Category Archives: Syria

Qatar – Syria – Keep Watch

30 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Journalism, Middle East, Politics, Qatar, Regions, Syria

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The missiles, American officials warned, could one day be used by terrorist groups, some of them affiliated with Al Qaeda, to shoot down civilian aircraft.

But one country ignored this admonition: Qatar, the tiny, oil- and gas-rich emirate that has made itself the indispensable nation to rebel forces battling calcified Arab governments and that has been shipping arms to the Syrian rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad since 2011.

Mazzetti, Mark, C. J. Chivers, and Eric Schmitt.  “Taking Outside Role in Syria, Qatar Funnels Arms to Rebels.”  The New York Times, June 29, 2013.

It’s mighty social of President Obama to allow others to strut their hour upon the global stage, which it appears Qatar may be doing as promotes a Sunni front in Syria by proxy.

As modern and shiny as Qatari money has made Qatar, onlookers may not be so certain about its mercenaries and their ability to restrain themselves.  The alleged murder of Roula Adnan last week adds its bit of opprobrious behavior to the eating-the-heart video that went viral earlier in the month.  I’ve hedged with “alleged” as the news reached me by way of Pakistan and involved as source a Syrian nationalist outlet given to headers like, “US Citizens Kill Deputy Head of Ministry of Education in Aleppo.”

We’re not going to have two essential empirical truths in a world integrating within the communal mind of the World Wide Web: whatever Qatar has enabled, even if spun over-the-top with canards out of the political playbooks of bomb throwers of the 1970s, what happened to Roula Adnan (and her neighbors) will come out.

And just before coming after Roula, the same “rebels”, the ones that the MSM is romanticizing broke into another home. They carried a man from Khalil family to the street and shot his hands and feet. Then they beaten up his wife and daughter, right in front of the neighbors. The terrorists wanted Syrians to witness the crime; they wanna scare us into submission.

As it does always, the fog of war will lift — but these days, it’s likely the curtains masking behind-the-scenes deals, wherever they have taken place, will be drawn back too.

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Syria At the Moment

27 Thursday Jun 2013

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Hezbollah sources told the paper that Nasrallah requested full financial and military backing for the fighting in Syria in a meeting with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Solomon, Ariel Ben.  “Report: Nasrallah secretly visited Iran to discuss Syria war.”  Jerusalem Post, June 27, 2013.

The above may be news recently released, but given the pace of the combat in Syria and the spillover into Lebanon, it’s old news predating the battle for al-Qusayr.

However, one may take as signal Russia’s decision implemented today to retrieve its military from the naval base at Tartus.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has withdrawn all military personnel from its naval base in Syria and replaced them with civilian workers, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.

The ministry did not say when the switch at the base at Tartus took place or how many personnel were deployed there. The minor facility is Russia’s only naval outpost outside the former Soviet Union. It consists of several barracks and depots used to service Russian navy ships in the Mediterranean.

AP.  “Russia replaces military with civilians at Syrian base.”  USA Today, June 27, 2013.

Ah hah!

“We have neither servicemen nor civilians in Syria anymore. Or Russian military instructors assigned to units of the Syrian regular Army, for that matter,” a Russian defense ministry spokesperson is quoted as telling the Moscow business daily Vedomosti yesterday.”

Weir, Fred.  “Why Russia evacuated its naval base in Syria.”  The Christian Science Monitor, June 27, 2013.

Fred Weir points to Cyprus as an alternative achieving similar ends for Russian naval power and regional influence.

Put that together with this Euronews video from January this year (tipped by a CSM article):

While according to RT, “Russia’s Defense Ministry . . . blasted media reports about total evacuation as “extremely incorrect,” it’s difficult accepting the statement while looking at today’s breaking news and January apparent exodus of civilians by jet (RT, “Russian Defense Ministry refutes reports of Syria evacuation,” June 27, 2013).  In fact, RT goes on to actually emphasize aspects of the surface or top story.

Putin’s interests, whether defined financially for the long term or in terms of impact on his reputation in history, which I think more important to him than casually acknowledged, are not with “Islamists” — not in Chechnya with the rebels of the Kavkaz Center variety, not with Iran with Ayatollah Khamenei and his nuclear ambitions that would be used to threaten Russia every bit as much — more — as NATO.

