Posted on 05/04/2021 10:40:39 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Saudi officials met on Monday with the Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus in an effort to reinstate diplomatic ties, which were cut almost a decade ago, an independent Arabic newspaper reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
and...
Syria court selects two ‘rivals’ to face Assad in May vote
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/3/court-selects-two-rivals-to-face-syrias-assad-in-may-vote
Syrian court accepts 3 candidates to run for president
https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-syria-middle-east-e5bbd8e390626e73ff8e164054c25546
Biden needs to keep his nose out of Syria’s business.
Saudi needs to put an embassy in Jerusalem before it puts one in Damascas
Syria is a hellhole basket case with Iranian military and their terrorist murder gang proxies like Hezballah running almost all over the place
Saudi COULD use its $$$$ to buy out the Iranian invasion forces but somehow I doubt Saudi will ever do anything constructive in the area, they’re still stuck in the 8th Century with their jihadi Islamicst nut jobs
Assad wants to be something other than a puppet, and the Saudis are offering him a way out. If that were not the case, the meeting wouldn't have been between the intel/security chiefs of both nations. He wants the Russians out, because they won't push to get the Turks out. The Iranians want the Turks out, but Assad also wants the Iranians out, and out of Lebanon (but one thing at a time). Assad's only alive because the Israelis don't want him dead, and in the back of what passes for his mind, he must know that.
Let’s see. Saudi Arabia hates Iran. Iran hates Israel. Israel bombs Syria. Saudi Arabia will soon recognize Israel and Syria. What are we missing?
I guess if I were Assad I’d prefer to be a Saudi puppet to being an Iranian one
Jordan...
Anybody here know that Dementia Joe and company are cultivating Iran just like Jarrett/Obama did,
and abandoning and cutting off Saudi Arabia and the other Mid East countries Trump got to get closer to Israel?
This is a natuaral reaction by Saudi Arabia to the Dementia Joe administration’s abandonment and endangering of them.
A big event in the Sunni Arab branch of the Middle East and an equally big event between the House of Saud and Assad.
Their relations began to fray during the Iran-Iraq war as the Assad’s sided with Iran, and aided them, while the Saudis backed Iraq. They continued to fray over internal conflict conditions in Lebanon, as Iran and Assad backed Hezbollah against Sunni interests there.
Assad, from his point of view, is using Iran and Hezbollah as counterbalance against his Sunni majority - which has always been at the heart of civil war attempts against the Assad family, and often with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood playing a major role.
Iran, from its point of view is using Assad, for their own strategic religious interests and for their military interests against Israel.
In spite of all that, both the Saudis and the Mullahs of Tehran think of Assad as religiously an infidel - not an approved truly Shia Muslim and not and approved Sunni either.
The House of Saud along with the Gulf states and Erdogan were full backers in the destabilization of Syria, which drew Assad even closer to the Mullahs of Tehran.
Assad could hold out some carrots to the Saudis, like less improvement of Assad’s relations with the Mullahs of Tehran, if it wants anything from the Saudis besides the formal exchange of diplomats.
Theirs is always a relationship to watch.
None of the supposed religious differences mean a thing, the political class always does what it does to maintain power, regardless of the political system (or alleged political system, as in the US), thus, Iran supports jihad of all stripes, all the time, in many places, including Syria.
Iran's mullahs have occupied and dominated Lebanon for a long while now, during which time their proxies have forced an end to Syria's occupation of parts of Lebanon and deprived the Assad hereditary dictatorship of a nice source of income.
During the Gulf War, Saddam's pilots flew what remained of the Iraqi airforce into Iran, which had only a pretense of an airforce after ten years of mullahcracy. Most of those planes were never returned. Some of Slick Willie's buddies in Jihadislavia helped Iraq evade sanctions by maintaining what was left (or newly acquired) of its airforce.
The Iranian proxies in Lebanon were sent into battle in Syria, as were press-ganged Afghans who'd sought refuge in Iran (talk about having one's life turn to doodoo, Iran was their best option), because the body bag syndrome in Iran's misadventure in Syria was further undermining the already miserable conditions in Iran and creating political unrest, or rather exacerbating it.
When the Russians arrived in force, Iran didn't take long to pull out and redeploy much of its expeditionary force. Putin has no out plan, and probably doesn't care if he does or not. After enough time, a Russian withdrawal may not look like a tail-between-the-legs flight as the Afghan debacle did. But until then, the Russians are stuck there, trying to outwait the Iranians. The expedient relationship between the Russians and Turks (in Syria and in Libya, and eastern Africa) may be the most remarkable development all.
The Iranians undermine gov'ts throughout the Middle East and in Africa, and by doing this, they've earned the KSA's undivided attention.
Israel is enjoying a period of economic prosperity and relative peace and quiet because the none-too-neighborly neighbors are either at each other's throats, or are coping with internal terrorists, or are overtaxed by refugees (for example, Jordan hosts Syrian as well as so-called Palestinian refugees), and the local jihadists are more factional and splintered than ever, and thanks in part to the first Trump administration, Israel's been building diplomatic and trade relationships in the region. The most important one in the long run will be with Cyprus and Greece.
Syria is a pseudostate, and will remain one, as Lebanon and Afghanistan have been for the past 40 years, and as Pakistan continues to become. Turkey is holding together at present, but when Erdogan goes, whatever follows will be worse. Same goes for Syria and Assad.
Joe's not cultivating anything, he's filling his adult diapers and snapping at staff during tantrums.
Brainless Joe's attempt to marginalize the Crown Prince hasn't worked -- this meeting shows that he's still getting things done.
The money's gotta be better.
“None of the supposed religious differences mean a thing”
That is maybe true to us, in most of the west, but not true in many parts of the Middle East.
The Mullahs of Tehran are not a political party as much as they are a religious party and a theocratic dictatorship. What they advance is not any native Iranian “nationalism” which they have hijacked) but a religious messianic drive. What they do anywhere in the Middle East is in duty to advancing a religious agenda, that (a) advancing Shia Islam, and (b) seeking religious supremacy in the region.
The proxy wars in the region are religious based at their source, and a continuation of the initial Shia-Sunni split that ensued right after the death of Islam’s founder. None of what the Mullahs have been doing, from Lebanon & Syria to Iraq and Yemen was pursued by the Sha of Iran, a secular leader. No. Their - the Mullahs - agenda is as religious “revolutionaries”.
Islam is merely a political tool, always has been that. The simplistic Sunni-vs-Shia formula is western in origin.
“Islam is merely a political tool, always has been that. The simplistic Sunni-vs-Shia formula is western in origin.”
Your theory is simplistic and not even history based.
It's entirely history-based. Politics is always and only about power.
That a political figure may use religion does not negate religion as a basis of conflict between peoples and parties. Often all that such politician is doing is following what the religious push under them is seeking among the people. Often such a politician is FOLLOWING the religious basis of the conflict. That does not make the basis of the conflict “political”.
As for the Mullahs of Tehran they are all about their religious beliefs, and because of those beliefs they don’t care about the politics of whomever they work with, for the Mullahs own religious ends. For them their religious beliefs are their power, the basis of their power, and the power they seek to build in the rejoin. You can see politics all you want, they see religion.
Religion is sometimes just the clothes they put on -- exactly the point I've been making. The overthrow of the Shah was only possible through violence, using (not by coincidence) the same violent methods used by every despotism that rises to power.
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