And who knows what other countries are involved!

What an ugly mess.

That fucking Dick Cheney. They are the ones who INTENTIONALLY destabilized the mideast by going into Iraq. It was all part of PNAC. Ever since Halliburton moved to Qatar, I've known there was going to be no good come of this mess.

Now Russia and Iran are in bed together supplying arms to Syrian establishment, while Saudi Arabia and Qatar via Turkey are now supplying the rebels via the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria.

Holy shit.

How is this supposed to escalate the conflict quite dramatically?

Primarily that this is just a group of freedom fighters bravely working to overthrow a hated tyrant. Or that there are no other players working behind the scenes manipulating the situation. Or that this isn't a dangerous sectarian religious civil war with critical regional importance where simply killing Assad will resolve the violence....

Maybe the UN actually calling it a civil war or the arrival of the Russian helicopters or the not-so-secret news that the Sunni KSA and Qatar are arming the "rebels" against the Shia Alawite Assad is finally penetrating the MSM - well maybe it means there can be some real conversations about the jeopardy and some possible solutions.

The Saudis aren't our friends, and have done America and its neighbors more harm than a dozen Syrias and Irans put together. What they do have is a huge pile of money to buy western western public opinion. And, bought it is. Particularly Murdoch and now CNN.

Russia backs Assad because they don't want any more Beslan massacres brewing up in their tinderbox neighboring republics while Saudi Arabia royals fear a 'shia curtain from Iran to Lebanon yet have no problems teaching their peaceful ways in far flung schools from Pakistan to the pacific rim.

Worth repeating. Can I borrow that?

But its a really excellent piece and deserves wider exposure.


Towards a new Arab cultural revolution
By Alastair Crooke

The "Awakening" is taking a turn, very different to the excitement and promise with which it was hailed at the outset. Sired from an initial, broad popular impulse, it is becoming increasingly understood, and feared, as a nascent counter-revolutionary "cultural revolution" - a re-culturation of the region in the direction of a prescriptive canon that is emptying out those early high expectations, and which makes a mockery of the West's continuing characterization of it as somehow a project of reform and democracy.

Instead of yielding hope, its subsequent metamorphosis now gives rise to a mood of uncertainty and desperation - particularly among what are increasingly termed "'the minorities" - the non-Sunnis, in other words. This chill of apprehension takes its grip from certain Gulf States' fervor for the restitution of a Sunni regional primacy - even, perhaps, of hegemony - to be attained through fanning rising Sunni militancy and Salafist acculturation.

At least seven Middle Eastern states are now beset by bitter, and increasingly violent, power struggles; states such as Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen are dismantling. Western states no longer trouble to conceal their aim of regime change in Syria, following Libya and the "non-regime-change" change in Yemen.

The region already exists in a state of low intensity war: Saudi Arabia and Qatar, bolstered by Turkey and the West, seem ready to stop at nothing to violently overthrow a fellow Arab head of state, President Bashar al-Assad - and to do whatever they can to hurt Iran. Iranians increasingly interpret Saudi Arabia's mood as a hungering for war; and Gulf statements do often have that edge of hysteria and aggression: a recent editorial in the Saudi-owned al-Hayat stated: "The climate in the GCC indicates that matters are heading towards a GCC-Iranian-Russian confrontation on Syrian soil, similar to what took place in Afghanistan during the Cold War. To be sure, the decision has been taken to overthrow the Syrian regime, seeing as it is vital to the regional influence and hegemony of the Islamic Republic of Iran."


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NF13Ak03.html

The Shah tried it, as did the Czar, quite unsuccessfully, and as history showed, with widely fatal consequences for millions. That's the Saudi plan.

The western agenda seems to be even less focused and unthought-out. Our increasing involvement stirs up old behaviors and antagonisms that were supposed to be buried with the Soviet Union. But, all we have managed to do is spur the reconstitution of a more sophisticated and agile Russian empire.

We are at a crossroads, and I'm afraid that Obama, like Johnson, may be headed down into the darkness of another unwinnable war fought for a set of outmoded ideals for "friends" who are actually our worst enemies.

In their infinite wisdom, the Obama Doctrine has appended that to include the All-American Standard Clause: "Unless they're on our side, then it's ok."

And after all, the Wahhabist dictators in Saudi Arabia and Qatar are in the absolute best position to teach budding rulers about "freedom" and whatever other nonsense the interventionists are peddling these days. Actually, what they are in prime position to geniunely demonstrate is how to let predatory elite capitalism run free, which is why the US/NATO are such big fans.