For Putin, the restoration of Russian grandeur and strength, plus strength in national  and heroic self-concept, may involve navigating the balance between “bad boy” bravado and action with, actually (gasp!) even greater laudable strategy.

Whatever Putin does, he will be regarded as the bridge between the conniving, defunct, invasive police state that by the merit of the Russian People themselves had come to define the Soviet Union and this New Russian Federation that’s not about to take orders from Washington but might succeed in doing great right things on its own authority.

Most certainly, modern Russians will not want to be remembered for — or long associated with either — with the ravages of Maher al-Assad’s military, and while “the west” can take no pride in backing the kind of warrior that would cut out the liver out of his enemy and eat it, the Russian position, which appears to be decoupling from Syria, sails clear of the taint of that barbarism, albeit later than sooner with regard to the casualties and refugees of the war to date.

The problem with Syria, at the moment, and one of many problems within the Islamic Ummah, is that along the sectarian axis, neither side knows how to stop and both continue to walk toward a fire built on and sustained by their own unrestrained and unreasoning energies.

Additional Reference

Connolly, Kevin.  “Syria war exerts strain on Lebanon tinderbox.”  BBC, June 27, 2013.

Deutsch, Anthony and Parisa Hafezi.  “U.N. chemical weapons team in Turkey to investigate Syria claims.”  Reuters, June 27, 2013.

Fisk, Robert.  “Iran to send 4,000 troops to aid President Assad forces in Syria.”  The Independent, June 16, 2013.

Nebehay, Stephanie.  “Syria war likely to drag on, Red Cross president says.”  Reuters, June 27, 2013.

ROAvideos.  “Defining the Threat: Iranian Strategy in Syria.”  Video (1:38:23).  June 27, 2013.

Syria – The Dismal Killing Machine

26 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Middle East, Regions, Syria

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LONDON — An opposition monitoring group that has tracked Syria’s widening civil war said on Wednesday that more than 100,000 people had died in the 27-month-old conflict, with pro-government forces taking far more casualties than rebels seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad, while civilians accounted for more than one-third of the overall fatalities, the biggest single category.

Cowell, Alan.  “Syrian Group Says War Deaths Top 100,000.”  The New York Times, June 26, 2013.

Perhaps the old days were better after all: assemble the armies on an open plain, send the warriors into it, and leave the noncombatants of both sides for the spoils of the winner.

Just kidding.

*****

“As always, numbers like these gloss over the many people who have been so grievously wounded, physically or psychologically, that they will never again live productive lives. What the latter figure amounts to in Syria is anyone’s guess. What’s certain is that it’s even larger than the death toll.”

Menon, Rajan.  “Hope for Peace in Syria, But Don’t Expect It.”  Blog.  Huffington Post, June 26, 2013.

Rajan Menon’s report on the suffering goes on to note 1.7 million refugees on top of 4 million Internally Displaced Persons, or 5.7 million displaced souls altogether, about 25 percent of Syria’s total population before the onset of serious hostilities (but I’m not sure I’m getting consistent numbers from any source published within the past two years).

*****

“In one trailer we meet 13-year-old Najwa. She curls back in the corner next to her husband, 19-year-old Khaled, and her mother, hardly saying a word.

Najwa is the youngest of three, her two older sisters in their late teens are also recently married.”

Damon, Arwa.  “No sanctuary for Syria’s female refugees.”  CNN, June 26, 2013.

Evidently, grim statistics don’t tell a whole story, or not much of whatever is to be told at all.

*****

“The head of the International Terrorism Observatory think tank, Roland Jacquard, told Reuters Television the group appeared to be sending fighters abroad, likely to Syria.”

Pennetier, Marine and Alexandria Sage.  “French police arrest cell with possible Syria links.” Reuters, June 25, 2013.

A cousin of a story.

Reuters.  “Spain arrests suspected al-Qaeda Syria network.”  Video.  June 22, 2013.

“Special informed sources from London revealed to the Palestinian al-Manar newspaper that the British security forces arrested early June a group of 11 terrorists in London who had come back from Syria where they were involved in the fighting there.”

Syrian Arab News Agency.  “British authorities arrest terrorists who fought in Syria.”  June 19, 2013.

