Today there are two potential poles in the Muslim world which aspire to ideological leadership. Their stance and international clout to great extent define the Syria’s fate, as well as the answer to the question why a direct US-led intervention into this country, if it happens, will bury the Western civilization…
The first pole is represented by two countries which are fully dependent on the United States of America. Their state ideology contains elements of «political Islam» or Islamism – an ideological creation given birth to by Anglo-Saxon special services. One of the mentioned states is Turkey, which has significant political and military potential but lacks economic leverage.
The other state is Saudi Arabia, which has important financial leverage, but lacks military strength. With the help of these states Washington first eliminated the threat to its global interests on the part of Soviet Union-oriented «Arab socialism» and then, after the USSR’s dismemberment, started to eliminate secular regimes in Muslim countries (Iraq, Libya, and Egypt) with even slight socialist orientation in their politics. (Afghanistan, a country with socialist orientation in the past, was standing apart and became the first and unique testing ground for creating Islamist-jihadist segment of world order).
The second pole includes Syria and Iran, the country which possesses military, political, financial and economic potential. Iran is the leading Middle East missile producer (the sixth place in the world) and regional number one from point of view of missile potential. The Shiite Persian state is the only Muslim non-Arab and not Sunni dominated country – it is actually becoming the leader in the world of Islam.
It all makes it unique to give it an advantage unlike what it had been like before. Not so long ago (in the 1980s) even Iraq under Saddam Hussein got Iran embroiled in a drawn out conflict (with the United States support) while Saudi Wahhabis haughtily made scornful faces upon hearing about Shiite Ayatollahs in the 1990s.
Thanks to Iraq being captured by Americans, Iranian Shiites became an influential power in the region from Tigris to Euphrates (the Shiites make up 66 percent of Iraq’s population). The Washington-inspired Arab Spring weakened the traditional influence of Sunnis in the Muslim world and opened new opportunities to boost the Shiites clout.
Iran can effectively exert influence upon Jerusalem and Baghdad through some proxy organizations in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, the groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, for example. Iran has the capability to stop oil flows going through the Persian Gulf. It’s Tehran who controls the Hormuz Strait. At the same time Iran is an important actor in the Caspian region rich in resources… Transnational corporations have vested interests in the Iranian market making some Western states be directly affected by the Tehran’s policies.
But it’s not the main thing. What really matters is that Tehran provides oil flows to India and China. In the quarter of century since Tehran became the main regional adversary of the United States, it has appreciated the relationship with China and India and does its best to achieve further progress on the way of developing ties with these states.
To put it simply, a US intervention into Syria would be tantamount to declaring war not on Damascus and Tehran, but also all the countries of the East and the West which have vital interest in uninterrupted oil flows from the Persian Gulf. It includes 40 million Kurds; Syria has already created a Kurdish military force located at the distance of fifteen km from the Turkish border. The British Rotshields also have invested global interest in China and defend them with the help of Qataris acting against US-oriented Saudis…
This time the war that may start any minute now, can spill over the Syria borders. Perhaps it will happen much faster that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan warned addressing the nation in October 2012, especially if Americans intervene in Syria and make «rebels» come to power, the very same «rebels» who not once announced they support the «global jihad without boundaries»…
It’s a formidable force. According to Turkish press, over 70 thousand militants are involved in combat actions in Syria. They belong to about thirty groups, some based in Great Britain (London on purpose fosters radical anti-Saudi elements ready to cut off oil producing parts of Saudi Arabia and sacred places of Mecca and Medina).
Why the war did not spill over the Syrian boundaries some time ago after the Israeli attack? Because Syrian and Iranian leaders understand well it was the United States who was behind the Israeli action: it was a punishment for Tel-Aviv’s unprecedented meddling into US presidential race to support the candidate who lost to Obama. Israel simply had nothing to do but commit a provocation hoping for a response on the part of Syria and the following entanglement of America into a war with Iran. But there was no retaliation …
Then a group of Russia warships appeared in the Mediterranean …Russia has an axe to grind in the Middle East and it knows it well.
The West and states of Mediterranean and the Middle East face a choice: either a large-scale war and international economic chaos a US-led intervention in Syria would entail or long-awaited peace guaranteed by Russia returning to the region after it left it over twenty years ago.
Author: Nikolai Malishevski
Source: strategic-culture.org
