Do you see the big picture? Help me put this jig-saw puzzle together.

[Dover]

This is my take on what's happening in the Middle East.

Obviously there are alot of players (beyond the Middle Eastern countries) and it's a complex situation, so my thoughts are admittedly overly simplified and incomplete, but here goes...

Iran's economic and geostrategic power is growing, and their global partnerships are expanding.
Many of these new partners are nationalizing their resources, rather than opening them up to 'free markets' and sharing ownership with what is mainly Western corporate interests.
Due to Iran's prime location they have pipeline opportunities and access to a resource (Oil/gas) that is much in demand. They also have a new bourse that is due to open this September (after many delays). "Aside from strategic interests...(Iran) is a Shi'ite state, whereas Sunnism is the predominant school of Islam in the world. Moreover, the Persians are a distinct minority in the predominantly Arab Middle East. Through its activism on this issue, Iran is portraying itself as a committed leader -- more Palestinian than the Arabs, and more Muslim than the Sunnis *2.(see article link below).

Syria has linked arms with Iran....they are close siblings in the M.E. family of countries.
In recent months, Syria and Iran have signed sweeping economic, trade and defense agreements, consolidating one of the most enduring relationships in the Middle East. But some western observers worry that this cooperation between two nations widely seen as pariahs may lead to a transfer of Iranian nuclear technology.
http://www.voanews.com/english/NewsAnalysis/Iran-Syria2006-07-11-voa5.cfm

The U.S. clearly is threatened by all this. In fact the current U.S. administration abandoned long term efforts to promote change from within Iran through the cultivation of pro-Western and pro-democracy reformers inside that country. They've also shown little inclination for any real diplomacy on the nuclear issue. They have, instead, painted a target on Iran's back by including them in the "Axis of Evil" and have accused them of supporting "terrorists". The U.S. considers Iran not only a threat to our economic dominance but a "destabilizing force in the Middle East" (that's a quote from Kissinger/see his interview with Charlie Rose). And apparently simply creating a regime change will not satisfy these concerns or restore this administration's own sense of security or economic health. I think that was made clear to Iran by the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Israel has a symbiotic relationship with the U.S. and some European nations and is vulnerable due to it's location, sharing borders with what they see as hostile countries. Of course they have their own unique set of issues with Iran/Syria/Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries that has a long history I won't go into here. But suffice it to say that they would benefit from the U.S.'s plans to 'dismantle' Iran/Syria/Lebanon, and are preparing the way for that now in Lebanon. In fact they have been providing intelligence and other support while also having a hand in the shaping of U.S. foreign policy & strategy.

Iran, fully understanding the threat to their sovereignty and growing economic strength have sought nuclear capability for their security. I personally don't buy their stance that they intend to use their nuclear facilities for energy use only. But I can hardly argue with their desire for security, given the threat. They have also managed to create a greater buffer zone by supporting a front of resistance in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine that is further from their borders. To this end, it's no secret they support/fund Hamas and Hezbollah and probably have supplied them with the weapons to defend themselves. Pushing one's 'frontline' as far from one's borders as possible is something the U.S. does tacticly as well, so there is nothing unusual in this. And the U.S. has also made use of rogue resistance groups to serve their ends (such as with the Taliban). That could also be construed as linking up with "terrorists", but it's really about using whatever resources one can gather to protect and defend whatever one's interests are. Pick a side.
Anyway, this article might help clarify the rationale behind some of Iran's partnerships.

*2 http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/04/a6170638-c079-4af1-b441-75dbba236340.html

Iran is also partnering up with countries that have historically and do currently express a distaste for Western global hegemony and power, free markets, IMF tactics, etc. Partners like Russia and China I'm sure give the U.S. pause as well, both as competition for resources and contracts globally, but also due to historical ideological/economic/governance differences.


At any rate, I think Israel/U.S./other allies have entered Lebanon via a weak public excuse (the kidnapping of soldiers), in order to ready their eventual entrance into Syria and Iran. They have taken out Lebanon's infrastructure and main roads and bridges to Syria (their supply line), they dominate the skies overhead, and may have put enough of a dent in Hezbollah strongholds to greatly reduce them as a frontline resistance to their larger plans.

I don't know where other Middle Eastern nations stand regarding these maneuvers, though they seemed more than willing to shut out Syria/Iran from recent discussions at the summit in Rome. At the same time they are getting a lot of pressure from their people who are outraged at Israeli and U.S. invasions, so are...at least publically...voicing this outrage.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/11169/

There are many other details I've left out, but that seems to be the gist of it to me.
Anything to add?

Another link re: oil/Lebanon
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20060726&articleId=2824


Seems to me we could have avoided all this by expanding into other energy sources and renewables, eh?