Wars draw volunteers.  It’s a shame the one in Syria draws teenage ones.  Belgium dealt with this issue back in April of this year:

*****

Thanks to Ken Hanley at Digital Journal for playing this thematically related clip last week in his op-ed, “Many Foreign fighters involved in Syria on both sides” (Digital Journal, June 19, 2013).

*****

While Israel’s cardinal military defense rule seems to remain, “Do not intervene; do not interfere” (DM Yaalon), Israel’s first virtue would seem to remain compassion to the extent that it may provide that.

“The two boys, 9 and 15 years old, were transferred to Ziv Hospital in Safed for treatment. The 9-year-old suffered moderate injuries from shrapnel wounds across his body and lost his right eye, according to a report by Maariv. The 15-year-old was listed in serious condition, according to the report.”

Times of Israel.  “Minors wounded in Syrian fighting brought to Israel.”  June 26, 2013.

Every wounded Syrian is guarded by either an IDF soldier or by a civilian security guard in an attempt to isolate them from speaking with anyone unauthorized to do so who might photograph them or pass on their information to Syria, potentially harming them or their families upon their eventual return to Syria.

As stated, more than a 100 wounded Syrians have crossed the border in recent months. Some 70 of them have been taken to Israeli hospitals, and two have passed away as a result of their injuries.

Zitun, Yoav.  “More than 100 wounded Syrians receive care in Israel.”  YNet News, June 26, 2013.

After 2,000 years or so, Hillel’s negatively stated dictum seems to hold.  “That which is distasteful to thee, do not do to another” — and certainly, the choice between enabling or denying access to hospital services related well to that.

*****

“The request came in a letter handed to Prime Minister’s Office Director-General Harel Locker at a meeting with Druze leaders on the Golan Heights Thursday. The letter included an unprecedented request for Israel to take in Druze students who had left the Golan and settled in Syria, Maariv reported.”

Gur, Haviv Rettig.  “Druze leaders ask Israel to take in Syrian brethren.”  Times of Israel, June 23, 2013.

What would Hillel do?

Druze along the Golan have served both in the IDF and in Syria’s defense forces according to their decisions about citizenship and location, and with the fighting as I’ve described — “Two mad wasps in a bell jar” — Israeli Druze are seeking sanctuary for their relatives.

God knows God would seem to give Jews the toughest ethical and survival challenges.

Both.

At the same time.

Providing infirmary to wounded to be turned back into the field — and who want to be returned to their land — is one thing.

Affording sanctuary to those endangered by this war that only loosely respects boundaries and seems absent of compassion and conscience both in relation to innocents, noncombatants, neutral parties, and so on makes for a more difficult decision.

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FNS – Nasrallah’s Forces

26 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Regions, Religion, Syria

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Even if the conniving Nasrallah, with Iran’s support, holds on as head of his extremist Shiite organization for a long time to come, his principal goal — to become a pan-Arab and Lebanese leader — is now unattainable. The man who for some time was seen as Israel’s main strategic enemy has, with his own hands, buried his accomplishments.

Bergman, Ronen.  “The Fall of Hezbollah’s Leader.”  Bloomberg, June 24, 2013.

“But regional experts say no one in the struggle has had a greater impact in recent weeks than Iranian-backed Hezbollah. The Lebanese group’s appearance in force on the battlefield has prompted a new direction in a war that had ebbed and flowed and until this spring appeared to be slipping away from the Syrian government.”

Detmer, Jamie.  “Hezbollah Has Edge on Syrian Battlefield.”  Voice of America, June 25, 2013.

“For Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, there is “some good news for his involvement in Syria,” observed Yoram Schweitzer, director the Terrorism and Low Intensity Warfare Project at the Institute for National Security in Tel Aviv.

“Hezbollah is gaining battle experience, but this is smaller in significance than the price Nasrallah’s paying, politically and operationally. There’s an erosion of Hezbollah’s fighting forces and its resources.”

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2013/06/25/Hezbollah-braces-for-big-Syria-battle-but-takes-losses/UPI-44791372183587/#ixzz2XKaVTBuQ

RT, perhaps reverting to old habits, is getting hard to read as it or its contributors (what follows appears to be an op-ed) picks up on an anti-American screed in thick paragraphs.  Nonetheless, as long as the world is reading the about itself in English, it’s outlook is as much a part of the global information environment as, say, Voice of America’s.

