Hi, X — the “Sunni world” has deep investments in the west and in western trade and concomitant cooperation with the west, so on that broad basis, I believe, it proves itself the better partner in addressing Islamic expansion. The Ayatollah, Hamas, and Hezbollah — the active sworn enemies of Israel and the west — have cursed Shiite Islam in light of western interests as well as global interests in peace.

Iran’s shipments of rockets to Syria (for relay to and use by Hezbollah as well as Assad) signals a bump in Iran’s genocidal war on the “Zionist Entity”. In the experience of the Jews, this is the work of God pulling Israel into a defensive but active position: i.e., the people have once again been threatened with annihilation, the enemy is powerful, and it has shifted from stubborn Big Talk to “arming up” on Israel’s border — and Israel, which has every right to defend herself, will not only do so, but probably, as it has for thousands of years, change the course of history a little bit for the better.

I’ve mentioned many times, Usman, that there were no good guys within the Syrian “battle space” — and the “guys” outside of it, Putin and Obama, add non-Hezbollah Lebanese and then the Israelis, haven’t had a way toward dealing with any of the parties involved! In a very real sense, Syrians have been lost for a while and the effects of Saudi vs. Iran rivalry in the region have been making themselves felt.

If Syria’s rebel forces could both overrun the Assad regime _and reject the establishment of a hard Sunni line and its backers_ then Syrians might recover their state and stand for themselves instead of as proxies to NATO / Sunni / Saudi power as well as Russian / Iranian / Shiite power.

Sound impossible?

Ninety percent of the bloodshed has to do with the content of minds, and I believe minds can and will turn themselves in a good direction, but it might take some assistance to get them there.

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From the moment Maher al-Assad set loose an army absent of any apparent rules of engagement, Syria embarked on a war that could have no other end then to keep the state embroiled in conflict.

The civilian cry for justice and revenge alone would forestall peace with the state as constituted.

Of course, there’s more to the story than that posed by civil war against a despotic family.

Russia’s post-Soviet neglect of its client for all but business and defense concerns contributed to Syria’s “weak link” status in the middle east.  The odd political bedfellow with an Iran beneath the Ayatollah’s black wing has only added to the Assad’s isolation.  The family hasn’t really been in power in support of religious fanaticism, but that other fanatic passion for “Jew hate” has nonetheless sufficed to partially position the state as an Iranian proxy, and that in turn, plus population, has made the state a contemplated morsel for the House of Saud.

All around, Syria serves as the latest emblem of a weak state to be battered between superpowers and eaten alive by jackals.

The Israelis, sensibly, have the defensive task of keeping the gang fight and its offshoots confined to space beyond its borders.

For diplomats and professional war game enthusiasts, one might suppose that Iran’s smuggling rockets to Israel fits with some wise Pentagon planning, a conceit I would wish not the least bit true.

For the religious, this confluence of malignant forces — of grandiose messianic ambition in the person of Ayatollah Khamenei, of unsurpassed ambition and greed on the part of what my correspondent called “Sunni Islam” (which I read as Saudi Arabian ambition, expansion, and regional rivalry), of tangent involvement by Russia, the United States, and NATO — one may look to God perhaps arranging one more defensive war for the Jews and all of an Israel that with God will not tolerate in its enemy’s camps the presence of accurate and deadly rockets within range of her children.

The AlJazeera video only glances a reference, about four seconds, at the the shipping of arms between Iran and Syria.  If it were an honest outfit, it would have reported on arms trafficking between Iran and Syria first, then the relationship that has made Syria partially dependent on Iranian financing and military support, and then, perhaps this is asking too much, the common bonding in Jew hate and the hatred of the “Zionist entity” that primarily serves to mask the essential impotence of the leadership of both states, an impotence etched into permanent consciousness by the blood and suffering of their own people at their own hands — a thing observable from Evin Prison to Maher al-Assad’s casual firing into passersby on an opposite street corner.

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