Putin's Visit To Saudi Arabia - Hey, what's Going On Here?

It isn't important. Some years back they wanted Syria as a transit state, but the gas market in Europe is completely flat and they are not going ahead with any of the pipeline plans they have been dickering about since 2002.

 

Have you ever traveled or gone sightseeing? If you toured a mosque, you would take off your shoes and a female would cover her hair.

 

What on earth is that picture?

 

Why would I do a stupid thing like visiting a mosque ?

The TSA is bad enough and I sure don't want to find myself on the no fly list.

I've traveled to exotic places and met interesting people in Southeast Asia, Central America, the South and Central Pacific, Japan, Shanghai China, Canada, Mexico, England and western Europe and South Africa and Rhodesia too.

But there is more to see and do in the good old USA.

I laugh at the liberal elitist who travel to safe places around the world but have only seen most of America while flying over it.

 

There is a whole history of that '63 event event that ties into another of the great narratives of that era........that is another thread though.

I think direct CIA involvement in regime change has been replaced by what I would call the real deep state......what I call the military/industrial/corporate/intelligence complex ( think I borrowed part of this but can't remember who from)

The PNAC is a telling document endorsed by the post-liberal neo-cons who haunted the Reagan admin and going forward ( as per our discussion on the early neo-cons who fled liberalism and hippydom for the safety of the corporate state )

But that too is another thread.

My main point was that the Iranian revolution of 1980 was a reaction to earlier events not a spontaneous act of aggression.

 

Iran and Qatar share the South Pars gas field.. and there was talk about a transit pipeline thru Syria. But the market now is Asia, not Europe.

 

I will address my position on these issues later, as it will require a lot of things for me to explain first, since my position doesn't build on any of the narratives familiar to people here.

As for why Syria is so important to Russia? The answer is that it wasn't that important to them when the Syrian civil war broke out. At that time, the Russians had earlier been rebuffed by Assad when they were trying to convince him to sever his ties to Iran. While Assad was also an ally of Russia, with the Russians having a naval base in Syria in the Tartus dating to the days when the Soviet Union was Syria's principal military benefactor, the Russians were quite amenable to a deal in Syria that would even see Assad gone. But they weren't comfortable with the neocon plans in Syria achieving its objectives, partly because they themselves were being targeted by the US with sanctions and the neocons were known to have both Russia and China in their wish list of state they wanted to undermine. At this time, the Russians often exaggerated their influence in Syria as a bargaining chip for things they cared about more. But as the Russians got involved in Syria, and then noticed the Israelis (and their Oligarch friends) dangling the prospects of a US-Russo-Israeli alliance in the ME against radical Islam, and the Russians began to also develop greater actual leverage over Syria, they began to see Syria as their first foothold in a region which anyone who wants to pretend to "major power" status needs to have influence or control over. So, right now, Syria has become important enough for the Russians. And getting everyone else out of Syria is also important to them for the same reason. They want to dominate things in Syria.

Turkey, on the other hand, got involved in Syria when it imagined it could re-establish a neo-Ottoman empire on the backs of the Arab Spring which saw the Muslim brotherhood (which has connections to the ruling Turkish party) gain ground in Egypt and elsewhere in the region. And since the Muslim Brotherhood also became one of the main voices of opposition to Assad. The Turks lost that fight but they want to show they ultimately got something from the fight, while they are more immediately interested in their stated objectives (namely in cleansing their border region of any Kurdish autonomous government which might then somehow establish links with Turkey's own, very large, Kurdish population, as well as in resettling some of their Syrian refugees -- along with some of the rebels they had once sponsored against Assad -- as a buffer between the Kurds and their border).

For Iran, Syria is critical. First, it is the only government which was openly allied to it. Syria was a member of the so-called "Axis of resistance" which consisted of Hezbollah along with 2 states: Iran and Syria! Everywhere else, Iran has either enemies, rivals, divided governments which include factions close to Iran (Lebanon, Iraq), or elsewhere governments which are at most willing to work with it as long as the American don't make too much of a fuss. So, obviously, Syria was important for Iran just by virtue of that fact. But Syria is also very important, even more important perhaps, because it is also Iran's most reliable land bridge to Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is very important for Iran as it serves as Iran's forward force to deter and use in any potential conflict against the US/Israel.

 

I noticed that these Iranian students didn't violate the sovereignty of Canada or any other Embassy in Tehran.

Now, if the Ottoman-Turkish Empire hadn't picked the wrong side to fight alongside with during the stupidest war of the 20th Century, (First World War) the Middle East wouldn't be a basket case like it is today.

