From: slider@anashram.com

### - this is actually quite a good/revealing potted-history of the
situation, albeit it now from an israeli pov who, perforce, have their own agenda/self-serving political spin on it all + their hatred of iran/islam included etc, but is still clearer/better in many ways than the wests' similarly self-serving pov - the ref. to 'rival gangs' being particularly amusing heh, but is also actually quite accurate if/when actually applied
to the whole bunch of 'em! - gangster-politics and drive-by shooting et al (haha but it's true!) :)

***

In his battle of wits with Rohani, Trump blinked first. Like Israel,
Washington mistakenly believes that tactical strikes on Iranian targets
and threats on Twitter can get Iran out of Syria

Donald Trump and Hassan Rohani behaved this week like two youths from
rival gangs. “Don’t play with the lion’s tail,” the Iranian president warned his American counterpart. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif
wrote on Twitter: “We’ve been around for millennia & seen fall of empires, incl our own, which lasted more than the life of some countries.” Zarif added: “BE CAUTIOUS!” — repeating advice given by Trump a few hours earlier. [slider cracking up laffing...]

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/.premium-instead-of-crafting-an-iran-strategy-trump-plays-with-the-lion-s-tail-1.6317287

All that’s missing is an argument about who started it, not to mention a “hold me back” (a popular phrase in Israel), to understand that the mutual threats are a new diplomatic language. Summing up the week, it seems Trump
was the one to blink when he made clear he was willing to discuss a “real deal” with Iran, “not the deal that was done by the previous administration, which was a disaster.”

This followed the revelation that Rohani had rejected eight requests from
Trump for a meeting. Earlier Rohani had said that Iran had the means to
fight sanctions; it could, for example, close the Strait of Hormuz.

It’s doubtful whether Rohani really means it or whether he’s just quoting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in order to ease the tremendous pressure the conservatives are putting on him. Lots of the back-and-forth is coming on Twitter, but however you interpret the tweets, tweets aren’t negotiations
and don’t start wars, at least not yet.

What’s clearer is that Washington has no practical policy on Iran or any strategy for achieving its goals. The dream of destroying the Iranian
regime and turning it into a democratic country — as U.S. Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo likes to market as the ultimate goal — doesn’t go into detail. [which basically means to smash it to pieces/bringing total chaos,
thus setting them back 50-years like they did to iraq/libya etc, and now
truly democratic too 'coz no one knows wtf they's doing anymore and will
thus vote for anyone ya tell 'em to lol]

Who’s supposed to remove the regime in Tehran, Iran’s citizens or the United States? Who will replace the regime, the Iranians in U.S. exile,
the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq group that receives pats on the back from senior
members of the neoconservative administration? Or maybe the Iranian
liberals who are about to suffer from new American sanctions? [israeli
sarcasm? heh]

The enthusiasm that has gripped Washington over the protests and strikes
that have erupted in Iranian cities ignores that the protester numbers
this year have been dramatically lower than in the giant protests of 2009, which also didn’t manage to stir a counterrevolution.

It remains to be seen if the economic sanctions being imposed on Iran next
week will force the regime to its knees. Many European companies have left
Iran or frozen their operations, but this week Zarif said that there had
been progress in talks with the European Union, allowing for a channel to
let Iranian banks operate via the European Investment Bank.

The economic angle [yeah hit 'em with the numbers maan, blast 'em with the numbers! heh]

This announcement still has no practical application because the president
of the European Investment Bank, Werner Hoyer, has said the bank can’t be directly involved in operations in Iran or bypass sanctions; after all, if
it boycotted by the United States, it would have a hard time raising the capital for projects it’s responsible for in other countries. Russia said last week it intends to invest $50 billion in Iranian infrastructure, and
has already signed a $4 billion deal. But it’s unclear if this is a new agreement or the renewal of a deal signed in 2015 before sanctions were
lifted.

Washington agreed to exempt from sanctions several European companies, but
if Trump thought the sanctions would hermetically seal the Iranian
economy, he has a surprise coming. After all, like Russia, China doesn’t intend to stick to a U.S. sanctions policy and will also increase imports
from Iran.

And a few days ago Turkey’s foreign minister said his country wouldn’t implement any sanctions because, as he put it, Turkey buys oil from Iran
on good terms, and what other options are there? So what will Trump do if
such big gaps hurt his sanctions policy?

On other Middle East fronts too, the United States acts as if this part of
the world had no bearing on it. The “deal of the century” is being dwarfed by the deal with Hamas. Freezing aid to the Palestinian Authority is the
only item on display in Trump’s empty shop.

