, the funding of presidential libraries and foundations, six figure speaking fees and honorariums, anything you can imagine. More importantly, by making sure that oil continues to be traded in dollars, they import a certain amount of our inflation, which they cover to some extent as necessary by raising wholesale prices on crude...but not too much, just enough to keep everyone happy and keep certain politicians doing their best sabotaging energy creation here in America unless in involves green energy scams never intended to work in the first place run by well connected political donors, or electric cars that are ultimately powered by oil, which is what powers the plants where most of the electricity to power them comes from.
In exchange, we protect them militarily, sell them arms and look after their interests,including the promotion of Wahhabi Islam here in America.
Needless to say, OPEC members like Putin, the Iranians and Obama's late unlamented BFF Hugo Chavez screamed bloody murder about this for years because they were getting nothing but a financial loss out of this arrangement.
What the Saudis are discussing with Putin is changing this arrangement, if a few deal points can be worked out.
The Lebanese newspaper As-Safirhas a piece worth reading that they're representing as a basic rundown on what went what on. Some of it appears to be fairly accurate, at least in terms of the subjects that were discussed, especially in light of a few details I'm aware of but some of it is also highly unlikely, which we'll get to. You have to keep in mind that As-Safir is a Lebanese paper and thus a paper that exists as part of the Iran/Syria/Hezbollah bloc...which colors their coverage.A free press and the Muslim world don't exactly go together.
Here's the main, most important part, and the part I would say is 100% accurate:
The Saudis are offering to partner with Russia in essentially controlling the price and supply of a lot of the world's energy. The article doesn't say this, but it's obvious that the Saudis are asking, essentially, for Russia to sponsor them as members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a group long time members of Joshua's Army may recall me mentioning.
The SCO is basically a partnership which was founded five years ago under Chinese leadership to foster regional security and economic cooperation.China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan make up the group, and Iran, Pakistan, Mongolia and India all have observer status.
The six member states control 60% of the land mass of Eurasia and its population is a quarter of the world's people. With observer states included, its members account for half of the earth's population. It also offers an alternative bloc to western democracy and to using the U.S. dollar as reserve currency for energy dealing (they're working on putting together a gas cartel) and other joint development projects.
The Saudis joining the SCO would give the group more stability and coverage, control over a huge part of the world's energy, and of course, the prices. And it would end the use of the U.S. dollar as the currency used in energy trading, with some interesting results on our currency, at least until we got our own act together energy independence-wise.
Syria and Iran were almost definitely on the agenda.
As-Safir says that Prince Bandar told Putin that he had spoken with the Americans before the visit, and they pledged to commit to any deal the Saudis and Russians made on a diplomatic solution to Syria. This is almost definitely not true, since Putin would have laughed at it and Bandar knows it.
The article quotes Putin as saying, "During the Geneva I Conference, we agreed with the Americans on a package of understandings, and they agreed that the Syrian regime will be part of any settlement. Later on, they decided to renege on Geneva I."
It further quotes Putin as saying “Our stance on Assad will never change. We believe that the Syrian regime is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people, and not those liver eaters."
I doubt Putin said that, but I wouldn't be surprised if Bandar and Putin discussed the outlines of a diplomatic arrangement between them that would leave Assad in power in exchange, perhaps, for arms deals with the Saudis and Russian help with the Iranians, since the Saudis know by now President Obama will do nothing to stop Iran from going nuclear.
However, if President Obama hits Syria, any tentative arrangement Bandar and Putin might have come to might well be history,or at least postponed.
As-Safir says that when Bandar mentioned Iran's nuclear program as a problem, Putin replied, “We support the Iranian quest to obtain nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes. And we helped them develop their facilities in this direction. Of course, we will resume negotiations with them as part of the 5P+1 group. I will meet with President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the Central Asia summit and we will discuss a lot of bilateral, regional and international issues. We will inform him that Russia is completely opposed to the UN Security Council imposing new sanctions on Iran. We believe that the sanctions imposed against Iran and Iranians are unfair and that we will not repeat the experience again.”
The dialog on Iran and Syria are almost certainly fabricated to a large extent.
Putin has been violating the sanctions since day one, and Russia has a veto on the UN Security Council even if our Dear Leader decided to actually impose real sanctions. He could care less about them except as a talking point at the UN. The conversation with Putin over Iran probably dealt more with what safeguards the Russians could put in place to stop the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons and threatening the GCE countries...if Russia in fact became the Saudi's new sponsors.
Bottom line, the Russians and Saudis are now considering serious cooperation on energy and perhaps even on arms sales, and studying the mechanics of what concrete proposals were advanced.
Syria and Iran likely still remain issues that are problematic but are still under discussion. Could Russia and Putin finesse this by working as a mediator to end the Sunni-Shi'ite war in the Middle East and provide certain guarantees to the Saudis? With the leverage Putin has on Iran and Assad's Syria, anything's possible. And the idea of collaborating with the Saudis on the energy trade would be a powerful incentive for Putin.
Of course, if that happens, America's influence in the region will be over.
The war drums are beating again on Syria. British Prime Minister David Cameron is mouthing off about being ready to commit the downsized, miniscule Royal Navy and what's left of the RAF to an effort to punish Syria's Basher Assad, France's Socialist President Hollande is making aggressive noises and our own John Kerry says that as far as he's concerned, he's one hundred per cent cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die certain that the recent poison gas attacks at Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus that killed a couple of hundred people are the work of Syrian dictator Basher Assad and 'a moral obscenity' that of course demands a military response - even though there's no actual proof who launched the attack.
It was not so long ago that Kerry, who used to be on the Senate Foreign Relations committee was one of Assad's chief backers and shills. He was always saying how we needed to 'engage' with Assad, give him aid, and show him how friendly we were by pressuring Israel to give him back the Golan Heights, the better to kill Jews with.
During the entire time when Senator Kerry was pimping for Basher Assad, Assad was a sponsor of genocidal terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas. He gave the orders for the assassinations of numerous Lebanese politicians including Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, not to mention a lot of journalists, business people and others who simply got in the way in Lebanon, Syria and occasionally in Europe. Assad's regime deliberately impeded UN investigative tribunals convened to investigate some of these crimes. Not only that,but after the 2006 Lebanon War, Syria, along with its ally Iran cheerfully violated UN Resolution 1701 to rearm Hezbollah and then turned Lebanon into a colony.
