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Vol. 81/No. 45 December 4, 2017
(front page)
Israeli, Saudi conflict with Tehran grows as war in Syria winds down
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
In response to Tehran’s growing clout in the Mideast, Washington is
seeking to bolster its long-term alliance with the Saudi Arabian
monarchy and its allies as a counterweight. Similar concerns are driving
growing contacts between Riyadh and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu
in Israel.
Iran’s capitalist rulers made the most gains through years of fighting —
alongside Tehran-backed Hezbollah forces and more recently Russian
airstrikes — to shore up the once teetering Bashar al-Assad dictatorship
against efforts by the Syrian people to bring it down.
Gains by Iranian-trained militias with officers from the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard fighting alongside Iraqi troops strengthened
Tehran’s influence over the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi
in Iraq. They dealt a blow to the Kurds fight for independence, seizing
Kirkuk and 30 percent of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s territory,
some of which had been part of its autonomous region there since 2003.
Tehran is on the verge of consolidating a land route to move weapons and
combatants from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon, where Hezbollah
is based.
Riyadh’s concerns about developments in Lebanon led them to press their
ally, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, to resign, and he did so Nov. 4.
Other Lebanese officials and Hezbollah have charged Riyadh was holding
Hariri in Saudi Arabia and forced him to step down.
Hariri traveled to Paris Nov. 18 to meet with French President Emmanuel
Macron. Hariri announced he will return to Lebanon in a few days to
“make known my position on all
the issues.”
To counter Tehran’s growing influence in the Mideast, Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman has taken steps to open the kingdom to more modern
social development and consolidate the nation’s financial capital. The
regime arrested over 200 people, including royal family members, current
and former government ministers and oil-monopoly billionaires, for
“corruption.” The detainees are now being offered plea-bargain deals,
where they can pay their way to freedom by putting large amounts of
their wealth into government coffers.
The regime is also promoting foreign investment in the government-run
Saudi Aramco oil company and moving to wean the economy off
over-dependency on oil resources through construction of industrial
zones and resorts.
Shifts in the Middle East
The consolidation of the Assad regime and recapture of virtually all
territory from Islamic State in all but a few isolated areas in Syria,
raises new concerns in Tel Aviv and Washington about what Israel will
now face on its borders. “A lesser enemy is being supplanted by a far
more dangerous one — Iran and its allies,” writes the Wall Street Journal.
Tehran has stepped up verbal threats against Israel, including the
slander that Tel Aviv and Washington were responsible for the Kurds’
efforts to win independence.
In recent talks with Moscow and Washington, Tel Aviv has sought to win
agreement to establish a “buffer zone” of some 25 miles inside Syria
from its border. But a new “deconfliction” agreement between U.S. and
Russian forces would allow Hezbollah or other pro-Tehran forces to
remain just three miles away, reports the Jerusalem Post.
In response to these developments, the Israeli government admits it has
begun to share intelligence with the Saudi regime.
Moscow, with five military bases in Syria, plans to maintain its
presence there as an ally of Assad. Washington with some 13 military
bases across Syria has supported Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in
beating back Islamic State, while also seeking to counter Tehran’s
efforts to open a land route to Lebanon.
In the changed landscape in the Middle East, Washington, Moscow and all
the capitalist regimes in the area are maneuvering to protect their
economic and political interests.
In Iraq, U.S. forces have operated out of nearly a dozen regular and
temporary bases, with at least 5,000 troops in the country, according to
official Pentagon figures. Over the past three years U.S.-led coalition
forces have conducted over 24,500 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria,
targeting Islamic State but leading to “collateral damage” killing
thousands of civilians.
“The Uncounted,” an article in the Nov. 19 New York Times magazine,
reports that deaths of civilians from U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq
occurred at a rate 31 times higher than authorities acknowledged,
causing some 2,800 deaths in the last 18 months in Iraq. The Pentagon
claims just 89 were killed.
Kurds face threats across the region
The governments of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria all bitterly oppose any
move toward Kurdish independence or autonomy. The over 30 million
Kurdish people are divided between the four countries, where they’ve
faced decades of persecution and national oppression — the world’s
largest nationality without their own state.
As part of a “de-escalation” agreement with Moscow and Tehran, Ankara
has been setting up “observation posts” in Idlib province in northern
Syria, ostensibly to keep the peace. But the location of what are in
fact Turkish military bases — and recent belligerent threats by Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — make it clear their goal is to prepare
to attack the adjacent Kurdish-controlled Afrin canton. Turkish and
Kurdish forces exchanged artillery fire across the Afrin-Idlib border
Nov. 20.
“There is a growing assessment that the US is using both Daesh [Islamic
State] and the YPG [Kurdish People’s Protection Units] as an excuse to
stay in eastern Syria,” Ibrahim Kalin, a special adviser to Erdogan,
wrote in Daily Sabah, “as a potential counter-weighing force against the
Russian-Iranian presence.”
The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq said Nov. 14 that it would
retreat from the Sept. 25 Kurdistan independence referendum, approved by
over 92 percent, and respect the Iraqi Supreme Federal Court ruling
declaring that no Iraqi province could secede.
Related articles:
London protest: Support Kurdish independence!
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