The absurdity is that while the United States is operating to undermine
the PA, it’s pressing to help the Hamas government in Gaza. Here it finds
a loyal partner in Jerusalem and its raft of contradictions. Israel opens
the Kerem Shalom crossing while doing battle in Gaza. It subtracts tax
revenue to the PA for any money paid to Palestinian prisoners and families
of terrorists, but encourages the Gulf countries to contribute to rehabilitating Gaza. These contradictions seem essential to preventing a military operation in Gaza, but there’s no policy in it.

Meanwhile, the Washington that aspires to shrink Iran’s influence in the Middle East doesn’t contribute anything toward ending the war in Yemen,
where the United Arab Emirates and the Saudis are fighting the Houthis
backed by Iran. From a local war that erupted after the Arab Spring, Yemen
has turned into an Arab-Iranian arena where the only country ready to
provide mediation is Iran.

The Saudi and UAE failures, even after their capture of the port city of Hodeida, have led to the deaths of more than 10,000 people, half of them civilians, including many children — and including from disease, thirst
and hunger. Washington doesn’t consider the numbers of victims in its
policy, but what about the strategic interest of preserving a Yemen that
sits at a vital naval crossroads outside Iran’s sphere of influence?

Yemen and Syria aren’t the only conflict zones beyond the realm of U.S. involvement. Take Iraq. It enjoys American aid; Washington is also trying
to raise $3 billion from donor nations for Iraq, a country that has
overcome Islamic State domination thanks to the United States. But it
isn’t necessarily pro-American.

The Iraqi government pays the salaries of militias trained and armed by
Iran, Iran is Iraq’s third most important trading partner after Turkey and China, and some of the Shi’ite parties that won the latest election
support coordination and partnership with Iran. Even half the Kurdish
region enjoys close trade ties with Iran and takes care to maintain good relations with a country where eight to 10 million Kurds live, half of
them in four Kurdish districts in the country’s northwest.

In recent weeks there have been protests in the southern Iraqi city of
Basra, and there have been calls to get Iran out of Iraq, while the Iraqi government blames Iran for damaging its water sources. But the Iraqi
regime can’t give up Iranian economic involvement or cut itself off politically from Tehran.

Iraqi and Syrian differences

In May, Pompeo said pro-Iranian militias and terrorists have been sent to
Iraq by Iran to undermine the Iraqi security forces and erode Iraqi sovereignty. And what does the administration do? Tweet and make speeches.

The assumption is that the moment Iranian or pro-Iranian forces establish themselves in another country, there will be no way to get them out.
Because of this there are fears that pro-Iranian forces in Syria will mix
with the Syrian army and become a permanent military arm.

The same assumption may be put forward regarding Iraq, but the differences between the governments in Syria and Iraq make it difficult to believe
this. The pro-Iranian Shi’ite militias are based on Iraqi civilians, just
as Hezbollah in Lebanon is built on Lebanese citizens and not foreigners.

The Shi’ite leadership in Iraq, as opposed to the leadership in Syria, has
a strong religious leaning toward Iran. The Syrian Alawites are considered
a deviant Shi’ite stream. Syrian economic dependency on Iran was almost negligible before the war, as opposed to the Syrian debt to Iran after the
war estimated at $35 billion.

Also, it’s doubtful whether the Syrian army could or would want to absorb pro-Iranian foreign units, especially since these forces will always be
seen as disloyal to the regime. It is also doubtful whether once the war
is over, Syria would permit Iran to establish separate military bases that would provide convenient targets for Israeli attacks such as what's taking place now.

With the Syrian regime’s resumption of control over wide swaths of Syria
and life returning to normal in many districts, and mainly amid the
general agreement that there is no alternative at the moment to the Assad regime, an active American policy would be needed to restore Syria to the
Arab circle. Such a policy would require coordination with Saudi Arabia,
the UAE, Egypt, Russia and countries seeking to help rebuild Syria.

But the U.S. administration, like Israel, is still captive to the concept
that tactical strikes against Iranian targets and threats on Twitter will
be enough to get Iran to withdraw from Syria. This is a classic tactic of playing with the lion’s tail, creating the illusion that some strategy
will turn up at the tail’s edge.

***

i thought some quite interesting israeli-bitchin' going on there about the whole thing haha, but is also shades of: oi vey! ya 'vant something done already you always have to do it yourself! kinda tone to it all - not all
the different gangs at the table-meeting are happy! red-rape agreements
and shit makes things distinctly... difficult!?

there's a mandela-solution to the middle east perhaps?

like how the feck would 'that' ever work out??

ahem, now then: everyone just kiss and make up???

boy have we got problems on this planet or what?!

hahaha :)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)