And of course, during the Iraq war, Syria was an open enabler of jihadis headed over the border to fight our warriors there, even providing them with havens as well as open borders to dodge back over if they needed it.
None of these particular 'moral obscenities' mattered one whit to Kerry back then. And they certainly never bothered France or the Brits.
That fact ought to raise certain suspicions in your mind when it comes to the current push to 'punish' Syria.
Actually, the more I find out about this gas attack, the more something smells.
On Aug. 21, the Syrian opposition announced that there had been a massive chemical attack in Ghouta which allegedly inflicted about 1,300 fatalities including hundreds of children. As in previous chemical attacks blamed on the Assad administration, the attackers claimed the attacks used Sarin nerve gas, and they flooded YouTube with videos, especially ones featuring children.But there was no conclusive evidence about the attack or the perpetrators.
Then, there were those conflicting claims at first from the insurgents about how the gas attack had been delivered. First, the gas was supposedly delivered via missiles. When EU politicians and our own local critters like John McCain started yapping about enforcing a no fly zone, all of a sudden the rebels started claiming the gas come via an aerial bombardment - except there was no evidence of shrapnel wounds that normally come with both artillery or airborne attacks of this kind. It's also worth remembering that when news of the attacks first went public, the UN delegation and foreign diplomats were denied access to the attack site for a few days by the Syrian opposition because it 'wasn't safe' for them.
We also don't know who fired shots at the UN delegation when they were finally allowed to enter the attack site by the Assad regime. It could very well have been Assad's men...but it could also just as easily been the insurgents.
That attack resulted in a number of former opposition leaders publicly switching sides to Assad and even going public on Syrian TV about it. While I haven't seen the TV clips, it makes sense that after a failed attack, some of the local players would go public in switching sides to the Assad regime as it becomes seen as the strong horse.
If that's the case, it makes no sense that Assad would gas people who just came out backing him, especially with UN inspectors already in the country.On the other hand, if the rebels had captured some of Assad's gas weapons and decided to punish defectors in a way that would also give them a propaganda coup....and apparently the rebels do have Sarin gas themselves:
The point is there's no way to know for sure. In fact, this ought to remind us of another occasion where the West was manipulated into intervening just 18 years ago.
During the war in Bosnia, it was obvious that it was a brutal war with atrocities on both sides, and the West was leery about getting involved in what was a long standing sectarian war. Until August 28th, 1995, when a mortar shell hit a market in Sarajevo, killing 38 people and wounding another 90 people, many of them children. The pictures were horrendous, another chapter in the propaganda battle that the Muslims were far better at fighting than the Serbs..or maybe that's just the way the media wanted it.
The carnage at the the Markale market place was the spark that brought NATO in, just as President Clinton had been promising Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic. Even though a team led by Russian Colonel Andrei Demurenko, then the commander of UN Forces in Sarajevo rushed to the areas where the Bosnian Serb mortar teams were stationed and reported that there was no way the Serbs could have been responsible, it wasn't enough. NATO, led by the U.S. and President Clinton began bombing the Serbs, a long time American ally - including civilian targets. That decided the outcome of the war in favor of the Muslims, led to widespread ethnic cleansing of Christian Serbs in Kossovo and established a Muslim state there in defiance of the norms of international law.
As it turned out, there's a very good possibility that the strike on the Markale market place was friendly fire, initiated by the Bosnian Muslims to bring in NATO on their side. Almost certainly an earlier attack on the same location on February 5th, 1994 was. The London Times, writing about an earlier attack ["UN tracks source of fatal shell," (London) The Times, 2/19/94]admitted that there was a UN report that was later buried showing conclusively the the Bosnian Muslims had fired on their own people. And General General Michael Rose, the British head of UNPROFOR, revealed in his memoirs that the shells fired in the February attack came from the Muslim positions.
Ghouta could easily be Markale, the sequel.
For that matter, we don't even have to go back to Bosnia to see how this works. Remember the Houla massacre that was supposed to have been perpetrated by Assad's troops and had the usual suspects screaming for us to make a 'humanitarian intervention'? It turned out that atrocity was performed by the rebels as a false flag operation. With Ghouta, the insurgents could very well be upping the ante to bring us in.
All that aside ( because Muslim violence is pretty much an equal opportunity sport) let's take a look at what could happen if we intervene in Syria. If we destroy Assad's forces and remove him from power, it will just lead to a bloodbath for Alawites, Shi'ites and what's left of Syria's Christians..the al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood rebels have provided ample proof they're just as bloodthirsty and insane as Assad if not more so.
Not only that, but given the factional fighting, it's going to be tremendously hard to tell who's who. As the clueless Senator John McCain proved, it's going to be pretty difficult if not impossible to 'tell who the good guys are.'
Another thing to consider is that to take out Assad we'd have to send in ground troops...who'd be fighting against Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. And it would be the same deal it was in Iraq, our forces being victims of covert terrorism from both sides while the American taxpayer pays to rebuild Syria and fund and train yet another anti-American Muslim Army. Seen our debt figures lately?
And remember, in Syria, there's no oil to help pay the tab.
If we just bomb them, the first thing Assad and Hezbollah will likely do is is 'play the Jew card' and hit Israel. And Iran will get into it too as they did in Iraq. While I realize that President Obama and Secretary Kerry aren't all that concerned about dead Jews, the Israeli retaliation has the capacity to turn a localized sectarian war into a regional bloodbath. With U.S. forces caught in the middle, and Barack Obama as commander in chief.
Nor do we need to provide the fascist Muslim Brotherhood with a reichlet courtesy of American blood and treasure. Recent polls show that American are overwhelmingly opposed to getting involved in Syria. They're smart to feel that way. If President Obama gets us into an illegal war in Syria just to provide a diversion from the swamp of scandal his administration is mired in and we allow it, we'll regret the consequences.
There's nothing remotely beneficial to American interest in our getting involved here.
I wrote yesterday that after doing a great deal to destabilize Egypt, President Obama appeared to finally be doing something right for a change...keeping his mouth shut (at least publicly)and concentrating on his golf game.
I should have known better.