[autorank]

1. K&R...will get back later. Nice writing!

[nam78_two]

2. interesting..thanks/nt

[tocqueville]

3. what the US is risking is to destabilize the entire ME

and Iraq will be the first to go. The Arab street is VERY angry and "pro western" regimes like Egypt and Jordan are sitting on a powder keg. Military coups are very possible and the new regimes will attack Israel immediately. It's symptomatic that Arab demonstrators carry pictures of Nasrallah and Nasser together. Even Gulf States like Bahrain, Kuwait with shiite majorities can be overturned. And the oil region of Saudi Arabia is into shiite land...

The bombing of the Christian communities today is an horrible war crime. These guys have nothing to do with the Hezbollah and are not hiding guerillas. They in some places accept refugees, but that's Lebanon's traditional solidarity. Israel's purpose is to put the blame for the bombings on the Hezbollah "as responsible" and start a new civil war, like in 82, when Christian Phalangists sided with Israel. But this time it looks as if it is not working. What we see now is a growing alliance in the ME between the different groups (shiites, sunnis, maronites, druzes and others - maybe even Kurds at a later stage) AGAINST the tandem US/Israel...

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Also: timed to shake things up before nov 06.

If we have learned anything about the ** cabal, they always have the next election in mind.

I think it is quite simple and that you have it laid out pretty well. They are continuing with the PNAC plan to wipe the slate clean in the ME. While we think the Iraqi Blunder is a catastrophe they view it as a success and the chaos and carnage as the price of doing business. Been to a gas pump lately?

[scarletwoman]

5. Well done! Thank you for posting this!

The PNACers want NO competition to total, global U.S. hegemony.

I also don't believe Iran's protestations that they *only* want nuclear facilities for energy use, if I were Iran, I would CERTAINLY want to be nuclear armed -- it may its only way to survive as a sovereign state.

I'll go further; I wish Iran DID have nukes, right now. It would totally upend the Western powers' chessboard. MAD ("mutually assured destruction") worked reasonably well for decades, it seems to me that a nuclear-armed Iran might have a salutary sobering effect on the mad imperialists and their bloody world domination games.

sw

[Marie26]

6. Pretty plausible

It seems like the Israel/Hiz. thing could just be a first front for an eventual wider war. And if Isarel knows of Bushco.'s plan for Iran/Syria, it makes sense for Israel to try to take out Hamas & Hizbollah first to stop any proxy attacks on Israel. But I always come back to this point - where will we get the troops for this? The US has no troops left. So I don't see where Busshco. will get the troops to invade Syria & Iran. And Israel doesn't have a lot of troops either & seems to rely on their high-tech weapons to make up the difference. We have no allies left. Where are the soldiers going to come from to sustain this massive invasion?

[Dover]

8. It concerns me too.......because I fear they will use an 'unconventional'

solution due to this deficit of troops. They have recently put more troops into Iraq, but I doubt that they are planning on an extensive ground war.

[Marie26]

9. What would that be? nt

[Dover]

10. I'm not sure, but possibly the "new mini-nukes" which I'm guessing

were developed for just such a task.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=nation/columns/dotmil&contentId=A48726-2001Apr22

But there are other new "designer weapons" custom made for particular tasks, like the ones that leave buildings standing while killing people, etc.
I'm sure we haven't seen or heard of half of the weaponry in the Pentagon's toy chest.

Whatever they choose would likely be devastating in order to get a quick result. But I just don't know what Russia/China and other Iranian partners would do in response or as a preventative.

[breakaleg]

7. thanks for posting.

[Dover]

11. That second to last link didn't connect to the actual article

so I'll try again.

Here's the beginning of the article. And if my second attempt at a link doesn't work you can copy and paste the title or the first sentence of the article into google and it should take you directly to it.

Keep Syria and Iran Out of Negotiations Over Lebanon
Interviewee: Martin S. Indyk
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor


July 27, 2006

Martin S. Indyk, an assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs in the Clinton administration, and twice ambassador to Israel, says it would be wrong to invite Iran and Syria, the major backers of Hezbollah, into negotiations to end the current fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.

"The idea that Syria or Iran should become the arbiters of Lebanon's fate is basically to reward the arsonists by giving them control of the place where the fire's burning," says Indyk, who directs the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Indyk says the Rome conference, which ended without an agreement on a ceasefire, nevertheless did achieve "a basic consensus on what elements would be necessary for a ceasefire package to be acceptable for the governments of Israel and Lebanon."

Clearly the meeting in Rome on Wednesday did not achieve a ceasefire even though nobody really expected an immediate halt to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Where do you think the various actors have to go from here?

