“Syrian rebels, frustrated by the West’s reluctance to provide arms, have found a supplier in an unlikely source: Sudan, a country that has been under international arms embargoes and maintains close ties with a stalwart backer of the Syrian government, Iran,” nytimes.com reports. “In deals that have not been publicly acknowledged, Western officials and Syrian rebels say, Sudan’s government sold Sudanese- and Chinese-made arms to Qatar, which arranged delivery through Turkey to the rebels. The shipments included antiaircraft missiles and newly manufactured small-arms cartridges, which were seen on the battlefield in Syria — all of which have helped the rebels combat the Syrian government’s better-armed forces and loyalist militias.” Quite how all these machine gun machinations—not to mention Operation Fast and Furious—square with the accountability and transparency goals of the United Nations Small Arms Trade Treaty is anyone’s guess. My guess? They don’t. And if you don’t think the Middle East is a Gordian knot of armed antagonists, make the jump for a slice of STRATFOR’s analysis . . .
Both Iran and Syria would like to build up an additional source of militant leverage against Israel. The Iranian regime grew concerned with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region that led Hamas to distance itself from the Iran-Syria axis. When the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt, and when Syrian Islamists were making gains in their rebellion against the al Assad regime, Hamas calculated that in this sectarian environment it was better to align with its ideological allies than to risk alienating itself by maintaining a close relationship with the Syrian and Iranian regimes. As sectarian tensions grew over the Syrian battle of Qusair in the spring, reports began emerging that some Hamas fighters had joined Sunni rebels in Syria against the regime. At that point, Iran had to worry about its leverage weakening among Palestinian proxies in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon, all while Iran’s main ally Hezbollah was heavily preoccupied with trying to hold its ground in Lebanon while fighting Sunni rebels in Syria.
But Iran also sought ways to maintain its leverage among the Palestinians. Even as Hamas tried to publicly distance itself from Tehran, it was Iran’s supply of long-range Fajr-5 rockets to Hamas that nearly led to an Israeli invasion of Gaza at the end of 2012 and exposed a still robust relationship between the ideologically opposed allies. With Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood politically sidelined, the Egyptian military bearing down on Hamas in the Sinai Peninsula and cutting off the group’s supply lines and Syria’s Sunni rebels in a stalemate with the regime, Hamas is likely to find even more reason to remain close to Tehran. Iran, meanwhile, is trying to compensate for the sectarian challenges confronting its allies in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq by widening its militant proxy network wherever it can. Part of this strategy involves building up a presence in the West Bank to threaten Israel. This strategy also falls in line with Hamas’ interest in undermining Fatah, especially as the Fatah-led Palestinian National Authority engages in more peace negotiations with Israel that fail to acknowledge Hamas’ authority in the Gaza Strip.
Good luck Mr. John “Peace is not made by pantomime” Kerry. And thank for giving extremists full-auto firearms and God knows what else while seeking to deny “assault weapons” to law-abiding Americans. [h/t CJ Chivers]
Blame a nation blame China they give Iran all the small arms they want and Iran gives them to Syria Blame Obama for backing terrorist because they are also Muslims like Obama is.
I doubt obama is a muslim. Doesn’t matter if he is. I don’t doubt that helping “rebels” is just a replay of history. Much like many other involvements, the U.S. government officials think they can buy friends. They don’t care if the people are just as bad or worse, human rights wise than those the “rebels” are fighting, just whether or not they will play ball with U.S. officials interest.
Give the man a prize! Geopolitics is always about making friends and influencing people who will do your bidding when asked.
Obama is not a Muslim by faith but I think he fancies himself at least part Muslim by culture. However, the real reason that he aligns himself with Islam against the West his quasi-Marxist ideological education. Shortly after 9-11 the neo-Marxists developed the theory that AQ and other proponents of Islamic supremacy represented the new vanguard of the global proletariat. They believed that world was now divided into exploiting capitalist nations (the G-20) and the oppressed underdeveloped nations. Obama sees AQ, the Muslim Brotherhood Iran as only superficially driven by Islamic religious ideology. The underlying cause that they are fighting is socialism, countering global warming etc. Obama is a prisoner of his own ideology and cannot see any motives for behavior outside of his own paradigm.
Iran and Syria are the good guys in this fight.
Obama is an atheist, just like every other president since 1981.
Oh come, on do tell us more about this.
We give American tax money to everyone ,than sell to everyone all the Arms they want ,Tanks, jet fighters, bombs, rockets etc, you name it ,,, Why for the NEW WORLD ORDER! and the American people be DAMMED, WAKE UP AMERIKA!
Obama is different; he stopped selling arms to Israel and started Giving them to the MB to include F-16s and Abrams Tanks
Funny, Israel is still getting billions in US tax money every year. It does need to be cut, just like every other dime of tax money going overseas.
What? No mention of the Denver Airport? The Illuminati?