Our Dear Leader took some time off from the links to run his mouth, condemning Egypt's declaring a state of emergency, saying what he termed 'traditional cooperation' could not continue, and announcing the cancellation of planned joint exercises between our military and Egypt's.
He also got busy behind the scenes to protect his Muslim Brotherhood pals. President Obama reportedly put in a direct call to Egypt's Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi, the military leader behind the ousting of Mahmoud Morsi and the Brotherhood.
He undoubtedly planned to threaten him again with losing the $1.5 billion in aid we give Egypt and to demand again that he free Morsi and the other Brotherhood leaders now in custody. Perhaps our Islamist friendly president is worried that a trial of Morsi and the Brotherhood's Number 2 Khairat el Shater is likely to result in this embarrassing item coming to light.
Al-Sissi refused to take the call.Instead, the president was told politely that the right person for him to speak to was Egypt’s interim president Adly Mansour. Obama recognized the insult when he heard it and decided not to bother talking to Mansour.
There's a great deal of verbiage in the legacy media calling al-Sissi a 'Nasser-type figure'. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of being a quasi-Marxist, loud mouth Arab fantasist like the Rais, al-Sissi is a quasi-Islamist, pragmatic, career military general who was smart enough to attend war colleges in both the UK and America and has relationships with army figures in both countries.
Having seen what President Obama is like and whom Obama's in bed with, al-Sissi simply doesn't trust him. Nor does he perceive any need to.
What's going on in Egypt is not some kind of Tien-an-min Square but the creation of another front in Islam's civil war, and it has a direct link to what's going on right now in Syria.
The Saudis, the Emirates and the other GCE countries wrote off our president a long time ago as a clueless, arrogant and deceptive loser. They realize he's incapable of dealing with the threat from Shi'ite Iran, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, which in Egypt particularly had been cozying up to the Ayatollahs. In spite of their theological differences, the Brotherhood and the Iranians agree on the hatred of the west and the Islamist concept of theocracy, the vilayat e fiqh.
In Syria, the faceoff is the proxy war between Shi'ite/Alawite Basher Assad and the Sunni rebels, whom the Saudis and Qatar have been bankrolling and arming. And in Syria, the Saudis, led now guided by Prince Bandar, the new chief of Saudi Intelligence, have a double problem. They want very much to oust Assad, gain control of Syria and keep the Iranians out, but they also have justified concerns that the al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood Sunni jihadis in Syria might eventually become a problem for them, which is exactly what happened with bin-Laden after the Saudi bankrolling of the muhadajeen in the 1980's Afghan war.
So Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been fighting for influence among Syria’s Sunni rebels, and they see destroying the Brotherhood in Egypt as a way of helping those efforts along in Syria, as well as bringing Egypt, a large Sunni country with a decent military into the war on their side.
The Obama Administration's fecklessness and Morsi's increasingly warm relations with Iran were what broke the devil's bargain between the Saudis and the Brotherhood.
That's what was behind the new Emir of Qatar stripping Sheik Qaradawi, the Brotherhood's spiritual leader of his citizenship, closing down all Brotherhood offices and expelling Qaradawi and Hamas leader Khalid Mesha'al from the country right after Morsi and the Brotherhood were deposed in Egypt.
The Saudis and GCE countries are backing al-Sissi and the new Egyptian government with billions in aid. According to one of my sources, al-Sissi was in contact with the Saudis and got assurances they would back him before overthrowing Morsi. And now that the Brotherhood has elected to inaugurate a civil war, look for that aid to continue.
There was and is never going to be a democracy in Egypt, in terms we understand it. The country's institutions simply aren't geared that way, as in most Muslim countries. The Brotherhood is a fascist organization who was never going to share power, so the war is simply going to be a zero sum game, because that's what they've decided they want. They will be crushed now that they decided to take on the army, a highly beneficial state of affairs not only for Egypt but for the West. But because life is cheap to them, look for the Brotherhood to continue to provoke confrontations in order to try and get Obama to do a Libya on their behalf.
Based on the nonsense being spouted by the legacy media and Islamist appeasers like our president, the UN and various EU functionaries, they have had some success, but I'd be very surprised if the Brotherhood ended up with anything more concrete than words. Bleeders,terrorism, attacks on Egypt's Christian Copts and photo-ops are about all they have left and that isn't going to be enough to defeat the Egyptian Army, or make a dent in its popular support with the Egyptian people.
Russia's Putin will sell them arms in a heartbeat.As a matter of fact, on July 31, Prince Bandar the head of Saudi Intelligence arrived in Moscow for a conference with Vladimir Putin for a conversation that lasted four hours. Rest assured that Bander had talked to al-Sissi and discussed that with the Russians.
Or to put it another way, thanks to President Obama's clueless antics (with an assist from certain elements of the GOP establishment) and his fervid embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood, our influence in the Middle East is pretty much non-existent right now.
General Martin Dempsey is President Obama's Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And in spite of a decent record as a combat commander in Iraq, it's pretty obvious that he fits in perfectly with this president and his policy goals.
Aside from being the point man in calling the Ft. Hood jihadi killings a 'workplace accident', imposing ridiculous rules of engagement on our troops under fire and preventing them from being taught about the nature of Islamist fascism, he's come up with another brainstorm, undoubtedly via SecDef Chuck Hagel - wouldn't it be just splendid to arm and train the Lebanese military?
The top US military officer said on Wednesday he has recommended bolstering Lebanese forces grappling with the fallout from Syria's civil war by sending in military trainers and accelerating arms sales.
He was responding to a question at the news conference about whether Lebanon had asked for military help and whether the US military might go into that country.
"When you say would we send the United States Army or the United States military into Lebanon, I'm talking about teams of trainers, and I'm talking about accelerating foreign military sales for equipment for them," Dempsey said in response.
There's absolutely no sense in our providing shiny new equipment and training on how to use it to any Arab army...but it's particularly clueless when it comes to Lebanon.
Even Lebanon's current president, General Michel Suleiman is a Hezbollah ally
who as the former Lebanese C in C refused to allow the Lebanese Army to fight against Hezbollah
even when Hezbollah was killing Lebanese civilians during a series of
attacks against the March 14 Lebanese government in May of 2008.
He has famously said on a number of occasions that 'Hezbollah is Lebanon'. That's why the Israelis made a formal announcement that if they were attacked from Lebanon again, unlike the last time they would consider it an attack on Israel by Lebanon, not just Hezbollah.
