The Massacre in Syria That Wasn’t

The Massacre in Syria That Wasn’t | The Interpreter.

Muddying the waters was the Assad regime tactic of choice from the very onset of the revolution, a trick Assad’s security apparatuses learned from their KGB and Stazi mentors. So, they lied from the beginning, they spoke about infiltrators and terrorists in order to justify their uber-violent crackdown that soon mushroomed into a full-fledged genocide. At first, only those segments of Syrian society already predisposed to fearing change, that is, the country’s confessional minorities and certain segments of the Sunni community that have long thrown their lot with the Assad regime, were willing to embrace the “salvific” lies.

Continue reading “The Massacre in Syria That Wasn’t” →

Power Vacuum in Middle East Lifts Militants

Power Vacuum in Middle East Lifts Militants – NYTimes.com.

“It’s not in America’s interests to have troops in the middle of every conflict in the Middle East, or to be permanently involved in open-ended wars in the Middle East,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser, said in an email on Saturday……

Comment: Tell Obama, not to worry too much, Ben, the holy warriors will soon bring their battle to your living-rooms, and not via TV. These things just have a nasty habit of festering, and you’re already knee-deep in this, no matter what you say or think. It’s all part of the open-endedness of our political geography these days.

US and Iran’s First Joint Military Venture: Fighting al Qaeda in Iraq

US and Iran’s First Joint Military Venture: Fighting al Qaeda in Iraq.

While Western coverage portrays the Maliki-led operations against the inhabitants of the Anbar Province as a battle against Al-Qaeda, and as the U.S. supplies Maliki with advanced weapons and intelligence information to carry out these operations, the story is far more complex and involves a legitimate grievance by Iraq’s Sunni minority regarding their representation in government and the lack of any serious effort to develop their areas. The Sunnis of Iraq are being punished en masse for the crimes of the Saddam regime. But the West, the U.S. in particular, seems oblivious to that, as a result it has created a void that Al-Qaeda was all too happy to fill, just as it was happy to fill the void in Syria generated by the U.S.’ unwillingness to invest in moderate rebel. In short, and in pure sectarian terms, the U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan brought misery to the Sunnis, and the U.S. lack of intervention in Syria achieved the same on an even larger scale. Sunnis are beginning to see a pattern, and Islamists are exploiting that. For all its pretension to noninvolvement, the policies of the Obama Administration put it squarely in the camp of Iran in an ongoing identity conflict that is quickly spanning the region. A backlash is bound to happen, and it’s bound to be violent and bloody.

Cameron, Clegg and Miliband: fate of Syrian children hangs in the balance

Cameron, Clegg and Miliband: fate of Syrian children hangs in the balance | The Guardian.

This is mere grandstanding. Without peacekeepers on the ground willing to confront both regime and Al-Qaeda militias when necessary, no such access can be provided in most areas where humanitarian assistance is needed. But no one has been willing to volunteer peacekeepers, as no peacekeeping mission is possible without agreement of all sides. In the final analysis, nothing short of decapitating the two-headed monster (Assad and Al-Qaeda) feeding on our children can actually work.