Tag Archives: NATO

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.

Syria – Qatar – Absurdity

30 Thursday May 2013

Posted by in Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Qatar, Regions, Syria

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“At the moment, several conflicts are being fought simultaneously in Syria. The civil war began more than two years ago as a power struggle between the government and opposition forces. But it didn’t take long for other states to get into the mix, turning the internal fight into a regional and international struggle for influence.”

http://www.dw.de/middle-east-countries-fighting-proxy-war-in-syria/a-16848708

I’ve compared violent Sunni vs. Shiite rivalry to watching two wasps fight inside a bell jar, an absurd condition driven by “content of mind” (self-concept, social grammar, etc.) and vanity, or an aspect of it I refer to as “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy”.

Russia may be the bad boy backing a brutal dictatorship, but what is NATO doing trying to sanitize the opposition?

“In response, the FSA has been acting more like a force opposed to the citizens of Syria than a force intended to secure their freedom. For example, it has in the recent past stolen wheat reserves intended for the residents of Aleppo and sold it to private Turkish grain traders, expropriated stocks of pharmaceuticals and forcibly resold them back to its owners, and ransacked schools. These are hardly the actions of a ‘liberation force.'”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-wagner/dark-side-free-syrian_b_2380399.html

Daniel Wagner reported that “news” back in December.

“The following video, circulated by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, shows jihadists lining up and executing supporters of President Bashar al-Assad. A man in a mask reads a statement behind the line of blindfolded men, reading off the reason for their punishment, before walking down the line and shooting each one in the back of the head.”

http://www.policymic.com/articles/42503/syrian-execution-youtube-video-graphic-footage-shows-rebel-atrocities

Qatar itself, rolling in money, stands clean and progressive in the background, and yet, should you click on the above link and witness the Al-Nusra execution of Assad’s forces, kneeling and bound, you know the money for that has got to be coming from somewhere.

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FTAC – Syria – A Perfect System of War

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Compelling the note: the story of missiles launched at a Russian charter jet.

There’s a lot of confusion and skirmishing in and around the Syrian slaughterhouse. Neither of the superpowers can redress state or humanitarian issues, but they can use the situation to shape other issues, including running an enthused Al Qaeda into a state’s army while reducing Iran’s power to draw on an important security alliance. We are watching archaic and weakened powers in Syria and drawn from the world burn themselves, such is the hypnotic ferocity of their beliefs coupled with their desire for God’s blessings exclusively and determination to do away with the phantoms of the western future.

I generally don’t invent conspiracies, lol, but the above might fit with why, whether deliberately or fated, there has been no compelled large “force majeure” intervention in Syria’s agony. Whatever story Assad concocts about America and Israel being against him, he may more truly be suffering with his world — the one he and his family have constructed in mind and sold to or forced on Syria — running into enabled partial Islamist forces, and the two, much to the convenience of Russia and the United States are consequently busy destroying one another.

Syria would seem to represent at the moment a perfect system of war.

An attempt to hit a civilian aircraft would seem to up the ante between surface Russian and NATO interests.  At the very least, the alleged and now mysterious attack (did it really happen?  who really launched those missiles?) reinforces the idea that Syria may be treated as the blasting cap for WWIII, and that in turn drives consideration away from the possibility of collusion between NATO and Russia.

While awaiting confirmation or denial of recent Israeli activity involving a strike on a Syrian chemical weapons facility (reported yesterday by the Jewish Press), as much would make some sense: let the independent small state (which Putin seems to like as much as Washington) take care of the fringe rough stuff (“exceeding limits” Muhammad himself may have said of chemical weapons).

Elsewhere on this blog, I’ve suggested with regard to Syria that there seem to be “no good dogs in the fight”.  In the early phase of what is now Syria’s civil war, Maher Al-Assad loosed his army against civilian targets seemingly without rules of engagement, and the rest, from one side or the other, false flag or real, has been about wanton destruction and the butchering of countless hapless civilians.

Related: “Redlines and the Problems of Intervention in Syria.” Stratfor Global Intelligence Report, April 30, 2013. Stratfor provides the more straightforward cause for leaving Syria in the deeps of misery, i.e., the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished results of noble intervention!

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