This is whom General Dempsey (and former Sec Sate Hillary Clinton before him) want to arm and 'bolster'. To assume that US military aid earmarked for the Lebanese forces won't somehow end up being used by Hezbollah is the sort of fantasy beyond even what you'd expect from today's White House.
Among other things, it presents the ludicrous picture of our arming the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda allied Syrian rebels with one hand and Hezbollah with the other. And of course, having any personnel we have there targeted by both sides. Remember what happened in Beirut at the hands of Hezbollah the last time we sent troops there?
Of course, it also provides Israel's enemies with armaments and support as well, which might be the whole point anyway.
The evidence was incontrovertible, captured on video and posted on YouTube for all the world to see. During a demonstration against the Syrian regime, Wael Ibrahim, a veteran activist, had tossed aside a banner inscribed with the Muslim declaration of faith.
And that, decreed the officers of the newly established Sharia Authority set up to administer rebel-held Aleppo, constitutes a crime under Islamic law, punishable in this instance by 10 strokes of a metal pipe.
The beating administered last month offered a vivid illustration of the extent to which the Syrian revolution has strayed from its roots as a largely spontaneous uprising against four decades of Assad family rule. After mutating last year into a full-scale war, it is moving toward what appears to be an organized effort to institute Islamic law in areas that have fallen under rebel control.
Building on the reputation they have earned in recent months as the rebellion’s most accomplished fighters, Islamist units are seeking to assert their authority over civilian life, imposing Islamic codes and punishments and administering day-to-day matters such as divorce, marriage and vehicle licensing.
Numerous Islamist groups are involved, representing a wide spectrum of views. But, increasingly, the dominant role is falling to Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the al-Nusra Front. The group has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States for suspected ties to al-Qaeda but is widely respected by many ordinary Syrians for its battlefield prowess and the assistance it has provided to needy civilians.
Across the northeastern provinces of Deir al-Zour and Raqqah, where the rebels have been making rapid advances in recent weeks, Jabhat al-Nusra has taken the lead both in the fighting and in setting out to replace toppled administrations. It has assumed control of bakeries and the distribution of flour and fuel, and in some instances it has sparked tensions with local fighters by trying to stop people from smoking in the streets.
Here in the war-ravaged city of Aleppo, more than half of which has been under rebel control since July, Jabhat al-Nusra is also widely identified as the leading force behind the Hayaa al-Sharia, which loosely translates as the Sharia Authority and is known simply as the Hayaa.
Based out of the city’s former Eye Hospital, which was damaged during the fighting and then occupied by Jabhat al-Nusra as its headquarters, the Hayaa is also backed by other rebel units, including the Tawhid Brigade, the city’s biggest fighting force, and the Ahrar al-Sham, a homegrown Islamist force that has played a relatively minor role in Aleppo but is powerful in several other provinces.
The Muslim Brotherhood sparked rebellion was never 'a spontaneous uprising against four decades of Assad family rule' nor was it ever about democracy. It was always a tribal war, a Sunni Islamist revolt against minority Shi'ite control backed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with Assad being backed by his Shi'ite allies Hezbollah and Iran.
The rebels are already noted for waging war on Christians as well as Shi'ite civilians. At this point, many of Syria's centuries-old Christian community has already fled as refugees to Jordan and Lebanon, where there's a least a Maronite Christian community to shelter them.
Huge mistake. There may actually be elections of a sort if Assad is ousted, but whose going to actually be elected? See Egypt for a preview. Syria may actually be even worse.
If the Islamists and salafis get control of Syria, Jordan is next on the list of former U.S. client states to be added to the Islamist Caliphate.
As I've said repeatedly, we have no dog in this fight. President Obama made a severe error by enabling Muslim Brotherhood takeovers in Egypt and Libya, and the same thing is happening in Syria.
Saudi Arabia's al-Watan is reporting that Syrian dictator Basher Assad has moved his family and a select group of associates to a warship off Syria’s coast, where they're is being guarded by Russian naval forces. Reports are mixed about whether Assad is with them or whether he's still on the Syrian mainland. Some reports have him commuting to the mainland by helicopter, having lost confidence in elements of his security detail.
What this amounts to is political asylum for Assad by Russia, should he flee the country.
So far the civil war between Syria's Shi'ites, Alawites and other Assad loyalists and the Sunni, Muslim Brotherhood dominated Sunni insurgency has cost well over 60,000 lives, with numerous atrocities being committed by both sides.
Russia currently has a flotilla of five Russian warships laden with hundreds of troops deployed at the Syrian port of Tartus, Russia's chief naval base in the Middle East.
If Assad actually has taken asylum aboard the ship, it is fairly serious and a sign the endgame is approaching. if he merely got his family and close associates out of harm's way, then the end isn't near just yet.
In the meantime, the Russians continue to defend Assad, and have endorsed a speech he made last week calling for an end to hostilities, national elections and the formation of a new government.
I doubt the insurgents were impressed.Especially since they have important allies now like President Barack Obama.
In a well coordinated raid, al-Qaeda fighters attacked Tasfirit prison in Tikrit, Iraq, killing a dozen guards and freeing an estimated 90 inmates.
The jihadis attack on the prison started with a suicide car bomb that was detonated outside the gates, followed by an attack with heavy weapons:
Iraqi lawmaker Hakim al-Zamily was quoted in local media as saying
that "hardcore" al-Qaeda militants were among those who managed to
escape.
Mr. Zamily, who is a member of the parliamentary security
committee, said that the escapees seized documents identifying people
who had provided information about them to the authorities.
The personal files on the inmates were also destroyed, he said, making it "impossible" to track them down.
In addition, the attackers reportedly took with them a police car and weapons seized from the guards.
It's fairly obvious what's in the future. There have been a number of assaults on Iraqi prisons lately with the goal of freeing Sunni jihadis locked up by the present Shi'ite dominated Iraqi regime.
In spite of our promises to the Awakening Movement, the Sunni tribesmen who fought al Qaeda with us, Iraq's Sunnis have been marginalized and treated as secodn class citizens by the newly ascendent Shi'ites, who are in th eprocess of turning Iraq into an Iranian Shi'ite satellite.