A 2/10 at most for poor references to well known counter-cultural conspiracy references. I would throw in another point if you at least called us “sheeple”
You keep forgetting….the United Nations Small Arms Trade Treaty is
only for the “little people”…namely YOU. We will ignore the fact that
a treaty that violates the Constitution is null and void for the
moment…not that POTUS or Congress gave a flying fig about
that either.
These camelfvckers and their political machinations remind me of the shifting loyalties of competing cliques of high school girls. Except that the girls are probably more dangerous even if they’re not as well armed.
Death by a thousand cutting remarks?
Nice Egyptian hipster… that launcher is sooooo not mainstream.
Photo swapped.
But he’s resting his barrel on the bricks! That’s detrimental to accuracy!!!11
/sarc
Either he’s a few bursts away from running on empty, or his A-gunner was judged un-photogenic by the war photog.
Camouflage; you’re doing it wrong.
They don’t seem at all interested in closing that murdering-terrorist-fanatic-nongunshow-loophole, do they?
The old Do As I Say And Not As I Do rule.
“frustrated by the West’s reluctance to provide arms”
Say WHAT? Four thousand SAMs is “reluctant”?
The current imbroglio (as Robert would say) does not directly involve the US providing arms to anybody other than Israel and Jordan. And quite frankly, that is a good thing. As the Stratfor analysis demonstrates, what we are seeing–finally and unsurprisingly–is the breakdown of the lines in the sand drawn by England and France when they carved up the Ottoman empire following WWI, lines that were for convenience and that ignored ancient tribal boundaries and alliances. And perhaps too we will witness the ultimate show-down between the Shia and the Sunni (at least in the Middle East), a battle that has been brewing for hundreds of years. We have no business in this fight; it is a religious war, not a political one, and political solutions will not work. It is time for the map to be redrawn, and we should let the participants perform that redrawing without outside interference.
Mark
You do realize that the majority of the ME used to be Christian, especially the Levant don’t you? Nice to know you have no qualms with genocide, you’ll be at ease when those you love suffer
What history book are you reading? Christianity may have found its begiinings in the Middle East, but it was never the dominate religion.
We need to cut off Israel and Jordan as well. Not one dime of US tax money overseas for any reason.
The US and UK share responsibility for the creation of Israel. To abandon them now would be like having a child and throwing it to the wolves. We can close every single military base outside the US and withdraw all other foreign aid for all I care. We would be better for it. We, as a people, have made many mistakes in our young history; slavery and the Indian genocide to name two of the worst. Abandoning Israel, a State and a situation we created, would be commensurate with the aforementioned travesties. We have enough blood on our hands already. Israel must not be left to stand alone.
Chris, what you propose would simply set us back on the world stage and recklessly endanger our interests and even our security. No foreign policy is a bad foreign policy.
MarkN for the win. If you want an example of what our direct military involvement in the ME will accomplish take a look at the Belgians experience in the Congo. When you blunder into religious and tribal warfare without picking a side you’re merely setting the stage for prolonged bloodletting by enabling both sides to keep fighting. Sometimes the opposing parties just have to fight it out until one of them wins.
I realize that actually ‘winning’ wars has become unpopular since WWII but endless intervention without definitive resolution is a terrible strategy unless constant turmoil is the goal (and there are times that the latter is a legitimate goal). For my part I don’t condone spending US blood and treasure on limited war. Either fight to win in the long term or allow the belligerents to work it out amongst themselves.
Lacking a strategic or economic interest in the outcome of a war our position should be neutral. Preventing genocide within a sovereign state not the US or an ally isn’t something our federal government is tasked with doing.
“The current imbroglio (as Robert would say) does not directly involve the US providing arms to anybody other than Israel and Jordan.”
—–
Bullshit. I’m not saying that bullshit was your intent, just the result.
I’ll have to scrape the pieces of my head off the walls and ceiling before reading that “analysis” again.
Artillery may be the king of the battlefield, but, you fight and die with your small arms.
Yet another reason why the US should not adopt the Small Arms Treaty: much of the Middle East clearly doesn’t give a sh!t.
Mark N wrote:
“And quite frankly, that is a good thing. As the Stratfor analysis demonstrates, what we are seeing–finally and unsurprisingly–is the breakdown of the lines in the sand drawn by England and France when they carved up the Ottoman empire following WWI, lines that were for convenience and that ignored ancient tribal boundaries and alliances.”
I think this is just more anti-western propaganda.
The implication being that if the West had only been “sensitive” to
to local sensibilities then all would have been well in this neighborhood.
Not hardly.
I suggest you watch this short animation before you chisel this idea in stone:
“Who has controlled the Middle East over the course of history? Pretty much everyone. Egyptians, Turks, Jews, Romans, Arabs, Persians, Europeans…the list goes on. Who will control the Middle East today? That is a much bigger question. “
http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html
Reason #6230 to despise the central government….