“Undoubtedly Hezbollah did discuss its intentions to enter the Syrian conflict with its patrons in Tehran and coordinated with Iran and then, to a lesser extent, with Russia through Iranian officials and through consultations with Aleksandr Zasypkin, Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon, and then Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov during his April 2013 visit to Beirut. The involvement of Hezbollah in Syria, however, is purely defensive. Moreover, Hezbollah is one of the last external players to be involved in Syria.”

Nazemroaya, Mahdi Darius.  “Hezbollah fighting in Syria to defend Lebanon from bloodbath.”  Op-Edge, RT, June 26, 2013.

As mentioned a few times on this blog, Syria is the Black Hole and Dark Star of the Islamic Small Wars: it has been drawing energy and matter, one might say, into itself and burning, and the longer it burns, the more it draws, and that includes some of the energies of two superpowers distinctly not invested in Islamic sectarian concerns except as a part of their distinct security structures.

In the early post-Soviet years, Russia appears to have neglected or sustained (both) arrangements with Syria as they were during the Cold War.  There seems perhaps to have been no basis for complaint on the part of those with power: the Assad regime improved its financial standing, the Russians maintained lucrative contracts, and the military had a decent buffer and the core of a useful naval facility (Tartus).

The “Arab Spring” that seems to be giving way to a Burning Islamic Sectarian Summer has played hard on the secular dictatorships in the region and led the theocratic states into a so-far proxy conflict in which Hezbollah today has been spilling blood while spending itself — its intellectual and logistical energies, manpower, and focus.

On the Sunni side, which may be hemmed in or contained by Russian regional interest and military backbone, the fight is as slow as experienced by the Shiite, but its financial and social impacts may be comparatively less devastating.

The absurd ends — my analogy has been “two mad wasps fighting inside a bell jar” — make this form in conflict akin to an unmanageable natural disaster that casualty and displaced person figures underscore (more than 92,000 dead with about four million persons displaced).

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Syria’s Conflict Broadens, Confuses, Damns

23 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Lebanon, Middle East, Politics, Psychology, Regions, Syria, Turkey

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The dust resulting from the burning of cement leaves behind an emotion of a dusty fate. It leaves behind a feeling that the person is part of this burnt dust and that this is the color and smell of life.

al-Amin, Hazem.  “War approaches Lebanon.”  Al-Aribya, June 23, 2013.

Hazem al-Amin’s lyrical column in Al Aribya today tells a part of the psychology revolving around the horror in Syria and its creep into Lebanon, starting with the appearance and imposition of blocked roads.

If al-Amin’s captures the queasy zeitgeist of the Lebanese Everyman, AFP’s recent report on Hamas’s latest schizoid split takes it up a notch into the realpolitik attending Syria’s burning: “Syria’s civil war has caused a split within Hamas over whether to cling to Shiite backers Damascus, Tehran and Hezbollah or side with Sunni allies such as Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, analysts say” (AFP, “Syria’s sectarian war causes Hamas split: Analysts”, Ahram Online, June 21, 2013).

The protests ongoing in Turkish circles may have to do with more than the general drift of the state under Erdogan’s autocratic rule: on June 18 (2013), Erdogan met in Ankara with both “Hamas chief in exile” Khalid Mashaal and Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, yet another denting of Turkey’s once shining relationship with Israel (was that all only nine years ago?) and an equally objectionable foray into the worst and most virulent theater of the Islamic Small Wars.

Presumably, the three men whined together over Israel’s consolidation, development, and further establishment of its sovereign lands (Anatolia News Agency, “Turkish PM Erdogan meets Hamas leader Meshal and Gaza PM Haniyeh,” Huriyet Daily News, June 23, 2013).

Earlier this year, the conservative FrontPage Magazine noted the following in regard to Erdogan’s planting his boot in the middle east conflict:

Erdogan was rated as the second most influential Muslim leader of 2012, only behind Saudi King Abdullah. Despite his reputation as a “moderate,” Erdogan has said that Hamas is a “resistance” group, not a terrorist group. He has won the admiration of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who said, “Turkey’s support for the people of Syria and Palestine is unforgettable. My brother Erdogan, thank goodness God gave you so much. And you deserve it. You are also a leader in the Muslim world.”

