Friends and Allies
"The Assad regime has imported Hezbollah militants to help crush the opposition. Based in Lebanon, the Shia Islamist terrorist group has dispatched fighters to support Assad's military campaign in areas near the Lebanese border. These Lebanese surrogates are reportedly sometimes accompanied by Iranians, who also serve as technical advisers in training Syria's security services to monitor communications and ferret out opposition leaders." James Philips, Washington Heritage FoundationThis, added to the boast of the deputy commander of Iran's Quds force of the Revolutionary Guards, who spoke to the Iranian Students News Agency, telling them "Thanks to Iran's presence in Syria - physically and non-physically - big massacres were prevented", speaks volumes. Iran, of course, would know all about big massacres. The country's long and bloody war with Iraq saw more than enough atrocities.
But there are those who saw the mutilated bodies of almost fifty children and 35 women among the 108 Syrians slaughtered in Houla who might take exception to the boast that a 'big massacre' had been averted, thanks to the presence of Iran's military dispatched to aid and assist their ally. These were, after all, Sunni Syrians who had been deprived of their lives.
And it is the Shia component of Islam that rules and shelters itself within Iran and Lebanon, and which rules Syria. The incendiary hatred between the sects is well enough acknowledged; Bahrain has managed for the time being, to tamp down a protest led by its Shia majority attempting to resist a continuation of the oppressive rule of the Sunni minority.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar sent in their troops to aid Bahrain in restoring order. And all is now well. Though now and again, resentment raises its ugly head in a semblance of the Arab Spring that has succeeded elsewhere in destabilizing once stable albeit tyrannically-led countries. Which have exchanged their original brutish dictators for alternate, Islamist ones.
The entire Middle East, the majority of which is Sunni, shudders in dread of Iran possessing nuclear weapons. A misconception, to be sure, since Iran protests its innocence; its interest, as a major oil-producing state, in nuclear is simply for domestic energy and medical needs.
Saudi Arabia stubbornly sticks by its misconception, clarifying its future intentions to include its own nuclear weaponization program should Iran be permitted to persist and triumph in achieving nuclear devices. Stealth and patience can work wonders on the unwary and the trusting. Honour and credulity in the West is not quite reflected in a like manner in the East.
Meanwhile, this sinister proxy war goes on, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar filtering weapons through to the Syrian rebels. And Russia doing the honours for the Syrian regime in defiance of the UN's calls for an arms embargo on the country. Russia defending its shipments of arms to Bashar al-Assad, protesting that the regime is defending itself against terrorists.
The Syrian port of Tartus comes in handy for unloading military equipment and ammunition from Russian-owned cargo ships. In the same token, Russia secures a Mediterranean base for its navy in the Middle East.
Labels: Iran, Islam, Political Realities Middle East, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, May 30, 2012
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