The last election, which was essentially stolen by Maliki and the Shi'ite bloc with the aid of Iranian proxy Moqtada al-Sadr, Sunnis in the military and police have largely been disarmed and dismissed from service, and the Sunni Vice President of Iraq, th ehighestr ranking Sunni in Iraq has fled the country and is under a death sentence by the Maliki regime on trumped up charges
Al-Qaeda's resurgence in Iraq is no accident. They are gearing up for a renewed civil war.
An important statement today by a prominent member of the Iranian regime tells us that Assad is going to be in Syria for the long haul:
Saeed Jalili, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, appeared with the Syrian leader in Damascus on Tuesday to pledge Iran’s support for the Assad regime.
"Iran will never allow the resistance axis - of which Syria is an essential pillar - to break. What is happening in Syria is not an internal issue but a conflict between the axis of resistance on one hand, and the regional and global enemies of this axis on the other,” he said.
An important thing to remember is that if Jalili is saying this, it is coming directly from Iran's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei.
For his part, Basher Assad vowed to 'cleanse Syria of terrorists' as his forces continued attacks on rebel forces in the outer neighborhoods of Aleppo, Syria's second largest city:
“The Syrian people and their government are determined to purge the country of terrorists and to fight the terrorists without respite,” he said, according to state news agency SANA.
The Iranians see this clearly as a Sunni vs. Shi'ite war,as well as a key to their regional strategy.They see it as an attempt to thwart Iran by the Saudis, Qatar and the Emirates,who are bankrolling the rebels,and the Americans,who are providing arms. The Iranians frequently add the 'Zionists' into that litany, but Israel is just as unlikely to be arming or aiding the Muslim Brotherhood dominated rebels as the rebels would be willing to accept anything from Jews.
Adding to the mix is Iranian ire over 48 Iranians captured- or kidnapped, depending on your view - by rebel forces. They are said to be members of Iran's elite Qods Force.
In an interesting aside, Jalili said Iran held responsible not only the kidnappers but also those foreign governments that supported the rebels. “We believe that not only terrorists but also their supporters are responsible for this criminal act,” Jalali said.
I suppose we could call this a Persian version of the Bush Doctrine, except that unlike our former president, the Iranians are probably serious.
At this point, Basher Assad is receiving not only aid from Russia but aid and active military support from Hezbollah and Iran, and I have no doubt the Russians would send in troops in limited numbers to protect their Syrian client. In fact, they already have.
The Islamist rebels, in contrast, have money and some arms coming in from the Obama Administration and the GCC countries, but no boots on the ground.
Will President Obama get America into another undeclared war to put a Muslim Brotherhood regime in power? The answer to that question might well provide the fate of the Sunni Syrian rebellion.
The Assad regime's story is that he was 'fired', but th etruth is probably somewhere in between. Hijab was appointed Prime Minister in order to bolster Sunni support for the regime, but a man in his position in these times needs to make calculations on a knife edge.
Am I still trusted by Assad? Is Basher Assad likely to make an example of me? Do the rebels have a chance to win? If they do, they'll consider me a traitor. If I side with the rebels now, as a high ranking politician, what are my chances of being part of the poltical leadership if they do win? And if they don't, do I have an avenue of escape?
These and similar considerations are going through the mind of every prominent Sunni in Basher Assad's regime.
Hijab's spokesman Mohammed el-Etri told al-Jazeera that he was in "a safe location".
"I address you today at this grave hour where the country is living under the brunt of genocide and barbarian brutal killing against unarmed people who are simply demanding freedom and a dignified life," ran Mr Hijab's statement read by his spokesman.
"Today I declare... that I have defected from the terrorist, murderous regime and [am] joining the holy revolution. And I declare that from today I am a soldier of this holy revolution."
The main focus of the civil war remains Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub and second largest city.
Some rebel spokesmen are telling gullible reporters they control 40% of the city, but my sources tell me that in most of Aleppo it's business as usual, with the fighting confined to some neighborhoods on the outskirts.
After the Tunisian protesters sent Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, dictator for almost a quarter century, packing, the Central Intelligence Agency famously predicted the Arab revolt would not spread. Almost two years later, dictators have fallen in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and a fifth appears on the ropes in Syria. Despite what regional experts and Arab autocrats hoped, the desire for freedom and liberty is contagious. So when Bashar al-Assad’s tenure ends with a bullet in his head or a broomstick in his bottom, what will be the next domino to fall?
There is no shortage of dissatisfaction across the Arab world. Just ask the Bahrainis. Tension is also high in Kuwait. Most Jordanians are seething at King Abdullah II and especially at the high-spending Queen Rania. But the next dynasty to fall may very well be the Saudi monarchy.
Saudi Arabia is an artificial state, cobbled together in the 1920s and 1930s by military force. Oil wealth has both helped paper over differences and promote a radical and intolerant reinterpretation of Islam. Still, regional identities remain, sectarianism is increasing, and the gap between rich and poor has bred resentment toward the ruling family whose grip on power will slip as octogenarians succeed octogenarians and factional rivalries percolate.
Human rights groups and journalists tend to focus on Bahrain. There certainly are myriad problems in that Arab island nation, but the focus is disproportionate, determined more by access than by degree of repression. While the Bahraini government uses rubber bullets, the Saudis prefer live ammunition, especially when the protesters are Shi’ites in the oil-rich Eastern Province.
While I have no love for the House of Saud, there are a few things that bear mentioning, in my opinion.And they're crucial.
First, all of the states cited above, with the exception of Libya had no oil wealth. And that's a crucial element. Because the key word in understanding the Arab Spring is not 'democracy' but food.
World food prices and the cost of basic staples have skyrocketed, and as I've mentioned before, whereas it used to be Indians and Chinese who bore the brunt of the suffering in these situations, those economies have developed. Now it is the Arabs and their dysfunctional kleptocracies who are the low man on the food chain, so to speak.
Countries with oil wealth and relatively small populations can curb this by keeping prices artificially low with subsidies, and the Saudis, among other countries have done so.Those without oil wealth,like Egypt, Syria and Tunisia were unable to do so.
Libya was different because of two important elements Michael doesn't mention..tribalism and overt western intervention.