Mauro, Ryan.  “Crowning Erdogan as the New King of Islamists.”  FrontPage, March 28, 2013.

The thing (the “Our Thing”) with Erdogan the Turk and Mashaal the Hamasnik in Exile is to walk on the Sunni side of the street down which the United States, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its sphere, and perhaps half of Hamas seem to have  aligned over Syria in opposition to the dictator Assad, Shiite Hezbollah involvement, and, alas, that Beleaguered But Ever So Crafty Bear Putin.

Bad wars make bad bedfellows, to play on an old saw, and what’s happening in Syria by way of its sectarian facet (“two wasps in a bell jar,” says I) seems to me incomprehensible in its absurdity.

Israel’s policy as articulated by Defense Minister Yaalon in Washington last week seems to remain “Do not intervene; do not interfere.”

Of course the Israelis cannot help themselves when it comes to making anything — Anything! — a little bit better, so now there is an advanced position Israeli field hospital Out There in the Golan, and it has taken in and repaired some injured by way of the combat in which it will not intervene.

From Jordan, Jamal Halaby reports, “900 U.S. Troops in Jordan to Boost Security in Wake of Syria Conflict” (Huffington Post, June 22, 2013).

Jordan’s King Abdullah has been dealing with his own unrest (e.g., al-Samadi, Tamer, “Precarious Calm Prevails Following Jordan Unrest,”  Al Monitor, June 6, 2013).

Two months earlier, a politico challenging King Abdullah of Jordan’s legitimacy noted this in The Jerusalem Post:

Recently, Abdullah met with Assad’s mentor, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Commenting on the king’s meeting with Putin, the Londonbased Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper reported the visit could be the sign of a “major shift in Jordan’s stance on Syria,” noting that the visit took place at the same time Jordan began supplying diesel and drinking water to Assad’s army and reporting that “the King’s intelligence department has been cooperating with Syrian intelligence for the last two months.”

Zahran, Mudar.  “Jodan’s king, Assad and Iran.”  The Jerusalem Post, April 3, 2013.

I have heard some say that Obama and Putin have set out to rearrange the middle east.  I don’t know if that’s so, but whatever their plans, the two between them have got the place churning.

Lest I leave anyone out, say Egyptian youth, for example:

He was young and bright, with an education from Egypt’s premier school of Islamic studies and lucrative job offers in the Gulf.

But Bilal Farag chose a different path, friends say, one that led him to die on a distant Syrian battlefield while fighting Shiite Muslims he regarded as infidels.

Ya Libnan.  “Radical Sunnis rush to join fight against Hezbollah, Iran in Syria.”  June 22, 2013.  (Possibly reprinted from The Washington Post).  Best quote, imho, the one that will wrap this up: ““The Middle East is shifting from a region that was dreaming of democracy to a battlefield between Shiite and Sunni,” Salah said. “It’s very dangerous.”  (The article identifies “Salah” as “Khaled Salah, editor in chief of the secular-minded Youm7 newspaper”).

Welcome the long, hot summer: indeed, the “Arab Spring” has become an Arab Muslim fire zone, and it seems from Ankara to Beirut to Cairo to Gaza (and beyond), sides have been chosen, and all are going to the bonfire in Syria — if it doesn’t come to them first.

Additional Reference

Gilbert, Ben.  “How the Syria conflict is spreading violence to Lebanon.”  NBC News, June 23, 2013.

Ray, John.  “Syria spillover violence threatens ceasefire with Israel.”  NBC News, June 21, 2013.

ISW – Comment on Saudi Arabia’s Heightened Profile in the Syrian Theater

17 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Qatar, Regions, Religion, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey

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(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia, a staunch opponent of President Bashar al-Assad since early in Syria’s conflict, began supplying anti-aircraft missiles to rebels “on a small scale” about two months ago, a Gulf source said on Monday.

Bakr, Amena.  “Saudi supplying missiles to Syria rebels: Gulf source.”  Reuters, June 17, 2013.

For those who value stability in the middle east, the least honest and most ruthless appear to be winning.

As the above quote suggests, Big Sunni Money plus the cultivation across many years of strategic and trade relationships in Great Britain, Europe, and the United States have put King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia not only into the fight in Syria but remarkably behind the NATO wheel.

