Wary of U.S., Syria and Iran Strengthen Ties

For a long time, the top-selling poster in Hassan al-Sheikh's gift shop here showed President Bashar al-Assad of Syria seated beside the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon. A few weeks ago a slightly different poster overtook it, this one with the Syrian president, the Hezbollah leader and Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mr. Sheikh's shop is on a bustling street in Sayeda Zeinab beside the entrance to a Shiite shrine that shares a name with the city, and both have been packed with Iranian pilgrims, many more than in years past.

Those changes illustrate what may well be a worrying phenomenon for Washington as it seeks to contain Iran and isolate Syria: the two governments, and their people, are tightening relations on several fronts as power in the region shifts away from the once dominant Sunni to Shiites, led by Iran.

This is, in part, the result of the American installation of a Shiite-dominated government in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his Sunni-led government. But it is also spurred by the growing belief in Arab capitals that the Bush administration may soon negotiate a deal with Tehran over Iraq and nuclear weapons.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/world/middleeast/25syria.html?hp&ex=1151208000&en=b988e6836a823806&ei=5094&partner=homepage

The hard prison men want a global consensus, that there be no freedom from their
system of flexible labour exploitation, of their war on the poor person's drugs,
and the war on the poor person's social mobility. Not a single leader stands for
an improvement in this, and they do realize in their darkest dreams, that they
need each other to prop each other up, its a global TeePee, needing a war with
eurasia to prop up a viscious class war stateside.