The Libyan rebellion against Khaddaffi was very much a product of tribalism, with the rebels being concentrated in the east, Benghazi and Cyrenaica. And there's no doubt Khaddaffi would have defeated the rebels if not for western interference.
The EU nations got involved for one reason. Initially, when the rebellion began, the rebels made a great deal of progress, and the Europeans, particularly Britain and France whom had multibillion oil contracts to protect promptly dumped Khaddaffi and signed new oil deals with the rebels. When Khaddaffi recovered and sent the rebels fleeing towards Benghazi, those all important oil contract were going to be worthless unless something was done. So the Europeans went to rescue the rebels and those oil contracts and later turned it into a NATO mission.
The tensions in Bahrain features a Sunni monarchy and upper class versus a Shi'ite majority, with tensions sparked by Shi'ite Iran. But it's worth noting that when Iran fomented unrest last year among Bahrain's Shi'ites, the Saudis and the GCC countries reacted promptly and forcefully to back the ruling Al-Khalifa royal family with troops and armor, and used their navies to block Iranian ships from aiding the rebels. Iran backed down, and while a certain amount of unrest still exists, it's largely contained. Bahrain's oil wealth will keep prices down, and because of a huge American base there, western intervention isn't going to happen.
In Saudi Arabia, the situation is reversed. The Shi'ite underclass is a minority largely situated in the eastern part of the Kingdom, and not only do I doubt they have the numbers to really wage a revolt, but based on how Iran backed down on Bahrain last year I doubt the mullahs are going to make much of a fight of it in Saudi Arabia...unless they openly invade, which would likely bring America into it. Plus the Saudis also have the oil wealth to keep food prices down and the possibility of western intervention on the side of the Shi'ite rebels is nil.
Which brings me to my own favorite candidate for the next Arab Spring revolt - Jordan.
Everything's in place there...tribalism, no oil wealth, a stagnant economy, and historical grievance.
Unlike the other conflicts, this tribal divide isn't between Sunni and Shi'ite, but between Bedouin and Palestinian.
In 1924, when the British created Jordan, the original idea was to partition the Palestine Mandate so that the Arabs would get the 80 per cent of the Mandate east of the Jordan River and the Jews would get the 20 per cent west of the Jordan. That arrangement was codified by the League of Nations in the 1924 San Remo Agreement. But the Brits pulled something at the last minute that pretty much changed things. They put one of the Bedouin Hashemite Sherif Hussein bin Ali's sons Abdullah ( the present King's grandfather) in as King, along with a minority faction of his fellow Hashemite Bedouins that proceeded to rule the country as an upper class over the non-Bedouin Arabs, the Palestinians, if you want to refer to them by that term.
Foisting what was essentially a foreign monarchy on the Palestinian Arabs didn't sit well with them, and Abdullah was later murdered by the Palestinians in 1951 on the orders of the pro Nazi Palestinian leader Haj Amin al-Husseini.
Later, in 1970, Yasser Arafat and the PLO attempted and failed to overthrow Abdullah's son, King Hussein, resulting in the killing and expulsion of thousands of Palestinian Arabs in 1970, an event Palestinians refer to as Black September.
At present, Jordan is composed of a large majority of Palestinian Arabs and a minority of Bedouin, including King Abdullah II. He's personally unpopular because of economic unrest, for being an American ally, for preserving a peace treaty with Israel, and for arbitrarily taking Jordanian citizenship away from Palestinians residing in Jordan who have held it for years.
The opposition to King Hussein is largely composed of the Muslim Brotherhood, and with the Brotherhood now established in Egypt and Gaza and increasing its influence right next door in the Arab occupied areas of Judea and Samaria (AKA The West Bank), my personal bet would be that the next victim of the Arab Spring wouldn't be Saudi Arabia, but Jordan.
In fact,I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Jordan eventually become the actual Palestinian Arab state - which after all , was what it was supposed to be all along.
There are a number of reports coming from the Middle East saying that the new Saudi Chief of Intelligence Prince Bandar bin Sultan was assassinated a few days ago in an explosion. The assassination reportedly occurred July 23rd, just a few days after he was appointed.
The perpetrator is said to be Syria, in revenge for the bombing in Damascus which killed several high ranking Syrian officials. My guess is that it was more likely to have been Hezbollah or the Iranians themselves, perhaps the Qods Force. As you may remember, the Iranians have been behind similar operations before in the Kingdom, during the Haj. And of course, the Khobar Towers bombing.
Bandar was not only the Kingdom's intel chief, he was a high ranking member of the Saudi ruling family. He was the son of Prince Sultan ( defense minister from 1963 until his death in 2011) and of a slave. he also served as Saudi ambassador to the US from 1983 until 2005, and was so close to the Bush family that his nickname among them was 'Bandar Bush'.
He reportedly received his promotion to intel chief for planning and executing the Damascus bombing. As I've mentioned, The Saudis and Qataris are bankrolling the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood rebellion.
Official sources in Saudi Arabia are refusing to confirm of deny this, which leads me to believe it might very well be true.
There have been a certain amount of Hezbollah fighters aiding the regime inSyria in its fight against the rebels, but it's been kept relatively quiet. Apparently, that's now at an end:
The Hizbullah terror group has affirmed its allegiance to Syria and has offered to place itself at President Bashar Assad’s disposal.
According to a report on Thursday in Lebanon’s Al-Joumhouria newspaper, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah “placed all of Hizbullah capabilities at al-Assad’s disposal, in the event of the Syrian regime requiring urgent assistance.”
The newspaper quoted senior political sources as confirming that there had been contact between Assad and Nasrallah, and that “Nasrallah had offered al-Assad two forms of assistance, firstly he offered elements of Hizbullah’s special forces any time they are needed, even if they are required to be sent to open fronts to fight the revolutionaries. Secondly, Nasrallah invited the Syrian president to his personal residence, or even to meet inside the Iranian embassy in Beirut.”
The report said that Assad “has opted to remain in Syria because he still believes he is able to steer the ship with the help of some Russian political and military experts.”
The leadup to this was a speech by Hezbollah's leader, Sheikh Nasrallah, who made a point of emphasizing Hezbollah's ties with the Assad regime last week:
“Some say that Syria is the link between Hizbullah and Iran, but let me say that Syria is much more than that,” said Nasrallah. “It is very important for the resistance. The most important missiles which fell in Haifa, and beyond Haifa, and in the center of Israel – were Syrian missiles given to the resistance in Lebanon. Syria gave the resistance missiles which helped us in the Second Lebanon War. It's not just in Lebanon, it’s also in Gaza.”
