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Thanks RKOB. I hope people read past the title: "According to the report, the “prolonged conflict in Syria saw Israel often hold negotiations with the regime in Damascus in order to reach an agreement in Syria.” "The Israeli official was also quoted as confirming that the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet “held extensive discussions on the situation in Syria and decided that Israel would not allow an Iranian military presence there. Since then, Israel has invested considerable efforts in preventing Iran and Hezbollah from establishing themselves in Syria, while making sure it [Israel] inflicts minimal damage to the Damascus regime.” "The senior Israeli official refused to comment on the decision by some Arab states, such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, to reopen their embassies in Damascus, saying only that the rapprochement between Arab states and Syria was “less dangerous for Israel because these Arab states also want to see Iran out of Syria.” This long-term Israeli position: yes Assad, no Iran, move to separate them, in particular via aggressive collaboration with Assad's major patron, Russia, is now in line with the increasingly assertive position of the Gulf, as seen in the United Arab Emirates - always a bastion of regional counterrevolution - being the first to re-open its embassy in Damascus (actually the UAE has been pushing for this for over 2 years but tried not to act unilaterally, till now. This was followed almost i9mmediately by Bahrain, and similar hints coming out of Kuwait, along with the Syrian regime's recent top-level visit to Cairo (though Sisi's regime has been pro-Assad ever since the UAE-backed bloody coup in 2013, so this is not big deal), and Jordan re-opening its border with Assad. All of these states - UAE, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt - have extremely close ties with Putin (as does Israel course), and so Trump's recent move, which so many have seen as merely a personal whim that is allegedly against the main view of the US ruling class, has to be seen as fully aligned with this trend. In retrospect, the well-publicised semi-secret meetings between Trump and Putin personnel involving the UAE, the UAE- and Egypt-backed Palestinian reactionary thug Dahlan, Israeli officials and even Blackwater folk have a clear logic: push back the oversized Iranian influence by moving to bolster the Assad regime's 'stability" so it is no longer in need of Iranian rabble. This is even more significant now with Assad's need for "reconstruction" funding, which neither Russia nor Iran are flush enough to provide much of, while western countries are (currently) sticking to the line that the Geneva process of political settlement needs to get off the ground first. The move by the Gulf is a clear signal to Damascus, push Iran aside somewhat, we're here to provide the funds you need. The wild card is the big regime behind UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait: Saudi Arabia. The gang-land leader MBS is strongly aligned with his UAE counterpart and the Sisi regime, and has long made clear he gives a stuff neither about the Syrian nor the Palestinian people; these more forward moves almost certainly have his backing, and there have been various hints coming out of Riyadh that it is willing to accept Assad without Iran. However, it is necessarily more tempered about it (as it is also more tempered about rapprochement with Israel) due to its special position as religious head of the Sunni world, and the fact that it has more at stake in its regional rivalry with Iran than its underlings do (the UAE for example has a raging economic relationship with Iran, while there are no Shia in Egypt for al-Sisi to care anything about Iranian influence; like the UAE his number one hate is the Muslim Brotherhood). But clearly he is part of the picture. Much binary, mechanical "geopolitics" in recent years imagined the moves by some of the Gulf states to mend ties with Israel as representing a "US-backed axis" as opposed to a "Russian-backed" Iran and Assad etc. Take a breath, dear Manicheans: exactly the same Gulf states and regional allies that are carrying out rapprochement with Israel are those carrying out rapprochement with Assad. The closest to both Israel and Assad is al-Sisi's Egypt; the race to the finish line ones are UAE and Bahrain; the more cautious behind the scenes power is the Saudis, again for both. It is something of a pity that leftists (and mainstream media) are writing things that reveal they are still living about 50 years in the past, 30 years into the post-Cold War world, and this passes for "analysis". Not to mention how that deals with such elephants in the room as the raging Israeli-Russian relationship (especially Putin-Netanyahu), not only over Syria but also Crimea etc); the raging Egypt-Russia relationship (discussion about Russia building a nuclear plant for Sisi); the UAE declaring that it had a "strategic relationship" with Russia; the growing Saudi ties with Russia, especially over oil politics; and of course the hugest elephant in the room, the US-Iranian joint-venture regime in Iraq, a key Assad ally. Why should Trump's alliance with Putin then seem odd? Forget absurd Cold War fantasies; this is not even clashes of "rival empires." There's a bit of that, as always. But it is well-outdone by the principal dynamic, the alliance of counterrevolutionary powers for ... counterrevolution. On Wed, Jan 2, 2019 at 4:03 AM RKOB via Marxism <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > > https://www.jns.org/we-had-an-opportunity-to-assassinate-assad-top-%e2%80%8eisraeli-official-reveals-%e2%80%8e/ > > -- > Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG > (Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net) > www.rkob.net > ak...@rkob.net > Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314 > > > > --- > Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/mkaradjis%40gmail.com _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
