Any Middle East Experts here understand they Syria situation?

From what I understand: - Assad and the control of Syria is Sunni. - The confilct started as a spin-off from the "Arab Spring" - The rebellion against the government is a coalition of different armies including ISIS. - USA seems to be supporting the rebellion. - Russia is supporting Assad

Although I may be mistaken in any or all of those statements. I was wondering if there is anyone here who is knowledgable on the ME and understands what is going on with the civil war.

What government is the rebellion trying to establish? Why is USA and Western nations so Hell-bent on seeing Assad overthrown?

Exactly. The trouble all started with the discovery of vast deposits of natural gas off the shore of Qatar. The Qataris and Saudis wanted to build a pipeline across Syria to Turkey and the Mediterranean, to expedite transmission to Europe.

Naturally, the Europeans supported this idea, because it would lessen their dependence on Russia and increase competition between suppliers. And also, naturally, the Russians were opposed because of the dependence of their economy on natural gas sales. So Assad, good Russian ally that he is, turned down the proposal for the pipeline across Syria.

This meant, as far as the Saudis, Qataris, and Europeans were concerned, Assad had to go. Their plan was to install some flunkey who could be easily bribed to approve the pipeline. But they wound up with ISIS, and now their problem is how to control ISIS, while at the same time getting rid of Assad.

The US, for its part, would like to get rid of Assad because they want to diminish Russian influence over the area. Also, they like the idea of the pipeline because it would lessen European dependence on Russian gas.

Really complex question. It appears to me that the Russians and the Iranians are supporting Assad. The U.S. and Saudis are supporting the rebels. The Turks are just using this to go after the Kurds.

The rebels, however, have a bad habit of defecting to ISIS after we’ve equipped them and trained them. The recent article about spending millions to train what is now only 5 fighters, shows the foolhardiness of Obama.

Also, it appears Obama doesn’t want to antagonize his new Iranian allies and that’s why our warplanes are going back to their bases with bombs on the rails rather than strike Assad regime targets. He also doesn’t want to antagonize the Saudis so he doesn’t want to strike too many rebel targets either.

The Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians and Israelis are making peaceful overtures to the Russians in the wake of the power vacuum Obama has left in the ME in his wake. The Saudis are doing so probably in the hopes that the Russians will be a counterbalance to Iran (whom they hate), to keep them on a leash.

In hindsight, it was a mistake to take out Saddam. He was serving as an effective counterbalance to the mullahs in Iran and he hated them. He was also the perfect leader for our interests for any Muslim country: A “Muslim” who doesn’t take his faith seriously, but is rather all about his own power.

That’s also why the whole “Arab Spring” was such a profoundly naive? idea. Replacing autocrats and dictators who didn’t take Islam seriously, with popularly elected serious Muslims, would inevitably result in Muslim Brotherhood or worse coming to power. It’s sad but Bush and the neocons were wrong about Muslims when he thought they were longing for freedom. They need a dictator in charge of their nations who is not serious about Islam, or they’ll become as jihadi as Iran. That’s sad but it’s realpolitik.

>>>>”Actually, he’s Alawite, which is more aligned with shia, but the majority of the country is Sunni. “The control” as you put it, has been thru the Iranian regime with aid from Russia.”<<<<

The above is a quote from one of your earlier comments here. I add it in relevant context to this of #16.

I know the Shia/Sunni divide has been there since time immemorial. But, what if we don’t constantly add fuel to fire and reinforce that divide?

What if the main issue was about ‘representative government and governance”, and fair treatment, even in that part of the world for most or many ordinary people there?

Some “Kurds are against Assad” because they aren’t represented or included in the political process. Equally, the same can be said about Kurds in Iran and Turkey.

In Iran, based on religious grounds because the gov’t there is clearly shia 12ers oriented; socially & economically favoring shia 12ers over any other religion or Islamic denomination.

The situation re Kurds in Turkey is even more convoluted, and is not on religious grounds. In Turkey, the Turks started killing Kurds FIRST (awful history there), but the U.S. doesn’t recognize PKK, labelled them a terrorist group, because they try to get even and return fire at Turkish gov’t.

Let’s also remember that the Iraqi Kurds (predominantly Sunni, but Secular) have allied with Iran, and yes, Shia Iranian gov’t to date against all others (ISIS inclusive), and previously Arabs e.g. Saddam.

Humanitarian and democracy issues are really talking points. Same as who needs to be the “policeman” in the M.E. and N. Africa. Perhaps, we just need commonsense... this religious divide has been further cemented and reinforced by those “policemen” who use it to further their own whatevers as part of an ongoing power struggle in the region, between themselves (Russia & the U.S.) - hegemony at its worst and best.

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