John Horgan @Drjohnhorgan
[h=1]Analysts identify #SyriaHoax as Russian-fueled propaganda - ABC News - (link: [url]http://abcn.ws/2oabGkQ) abcn.ws/2oabGkQ[/URL] via @ABC[/h]
[h=1]Analysts identify #SyriaHoax as Russian-fueled propaganda - ABC News - (link: [url]http://abcn.ws/2oabGkQ) abcn.ws/2oabGkQ[/URL] via @ABC[/h]
- Syria: The Hidden Power of Iran - Joost Hiltermann
As my own trip to northern Iraq and northern Syria last month revealed, even as the international coalition makes major gains against the Islamic State, the region's crises are multiplying.
ISIS is quickly losing ground. Its fighters are exhausted, its ranks depleted, but its remaining forces are clearly prepared to fight to the bitter end. Moreover, Islamic State ideology will remain attractive to Sunni Muslims as long as they feel politically excluded. Already, local ISIS recruits are blending in with civilians who are taking refuge in camps - lying low, waiting for more opportune times.
The Iranian government wants to connect Iran to Hizbullah via Iraq and Syria with a land corridor running from its own borders to the Mediterranean. This is an aim that is acknowledged by Iranian analysts themselves, who describe it as a strategic necessity. It needs these routes to get arms to Hizbullah. That explains the importance of Iran's alliance with the Assad government in Syria, and also why Iran and Hizbullah were in such a hurry after 2011 to prop up the Syrian regime when it was threatened with imminent collapse. (New York Review of Books)
- Israel's Syria Dilemma: Your Neighbor's House Is on Fire, But He Hates You - Joshua Mitnick
Last week's sarin gas attack has intensified a long running debate in Israel about whether the government should be doing more to alleviate humanitarian suffering just beyond its northern border, despite a state of war that exists with Syria. "As Israelis and Jews, the use of gas takes us back [in time]," said Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz. "Our obligation as Jews and Israelis is to offer aid to the victims of the gas attack."
The dominant approach reflects a realpolitik recognition that Israel shouldn't take sides in the civil war because it has little ability to shape a new Syria and is viewed as a pariah by most of the Arab world. At the same time, Israel has treated thousands of Syrians in its hospitals, and sends food, clothes and blankets to pro-rebel villages along the border.
"Israel has been very clear that it doesn't want to enter the mix in Syria, but it will safeguard its vital interests," said Dore Gold, a former director general of the Israel Foreign Ministry under Netanyahu. Intervention "might create a more difficult situation. Israel has been very careful and responsible about what it does." (Los Angeles Times)
- Why Overthrowing Assad Won't Solve Syria's Crisis - Lawrence Solomon
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad did not "gas his own people," as was widely reported. Assad is an Alawite, a minority people that rules over the many non-Alawite tribes that constitute Syria. Assad gassed non-Alawite Muslims.
There is no true Syrian people, except in the imagination of Westerners. The Western goal of keeping Syria whole, with its devout Muslims harmoniously living side-by-side with Alawite tribes they consider heretical, as well as with Syria's pro-Assad Christian minority, is delusional and guaranteed to fail.
Although the Alawite tribes now have the upper hand, they know that, if they lose, they will be mercilessly slaughtered, just as Assad is mercilessly slaughtering those who would overthrow his Alawite regime. The writer is a policy analyst with Toronto-based Probe International. (National Post-Canada)