Hizbullah fighters have lately crossed the area of Hawsh al-Sayyed Ali in Hermel to Syria to help Syrian government troops in their fight against rebels, security sources said.
The sources told An Nahar daily published on Friday that the militants from the 910 unit of Hizbullah’s Jihad Council are fighting alongside the Syrian forces in the areas of al-Qussair, Homs and al-Rastan.
Hizbullah has also a strong military presence in the area of Zabadani, the same sources said.
Now that Hezbollah has decided to double down on the Assad regime, it's almost certain that the civil war is going to continue for some time.
I still see Assad carving out an easily defended redoubt in Northwestern Syria consisting of everything west of the Orantes River and perhaps a strip of territory encompassing Idlib and Aleppo. This comprises the commercial heart of Syria and the areas where most of the Alawites live. From the ports of Latakia and Tartus, he can easily be supplied by the Russians and with Hezbollah now fully on board, not only will the Muslim Brotherhood rebels have difficulty pushing Assad out but he will likely have the arms and manpower to wear them down by attrition and retake most of the country.
This is definitely a Sunni/Muslim Brotherhood versus Shi'ite/Iran bloc conflict, as I've always said.
Al Arabiya has reported that Iran's Revolutionary Guard has now deployed 15,000 armed troops to Syria recently in order to help Syria's Bashar Assad against rebel forces.
This corroborates a communication I had had from a source of mine on the ground that Assad has had a decent amount of defections from his army, almost entirely among Sunni troops.Hezbollah has also sent trained troops to fight for Assad, who like most of Syria's elite is a member of the Shi'ite Alawite sect.
By now, most of you are familiar with the revolt currently going on against the Assad regime in Syria, which is being suppressed with great brutality. Literally thousands have been killed by Assad's forces, beefed up with Hezbollah fighters from next door Lebanon.
Recently, a UN Security Council resolution backed by the Arab League that condemned the violence and called for Syrian leader Basher Assad to step down was vetoed by Russia and China after U.S. and European officials rejected a series of Russian amendments to the draft resolution that US UN Ambassador Susan Rice said were "unacceptable."
The Russians and Chinese vetoed a similar resolution back in October that left open the option of UN sanctions against Syria.
That alone will probably give regular members of Joshua's Army a clue as to the real story, but let's break down what this all means.
Syria has always had a thuggish, violent regime even before Basher's father Hafez al-Assad took over. Throughout all the occupation of Lebanon by the Syrian Army and the brutal murders of Lebanese politicians, journalists and public figures, the Arab League never uttered a peep and the UN was its usual ineffectual self. The same thing occurred when Syria openly violated UN Resolution 1701 and rearmed Hezbollah. So why all the angst now?
The Middle East is basically in the process of dividing into some distinct spheres of influence. Thanks to our intervention in Iraq, a Shi'ite bloc consisting of Iran, Iraq and Lebanon is forming up and a Sunni bloc is coalescing consisting of Libya, Egypt, Gaza and whatever areas in Judea and Samaria the 'Palestinians' end up occupying which will likely end up being ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood, with the possible addition of Jordan. The Saudis, Qatar,Bahrain, Oman and the Emirates will likely retain their close ties to each other as Sunni oligarchies situated between the two.
Syria is where the spheres of influence meet.
Basher Assad and many of the regime loyalists are members of the minority Alawite sect, a Shi'ite offshoot. The rebel groups like the Syrian Free Army are almost exclusively Sunni and mostly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
That's the real back story in Syria you're not hearing, and depending on whom prevails, Syria will either remain part of the Shi'ite bloc dominated by Iran or become part of the Muslim Brotherhood Sunni bloc.
That's why the Arab League is so exercised and why Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Qaradawi issued a fatwa, in the hopes of fomenting unrest among the largely Sunni Muslims in Russia and Western China and more to the point, encouraging Sunni fighters from other countries to launch a jihad and provide a veneer of religious justification for any brutalities meted out to Assad's forces or even Alawite civilians.
This is standard Muslim practice. Before the Pakistani Army went into what's now Bangladesh back in the 1970's and committed what amounted to genocide and mass rape of the civilian Bengali Muslim population, they had their mullahs pronounce fatwas naming the Bengalis as 'kuffars' (non-believers)to legitimize the Pakistani atrocities against them.
Based on what I've seen of Assad's forces in action versus the rebels, if there is no outside help from the West - and there likely won't be, seeing as Syria has no oil - I'd cautiously put my money on Assad if I were betting. Syria is a key link between Iran and its colony in Hezbollah-ruled Lebanon and the Iranians are going to do whatever it takes to try to keep it in friendly hands.
So will the Russians, for that matter.Russian Foreign Minister Serge Lavrov made a quick trip to Syria to meet with representatives with the Assad regime,an important export market and buyer of Russian weaponry as well as the source of an important Mediterranean port for the Russian Navy at Tartus. The message he likely gave to Assad was to wrap this up as quickly as possible so as to avoid the embarrassment to the Russians of another UN veto, along with tying up a few loose ends on the latest Syrian arms shipments from Russia.
The Arab League voted yesterday to suspend Syria, purportedly over the killings of civilians by the Assad regime during the months long crackdown on dissidents. The UN estimates that the death toll is now around 3,500 which I personally think is low. It likely doesn't account for those who have been arrested and quietly murdered in Syria's prisons.
"Syria is a dear country for all of us and it pains us to make this decision," Qatar's Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim told reporters. "We hope there will be a brave move from Syria to stop the violence and begin a real dialogue toward real reform."
I invite anyone who thinks the the Arab League made this move for humanitarian reasons to guess again. After all, the League has never suspended The Sudan or voiced any disapproval whatever over its leader Omar al-Bashir, who has actually been indicted by the ICC for genocidal activities in Darfur that killed far more than 3,500 people, many of whom were Muslim. In fact, they've gone out of their way on a number of occasions to voice support for him.
Part of the reason al-Bashir got a pass was good old fashioned Arab racism, but there's a bit more to Assad not getting one than meets the eye.