Of course, this recent news (surfacing in the news) isn’t news at all to the businesses and states involved in Syria’s civil war, and it should be apparent to all onlookers that this double-track, double-story business of telling the public one story while facilitating another in private has brought us to the brink of a NATO vs. Russia confrontation in which Russia may now present a devilish gambit: better Assad and the continuing misery to be imposed by the dictatorship than the expansion of either Al Qaeda or Wahhabi Islam and the certain diminishing of nascent democracy, human dignity, and secular values in Syria accompanied by the heightening of tensions in Lebanon and,somewhere in the future, with Israel and the Jewish People.

To offset that impression, King Abdullah may have to back up the money with some combination of reassuring mouth and evidence of cultural and social evolution toward the contemporary in the Kingdom, certain injunctions of the Quran either notwithstanding or interpreted or aligned with a more free and liberal and greater western world.

Outlook

For the moment, if Iran’s nuclear program and global ambitions are the true target of the conflict in Syria, then the conflict and the human suffering plus political confusion driven by it, have yet some months to years to go.

In fact, the focusing of issues in the Syrian theater of a great portion of the drivers of the Islamic Small Wars  — i.e., rivalries of various sort: Al Qaeda and Wahhabi Islam; Sunni and Shiite Islam; democracy, secular dictatorship and theocracy; Iranian and Saudi Arabian competition for greater spheres of influence; even Putin’s possible issues with aggrandizement, control, and wealth on one hand and his own humanity, moderation, and strength in restraint on the other– bodes ill for constituents — worldwide — whose concerns may be more with family, security, and employment scaled down to a common denominator in the common humanity than with the triumph of a king or an ayatollah.  

It has been said that with the onset of war, nobody wins, and nowhere else across the killing fields of the Islamic Small Wars does that cynical sentiment seem more likely to be proven true than in Syria this day.

Reference

Al Arabiya.  “Saudi King Abdullah cuts holiday short due to ‘events in the region’.”  June 15, 2013.

Chulov, Martin.  “Threat of sectarian war grows in Syria as jihadists get anti-aircraft missiles.”  The Guardian, June 15, 2013.

Deasy, Kristin.  “Al Qaeda in Iraq defies global leader over relationship with Syria’s Al Nusra: Reports.” Global Post, June 15, 2013.

Henderson, Simon.  “Bahrain Rounds Up Organizers of Antigovernment Violence.”  Policy Alert, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, June 14, 2013:

Initially emulating uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world, the protests quickly divided along sectarian lines, pitting members of the majority Shiite population against the Sunni ruling family’s security forces. Since then, February 14 members have apparently engaged in near-nightly clashes with police, resulting in more than 100 dead and 2,000 injured among civilians and security personnel.

Osborn, Andrew and Amena Bakr.  “Putin, Obama face off over Syria; rebels get Saudi missiles.”  Reuters, June 17, 2013.

Reuters.  “Russia says it will not allow Syria no-fly zones.”  June 17, 2013.

Starr, Barbara, Holly Yan, Chelsea J. Carter.  “Analyst: Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria now best-equipped of the group.”  CNN, June 17, 2013.

Wintour, Patrick.  “Syria: Putin backs Assad and berates west over proposal to arm rebels.”  The Guardian, June 16, 2013.

FNS – Putin on Human Organ Eaters (Syria)

17 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Middle East, Regions, Syria

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“I don’t think one should support people who not only kill their enemies, but also take apart their bodies and eat their organs in front of people and cameras,” Putin said. ”Why does the West want to arm Syrian dissidents who eat human organs?”

Bassin, Michael.  “Putin, Cameron thrown off by Damascus bombing.”  The Times of Israel, June 17, 2013.

Okay, Obama: your turn — the world awaits your riposte.

Must I / we catch up with Syria today?

Qatar/Sunni –> U.S. –> Syrian Dictatorship vs. IranShiite –> Syrian Cash Cow –> Russia

Roughly speaking.

Syria is ugly, a black hole for everyone sucked into it and a black knot for NATO and Russian relations, even though Russian cultural and economic interests share more with NATO’s value or compete similarly with NATO in ways far from the concerns of the Iranian leadership.

Who can blame Putin for refusing the possibility of a second Islamist incubator on Russia’s flank?