Who knows, Iran might have been forced into being part of the Ottoman Empire ?

 

Is Hezbollah that important to Iran?

 

Yes.

 

First of all I was not aware that the Chechnyan guards are not on the border anymore. It was probably an outcome of Israel shooting down the Russian plane, but I don't really know.

Also what is Iran's purpose in Syria? Was it solely to fight the terrorists and help Assad free himself from them, or are there other interests as well? Would Iran's interests be purely commercial and beneficial to the Syrian people the way Russia's is, and would Iran be guaranteeing a return to the secular and the all inclusive society the Syrian soldiers were fighting for? I don't think so.

Then what is Iran's purpose other than to fight and reclaim Israel for Islam. Any war between Iran and Israel would be fought on Syrian soil, do you really think that this is what Assad and the Syrian people want? I don't think so!

I'm sure Assad is grateful for Hezbollah and Iran's help at a time when he needed them, and this is probably why they are still there. Russia in contrast though, is giving them the future they want. That's the difference.




Thank you Vladimir Vladimirovich, thank you.

 

Assad is a secular leader and was an ally of Iran being a secular leader. His opponents were Islamists. And the rivalry between Iran and Russia in Syria has nothing to do with Iran trying to make Syria an "Islamist" state!

 

I sure don't see how Syria could cozy up to Saudi Arabia at the request of Russia. Saudi Arabia is opposed to Hezbollah. Lebanon has really been thru hell since 1967.

 

Really? You're giving away the Middle East?

Egads.

 

The Ottoman Empire was an enslavement of anyone who was not a Sunni Muslim. Have you ever heard of dhimmitude? There was not a decade that the Ottomans didn't massacre some group of people, starting with the 50 thousand on the island of Chios, (my maternal ancestors). It so shocked Europe, that Lord Byron and the European nobility helped the Greeks gain their independence.

Did you also know that slavery didn't end in the Ottoman Empire until Attaturk, and that the reason there are no mulattoes in Turkey, is because the babies born to black slaves were killed at birth?

This doesn't mean I don't believe in empires, only that the foundation should be based on the humane laws of Christianity, not Islam.

 

It was their money, not a U.S. gift.

 

What? Obama gave it to them. How is that not a gift, because it was given under some legal umbrella?

 

Okay so you topped me.

Assad also cozied up to Erdogan because he knew he was in the crosshairs of the Washington policy makers, but true to form, Erdogan back stabbed him.

Anyway the only friction between Russia and Iran in Syria would be Iran's threats to Israel. Threats are not conducive to peace. Look, it's not as if Iran borders on Israel, so there shouldn't be any problems. Also had the Palestinians been allowed to enter a Muslim nation, rather than forced to go to a Christian nation like Lebanon to propagate Islam, Hezbollah would not have been needed.

Lebanon was the wealthiest nation in the Middle East and had no problems with Israel before the Palestinians came.



Where's the knife Recep?

 

He's right! The money was in American and foreign banks, and Iran was not allowed to withdraw it. Iran was shrewd though. They messed around with the electronics on the American boat and the sailors ended up in Iranian waters. To get them back, Obama had to cough up the money.

Knowing though the greed of the bankers and how criminal they can be, it's doubtful they gave up the money to free the sailors. More than likely it was drawn from the American taxpayers.

 

Then explain why wasn't Iran given Iranian Rials instead of American greenbacks ???

Never mine, I see the problem.
844,918,038,019,940.00 IRR

https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=20,000,000,000&From=USD&To=IRR

 

Which money are you referring to? Certainly not the so-called $150 Billion! That wasn't paid to Iran by the United States. That figure (itself wrong) was money belonging to Iran, in various bank accounts in Iran's name in various countries (much of it in China), with the JCPOA simply unfreezing the funds to be transferred to Iran. Another sum, $1.7 Billion, was paid to Iran by the United States to settle a debt owed to Iran, with the US facing an award substantially more than that figure about to be handed out by the Iran-US claims tribunal.
https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/obama-didnt-give-iran-150-billion-in-cash/

 

Completely false .. and misleading. There were no "moderate" rebels of any significance after the first year of the war. The Jihadists had taken over - Full Stop. We armed and supported this radical Islamist Jihadists proxy army (some of which were named Al Qaeda/Al Nusra - others which ended up coalescing into the Islamic State - and various other groups of the same extremist ilk- but dominated by Al Qaeda or ISIS) -along with numerous other nation states - for years - with tens of thousands of tons of sophisticated military equipment.

 

We aren't talking about ancient history. That picture is from Assad's visit to Iran just a few months ago.