Syria's regime is run by the minority Alawite sect, a Shia offshoot who rules over a Sunni majority. Thus Syrian leader Basher Assad's alignment with Iran has religious and cultural overtones as well as political ones.
Saturday's vote actually represents a Sunni vote against Iran and its allies...not a huge step, since the League made it clear they don't favor a Libya-style intervention, but a symbolic one and a gesture of Sunni solidarity. They understand full well that with the US abandoning the region at the end of the year, they are going to have to stick together to have any chance of counteracting the Iranian Shi'ite bloc.
You won't read it in the dinosaur media, but that's the real story.
There were a number of interesting developments today that are said to point towards a possible attack on Iran. It's worth taking a look at them and seeing where they lead:
Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu is described in one major story in the British press as 'trying to rally support in his cabinet for an attack on Iran, according to government sources'.
The Israelis successfully test fired a new ballistic missile, the Jericho 3 that has a range of over 4,300 miles, or 7,000 kilometers, putting all of Iran within easy reach.
Aside from some of the usual Iranian saber rattling, Hezbollah's cockroach-in-chief Sheik Nasrullah threatened Israel with massive retaliation,claiming that if another war starts the rockets will be aimed Tel Aviv first this time.
Rumors are flying that the Obama Administration is considering an attack on Iranian facilities to prevent Iran from going nuclear in view of recent developments. The latest, sparked by a visit by Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak to London and British chief of defense Staff David Richards to Jerusalem has NATO,led by the U.S. and UK doing the heavy lifting.
The Israeli Air force just completed a major drill in Italy with NATO forces that is said to be designed to familiarize Israeli pilots with NATO procedures in the lead up to an Iran strike
Okay...now let's look at what's actually going on here.
The Iranians appear to have mostly overcome the damage to their nuclear weapons program caused by stuxnet and other sabotage, including some deliberate slow ups by the Russians building these facilities in order to jack the costs up and get more money out of the Mullahs for their new toys.
My sources also tell me that the IAEA report clearly states for the first time that a number of the facilities, processes and materials Iran is working with have no possible peaceful applications. That's something you knew well over three years ago if you were reading this site.
The biggest problem is the ongoing dispersal,protection and concealment of Iran's nuclear facilities and stockpiles of material. The most liberal estimates are that in another 12 months or so, getting to them to take them out without massive damage and civilian casualties is going to be close to impossible.
The Israelis understand this very well.What they are essentially saying to the Obama Administration is that time is running out, and if you don't do something about this we certainly will.
The Israelis don't particularly need NATO's assistance( although it would certainly be helpful) , or even the Jericho 3. Israel's drones, pilots and nuclear subs can already get close enough to Iran to hit whatever they need to hit, and an Israeli raid on Iran would almost certainly be accompanied by the Saudis turning a blind eye to Israel flying over their territory for the purpose.
The indications are that the Israelis are fully capable of doing this themselves provided they're ruthless enough to do what it takes to make a thorough job of it. It would probably take multiple strikes, and Israel's inherent limitations would undoubtedly make things messy and might even involve tactical nukes, but the Iranian nuclear program could be crippled for some time.
That, however is not at all what the Obama Administration wants. This president doesn't want to have to choose between alienating all those new Islamist regimes he's so fond of by supporting Israel in a strike on a Muslim country, or alienating even more of the pro-Israel vote at home in an election year by not doing so.
President Obama's preferred scenario is to try and use the Israelis as leverage to try and get support from Russia and China for actual, punitive sanctions on Iran. The fact that they haven't worked yet and likely never would doesn't come into the equation for this president.
The pitch to the Russians and Chinese would go something like this: 'Look, there's only so much I can do with these psycho Jews just now. It's better we all act now like the adults in the room to solve this thing instead of letting it get out of hand.'
If that doesn't work, there are indeed signs that President Obama may be leaning reluctantly towards an Iran strike if he feels it's to his personal advantage. But if it happens, it will be one that definitely doesn't involve Israel, at least not openly.
The first signal was the departure of Robert Gates, the former Secretary of Defense and a long time Iran appeaser. Along with former Secretary of State Condi Rice, it was Gates who was instrumental in making sure that the Bush Administration kicked this can down the road as well as seeing to it that the Israelis didn't get any kind of green light for it either, back when Iran would have been a lot easier to deal with than they are now. The team of Gates and Rice even attempted to stop the Israelis from taking out Syria's North Korea-supplied reactor and budding nuclear weapons site. fortunately without success. Gates pulled exactly the same trick during his tenure in the Obama Administration on Iran, aided and abetted by Admiral William J. Fallon, then commander of CENTCOM.
The second sign is the coming removal of all US troops from Iraq, scheduled to be completed by the end of next month. For political reasons,(both American and Iraqi) the president is required to finish the draw down by year's end. But it has the small silver lining of removing a nearby target for retaliation and attack by Iran or its Shi'ite proxies within Iraq. True, many of those troops will be redeployed next door in Kuwait, but Kuwait is not controlled by Shi'ites and can be defended a lot easier than Iraq if necessary. If President Obama does decide on military action against Iran, it will probably come within a few months in the run up to the election to get maximum electoral benefit for the president. It would most likely involve NATO forces, most likely lead by the US, and including the British and the French. It might also include token forces from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates to avoid the 'stigma' of attacking a Muslim country, similar to the coalition President George HW Bush used in the Gulf War for exactly the same reason.
The Israeli role in this scenario would be limited to intel, recon and keeping Iran's proxies in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria busy,so as not to complicate things with the Muslim world.
I must reiterate that this president is far more likely to simply delay things in hopes that yet another round of sanctions will have the desired effect, at least until he's safely out of office.
A lot depends on how the current elections go. and what President Obama sees as more beneficial to campaign on. Will he get more mileage as the president who brought our troops home from Iraq, or as the president who took out Iran's nukes? Will he garner more criticism from his base as President Warmonger or more from people complaining about him allowing Iran to go nuclear on his watch? Would it be better for him politically to take on Iran, or to let Israel do it?
One thing I'm certain of. As much as this president hates decisions,he will try to delay things as long as possible.
As things stand, my money is still on the IDF ending up doing the job.Israel no longer has the luxury of time.Neither do we,but it's a lot more obvious to the Israelis from where they sit.
