The two suicide
bombings against the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, on November 19,
2013, have changed the dynamics of the
Syrian civil war. And they were followed
the next day by massive car bombs in Bagdad, Iraq, which has become “the car-bombs capital of
the the world!” And all those car bombs
are the work of Sunni rebels in Syria
and Sunni groups in Bagdad directed
-indirectly- against Iran, and its
Iran-supported Shiite regimes in Damascus and Bagdad. It is a new clandestine type of warfare
invented by Sunnis in Iraq against the U.S. occupying forces after the U.S.
overthrow of Saddam Husssein. The U.S.
was smart enough to hire the disaffected Iraqi Sunnis, the so-called “Sons of
Iraq,” and used them to consolidate the
Iraqi occupation. With the Sunni bombers
on its payroll, the U.S. and British
forces had only Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr’s militia to deal with.
Moqtada succeeded, with a large political
party in the Iraqi parliament, to force
the U.S. out of Iraq. “The “Sons of
Iraq” found themselves out of the U.S. payroll,
out of work, and out of
unemployment benefits that the Shiite Iraqi prime minister Maliki deferred or denied. They started to bomb the Shiite government of
Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki and Shiite mosques and public
gatherings. When the Syrian Arab Spring
started, they moved in against the
(Allowite) Shiite president Bashar Assad.
The aforesaid car bombs against Iran’s Embassy in Beirut were,
therefore, an extention of Iraqi
car-bombing activities on the ongoing
Sunni V. Shiite warfare.
The war in Syria
is not an Arab Spring anymore. It is a
Sunni V. Shiite war, with Russia and Iran trying to save Assad, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States supporting
Sunni rebel unconditionally, and the
U.S. and Europe support CIA vetted
rebels willing to serve Western interests - if they succeed Assad - a near zero
chance. What is the likely outcome of
the Syrian civil war? A Sunni controlled
regime, probably as brutal as Saudi
Arabia’s and Bahrain’s, that the West
will accept as a better choice that any regime controlled by Russia and Iran -
like Assad’s! And it will be grudgingly
democratic, as the majority of Syrians
are Sunnis, and as Saudi Arabia will throw in $ billions in reconstruction and
in political campaigns to elect pro-Saudi Sunni politicians. Yes, it happened in Lebanon too when the late
Saudi-made billionaire Rafik Hariri used plenty of $$$ to win the elections. Plenty of $$$ and media control has become the brainwashing factor that win
elections in the 21st century.
Iran announced
after the bombing of its embassy in Beirut that it will continue
to “fully
support” of Assad! Obviously Iran thinks
that one should fully support his friends -even if they are bloody and unelected
despots. After all, that is what Saudi
Arabia did when it invaded Bahrain to quell the Bahrainian Arab Spring and save its ally King Khalifa.
(The Khalifa family is Sunni, but the majority of Bahrainis are Shiites). Now Iran does in Syria what Saudi Arabia did
in Bahrain. That has turned Syria into a
slaughterhouse, and has stained Iran’s
moral international standing. It is
dejavu to Fidel Castro sending forces to
Angola to help post-colonial Angola’s government fight the CIA organized rebel
forces of Jonas Savimbi. But that was
Cold War era politics. Now we have
a “car bombs” era between Sunnis and
Shiites that flows out of geopolitical control politics morphed by foreign
interests which keep stirring the inner-Muslim rivalry for their purposes. Remember the “divide and conquer” slogan of
the colonial era? It is still on, but now the tactics are more insidious and
less apparent!
Obviously, Iran
shares Russia’s fallacy that the Assad dynasty is salvageable in Syria. It isn’t.
Russia and the U.S. are hated in the Muslim world, and neither Russia’s
puppet Assad will survive, nor the CIA rebels will gain power in Syria. Iran’s
best options, therefore, are to abandon Assad and form a common front with
Sunni Turkey for a democratically elected government in Syria. Given the fact that Turkey is an anti-Israel
powerhouse in Middle East, a Turkey-Iran
alliance would further serve both countries to cement their influence in the
region. And, working together, they can probably exercise a considerable influence in
a post-Assad regime in Damascus. After
all, the alliance of 13 Syrian rebel
groups has called the U.S. supported rebels “filth” and has vowed to
exterminate them! By rejecting them,
Iran pushes them into the hands of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia! Iran needs urgently a quick introspection of
pragmatism in Syria - before it becomes too late!
Iran is
negotiating in Geneva with the 5+1 group on Western sanctions. But the lifting of any sanctions would me
minimal, and the “red lines” set yesterday
by Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei leave no doubt that Iran’s
capitulation to unacceptable Western demands is not on the table. Iran would only get “crumbs” at Geneva talks, as Israel and the West think
Iran is on its knees and keeping the important sanctions on would diminish its
status and standing as a Middle East power
and keep it in the poor-house indefinitely. That is the long term U.S. policy on Iran, and the history of a similar 54-years U.S.
policy on Cuba attests to it!
Here is a primer
for Iran: Dump Assad, and join Turkey in support of a new Sunni
regime in Damascus. At the same time,
push the Shiites in Iraq to dump Maliki
and replace him with another Shiite politician that would reconcile with Iraqi
Sunnis and share Iraq’s oil wealth
equally. Then work feverishly to create
a mew Muslim alliance that would include Iran, Iraq, Turkey and the new
Syria. Then this 4-states Muslim
alliance, which can add Afghanistan and
Pakistan later, would have more clout to
deal with the U.S., Russia, and
Israel. Forming an alliance with Sunnis
may be easier said than done, but hoping
on U.S. leniency in an Israeli- controlled U.S. congress is a fallacy. Iran needs to exploit the high anti-U.S.
sentiment in the Muslim world by pursuing a Muslim states federation to deal
with the U.S. for the long term.
Enduring sanctions; supporting dead-beat despotic allies, and kneeling and begging at conference tables
won’t break Iran’s isolation! Iran needs
a totally new and smart foreign
policy, starting with the ditching of
its present policy in Syria! Nikos
Retsos, retired professor
