by Abu Dharr (Opinion, Crescent International Vol. 41, No. 6, Ramadan, 1433)
The war is on but this one may very well be the opening shots of Armageddon. The war parties are as diverse as they come.
The first axis of nation-states is centered around Zionist Israel and the second around Islamic Iran. The geography that is bringing both sides to military blows by proxies is Syria.
On one side there are the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. On the other side also there are the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. One alliance has members with veto powers in the UN Security Council, and the opposites also have veto power in the Security Council. One bloc of countries has seen political and military reversals in the past 30 odd years, and its rival bloc has seen military fluctuations in the same time period. The first axis of nation-states is centered around Zionist Israel and the second around Islamic Iran. The geography that is bringing both sides to military blows by proxies is Syria. Israeli induced American international policies have aligned most European nation-states along with nation-states in Asia, Africa, and the southern hemisphere that are dependent on the northern hemisphere states to bring down the Syrian regime. Much of this Zionist inspired American militarism hinges upon the Saudi religious establishment that is fueling the fire of sectarianism in Syria and beyond. Bandar bin Sultan who broke the record as the longest Saudi ambassador to Washington, and who went on American national TV bragging that he is a conduit of information for the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has been appointed by King ‘Abdullah as head of the Saudi Intelligence Services. During his tenure as ambassador to the US, Bandar was implicated in the attempted assassination of Sheikh Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah on March 8, 1985. This Bandar was also promoted when he left his position in Washington, DC to become head of the newly devised Saudi National Security Agency — just for him. In the interim years he has been moving behind the scenes setting the groundwork for what is happening in Syria today. He and his masters’ plans for a sectarian hellhole in Iraq failed — but with the millions of casualties there, he has earned for himself the lowest place in Hell to burn, on the Day of Judgment. Earlier reports disclose that he has been in close contact with his Zionist counterparts either to finance a defeat of Hizbullah or to invest his kingdom’s petrodollars in an all-out war against Islamic Iran. Now, Bandar and his handlers in the Israeli-American intelligence community are playing their loaded hands in the Syrian swamp.
The information war beamed into millions of households in the past 10–15 years serve as a prelude to the shooting and killing taking place currently in Syria. The British nurtured Al-Jazeera and the American sponsored al-‘Arabiya along with a raft of other Arabian satellite talk factories have set the stage for the battles that are being fought out in the complexities of a Syria in the crosshairs.
To narrow down the first camarilla of conspiring power cartels let us call them: Israel, America, and Saudi Arabia. Initially, they made a strategic blunder by getting rid of two of their own: secular Ba‘thist Iraq and obscurantist Taliban Afghanistan. How do they correct their strategic malfeasance? Confiscate the “Arab Spring.” How do you do that? Work with the docile “Islamists” and their malleable “Islamic” movements via the Arabian financial network to finally break away from Islamic Iran and its strategy of liberating Palestine — every inch of occupied Palestine.
Why is it that the ruling class in Syria could not make amends and open up the political channels for its own citizens to participate in decisions that affect them directly? This inability or inflexibility of the Syrian ruling class is what opened the opportunity for the troublemakers in the Washington-Tel Aviv-Riyadh axis to work their magic..
The Syrian regime with long-in-the-tooth advisers — henchmen from the heyday of the secular 1960s — was not up to par with the intrigues of the Israeli-American-Saudi triad. They played along with Americans at one time, divulging to them information about their Islamic extremists and participating in that torture scheme called rendition. At other times they played along with the Saudi royals brokering an arrangement in Lebanon that stipulated the withdrawal of all Syrian forces from the country. And they played around with the Israelis in negotiations over the return or demilitarization of the Golan Heights. The Syrian Ba‘thi leadership demonstrated its brinkmanship in this extended diplomacy until it realized that the bottom line as far as the American-Israeli-Saudi nexus was concerned was to sever its strategic ties with Islamic Iran — ties that spell out the uncompromised liberation of Palestine. When it could not force Syrian compliance in this area, the full fury and wrath of that triad turned against a Syria that previously accepted their carrots and now has to deal with their sticks.
In our reading of these meandering details, the Syrian regime’s sound strategy with Islamic Iran is neutralized by its pathological policies toward its own people. And herein lies the tragedy of Syria. There is nothing in any political bible that says you cannot have good relations with the only Islamic State in the world and concomitantly have good relations with your own people. Why is it that the ruling class in Syria could not make amends and open up the political channels for its own citizens to participate in decisions that affect them directly? This inability or inflexibility of the Syrian ruling class is what opened the opportunity for the troublemakers in the Washington-Tel Aviv-Riyadh axis to work their magic. Now there is a competition of sorts — bloody as it is and more so as it will become — between the Islamic sphere of influence centered around Islamic Iran and extending from Central Asia all the way to the Mediterranean, east to west, and an Anglo-Arabian-Zionist sphere of influence running north-south from Arabia to Turkey but centered around Israel.
The Syrian officials may justify their war crimes by saying they are sacrificing tactics for the sake of strategy. They may also invoke the Algerian argument, saying that Algeria went to war with its Islamic parties and movements, so what’s the big fuss now? The analogy is incorrect. The government in Algeria had the same triad (America, Israel, and Saudi Arabia) on its side. The government in Damascus does not. The Islamic movement in Algeria (FIS) did not receive any support from Washington, Doha, Riyadh, or Tel Aviv; the Free Syrian Army receives money, weapons, logistics, etc. from these sources. In Algeria the outcome of the civil war was nearly 200,000 casualties. There are Syrian chumps and half-wits in the opposition who have expressed to the Israelis their willingness to normalize relations with the Zionist State. In one press report a Syrian opposition figure living in the US made an appearance in the Israeli Knesset and assured his Zionist hosts of good neighborly relations. The Syrian regime has guaranteed the Zionists a calm border for the last generation or two. One can sense how these Zionists are extorting the Syrian officials and the Syrian opposition simultaneously. Now there is high-decibel media chatter about Syrian chemical weapons. This divulges the American-Israeli political intention of military operations to snatch those weapons out of Syria’s or Hizbullah’s or others’ use in case of a conflagration.
The more intense the clashes inside Syria become, the more the United States on behalf of its political mentor Israel will pump itself up with military testosterone. President Asad’s inner circle losing four of its high ranking officials (the hidden bomb that exploded in the National Security Building in Damascus) corresponds to two more US Naval Carriers arriving in the Persian Gulf along with tens of mini-submarines in and around the Strait of Hormuz. When you add to that the F-22 stealth fighter bombers being stationed in al-Dhafirah Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, the Arabian-American kings buying nuclear capable missiles from China, the Jordanians and the Emiratis denaturalizing some Lebanese and Palestinians, and the expulsion of other Lebanese and Palestinians, then you get the larger picture of a looming inferno just about to be ignited by the combination of Zionist Jews, Zionist Christians, and Zionist “Muslims” who cannot stand to see the final and eventful liberation of Palestine.
“Truly, the munafiqs try to delude Allah the while He leads them on” (4:142).