I think what Rome did achieve is a basic consensus on what elements would be necessary for a ceasefire package to be acceptable for the governments of Israel and Lebanon. And those elements, as expressed in the Rome communiqué, were: extension of the Lebanese government's authority throughout Lebanon, which means the dispatch of the Lebanese army to the south backed by an effective international force; and a process for the implementation of UN Resolution 1559, which calls for the disbanding and disarming of all militias in Lebanon. As Kofi Annan put it in the press conference: there can only be one gun and it should be in the hands of the government. I think those are the critical elements for a ceasefire, and the challenge now is to create the circumstances in which it then becomes implemented on the ground.

I think a lot of people have speculated that because of Hezbollah's close ties to both Syria and Iran, it is important to get those two countries involved as active players. Is the United States making a mistake in ignoring them directly?

There's no question Iran and Syria helped to light the fire that is now engulfing Lebanon and northern Israel, and if they want to be part of the solution, they could certainly help to douse the flames. But the question is: What is their price? If we were to ask Syria to help, that would be tantamount to an invitation to Syria to interfere again in Lebanon's affairs. And that would be tantamount to a betrayal of the millions of Lebanese who came out into the streets of Beirut and insisted that Syria stop interfering in Lebanon's affairs, that it takes its troops out of Lebanon. So talking is not the issue. The question is: What is the message to Syria? Is it is a message like Henry Kissinger sent Hafez al-Assad in 1976, which was "Please intervene in Lebanon, it's a civil war"? If we invite his son to intervene to stop Hezbollah, then we are essentially handing Lebanon over again to Syrian control. I think that's an unacceptable outcome. So the message, I think, to Syria and to Iran, which can be delivered by Kofi Annan, or Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, or anybody else who wants to take the message is: "Beware. If you don't stop Hezbollah, then don't be surprised if this conflict engulfs you."

Are you suggesting the United States might get involved militarily, or is this a threat from Israel?

Cont'd >>> http://www.cfr.org/publication/11169/

___________


And here's another interesting article about the history and significance of the Syria/Iran alliance:

Breaking the Alliance

29/07/2006
By Manal Lotfi

Asharq Al Awsat, London - After meeting the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this week, the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice announced, “It is time for a new Middle East,” but did not elaborate further.

Earlier this month, US officials spoke about breaking the “alliance of convenience” between a theocratic regime in Tehran and a secular Baathist regime in Damascus, on the basis of there being no commonalities between the two, except their international “isolation”. They believe that by merely promising to end one party’s isolation and re-integrating it into the international community, this will lure the party to change its alliances. The United States has already spoken about “the weaker partner”, Syria, and attempts to convince it, through Arab intermediaries, to stop its support for Hezbollah, in order to neutralize Damascus and exert pressure on Iran, ultimately, to draw the features of a new Middle East. Without publicly speaking of “incentives”, the current US administration believes it can tempt Syria away from Tehran.

What are the roots of the Syrian-Iranian alliance? Can it survive current developments in the region?

Bilateral relations between Damascus and Tehran go back to before the Iranian revolution, in 1979, when then-president Hafez Asad supported Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers, in the hope of defeating the Shah’s regime, which threatened Syria because of its excellent relations with the United States, and weakening the Baath in Iraq. Crucially, the ruling Alawis in Damascus were naturally drawn to Iran’s Shiaa, given the religious affinity of the two groups.

After the success of the revolution in February 1979, Asad was amongst the first leaders to welcome the revolution and congratulate Khomeini. In August of the same year, the Syrian foreign minister at the time, Abdel Halim Khaddam, visited Tehran and said the Iranian Revolution was the most important event in contemporary history and said his government had supported it from the very beginning.

Under Khomeini and his successor Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, relations between the two countries remained strong, especially after Saddam Hussein seized power in July 1979. It was therefore entirely expected that Syria would standby Iran in its war against Saddam, in opposition of the rest of the Arab world which supported Iraq. The war, which lasted from 1980 until 1988, ended with a practical Iranian victory. During these years, as Iran fought its western neighbor and Syria came under pressure from Israel, the two countries agreed to support the Shiaa community in Lebanon, to lessen the pressure on both countries. Soon after, Hezbollah was born, through 1000 members of the Iranian revolutionary guards and significant financial and military assistance and training. In 1982, Iran sent members of the revolutionary guards to train Hezbollah cadres. In recent years, however, Iran has started training Hezbollah members on its own soil, because it believes there is no need for its troops to be on Lebanese soil, according to a senior official who spoke to Asharq Al Awsat, adding that the training was intense and of a high-level. As part of the special relations between the two countries, Damascus imports oil from Tehran at a reduced price and receives assistance in agricultural and industrial projects. The commercial exchange between the two countries reaches 70 million dollars a year, the biggest part of which is Iranian exports to Syria, worth some 60 million dollars annually. Both countries signed a defense agreement in 2004, after the US invasion of Iraq, because of their fear of US policies and intentions in the region.


Cont'd >> http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=5804

[scarletwoman]

12. This needs a kick. (nt)