Or for facilitating arms trade to forces under the sway of such a sweetheart as Maher al-Assad?

And what are Obama and his buddies doing trying to get something “moderate” going on the Sunni side of the street when the same proves repeatedly undemocratic, against human rights, and, as a governing force, absurdly repressive and unstable?

And on the field, as a matter of mere mechanical and practical concern, how does NATO intend to forestall the delivery of weapons to Al Qaeda and its affiliates?

In the above cited article, Iran’s “election” of Hassan Rouhani comes up:

A major question both Putin and Cameron are apparently asking themselves is how Iranian president-elect Hasan Rowhani will approach Syria. It is unclear if Rowhani, who is favored by Iran’s reformist groups, will guide his country differently from his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Rouhani may be Iran’s leading nuclear power and nuclear war expert (see, for example, ETN’s “New Iranian President Hassan Rouhani wants to repair relations with the west”, June 15, 2013).

The Iranian President-elect Sheikh Hasan Rouhani said on Monday that Tehran will present more transparency in its nuclear program than before, but the Islamic Republic won’t abandon its uranium enrichment process.

Al-Manar News.  “Rouhani: Nuclear Program Will Keep on, Syria Gov’t Will Stay till 2014.”  June 17, 2013.

Rouhani’s demeanor is friendly, and friends have only nice things to say about him.

Posted by The Union of Islamic World Students, here is a part of Hassan Nasrallah’s  congratulations:

“Hezbollah along with all the mujahideen in this country of resistance congratulate you … for aptly earning the big trust of the great people,” Nasrallah said in the cable, Naharnet reported .

“Sayed Nasrallah Congratulates Rouhani for Earning Iranian People’s Trust.”  The Union of Islamic World Students, June 16, 2013.

Additional Reference

Arouzi, Ali.  “Iran’s president-elect urges U.S. to ‘look to the future’.”  NBC World News, June 17, 2013:

When Rowhani was chief nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005, he negotiated a suspension of Tehran’s uranium enrichment. He has said Iran would not halt those activities again.

FTAC – An Off-Hand Note on Al Qaeda in Syria and Arab and Western Participation

10 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Lebanon, Middle East, Politics, Qatar, Regions, Syria

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Regarding what we think we know and what we know we know: the world has a huge black market going in military arms. You should know the name Viktor Bout and then imagine that personality recapitulated for Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the FARC (Colombia), the Sineola people (Mexico) and so on. The small stuff, like the Kalashnikov the Russians overproduced to keep factory employment high, and the RPGs and other small, transportable arms seem to have zero issues getting to these small conflicts. Even when Al Shabaab were kids running amok in Somalia, they were able to fire an RPG into a living room (they didn’t like the man watching a soccer match on his television). To say the U.S. Government supports Al Qaeda in Syria is an “iffy” supposition.

However, let’s look at the kind of curtain suspended everywhere in Islamic and related tribal states — also in states dealing with other insurrection or organized crime: it’s curtain sewn of privacy in communication. A wink, a nod, a slip of paper, a promise, a signal can do untold damage anywhere in the world at any time predicated on the will of those colluding to do evil.

It is natural for the United States to oppose dictatorship of any kind anywhere in the world, but the realpolitik also involves enormous sums in cash, hard assets (like landing strips and naval ports), and investments, and the states of the Arab Peninsula have made fortunes on energy sales, essentially, and reinvestment: there is no one surprised that they would use that financial power to expand their combined political-spiritual enterprise. Whatever officialdom may say, OBL showed the power of the individual to act in accord with the sword verses and sally forth into the infidel world.

If General Idris could get his grip on the loose collection of rebel forces reporting to him and exercise true western-backed control, the Al Qaeda presence in Syria would be marginalized, but because of religious fealty and motivation, which may be misguided (you heard that from a Jew) but is powerful, that Al Qaeda presence may be holding its own in the Syrian — soon to be Syrian-Lebanon — theater

The story is complicated and more so than Facebook “bilge talk” (or international cocktail-type chatter) allows.

To bring freedom to parties who fear it and constituents whose information environments have been managed specifically to engender the fear and hatred of others on one hand and an immense “civilizational narcissism” (check in with Mobarak Haider’s on that) on the other proves difficult — one may stop to look over the Iraq story on that.

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