The Potentially Imminent Syria Sinkhole

 

First please allow a small personal note. I had a senior moment two weeks ago today and am now typing left-handed as the right hand resembles a plaster club and is even less usable than normal. Surgery was performed on the one finger I was unable to set; so physicians, surgeon types, were employed. Now back to our regularly scheduled editorials and other stories.

 

There is way too much talk about Syria and what the Western nations, particularly Europe and more-so the United States must do to address the problems being exasperated by the horrific five years of the ongoing warfare. Much of the talk centers around seven major topics: refugees, no-fly-zone, safe-zone, containing Russian expansionism, ending the rule of Bashir al-Assad, strengthening the Iraqi government’s hold on central Iraq, and establishing America’s position, standing and unrivaled hegemonic superiority across MENA (Middle East and North Africa). On concluding the discussion of the pitfalls and awaiting disasters surrounding each and every one of these subjects, we will carry them to their inevitable conclusion if any of these paths are followed and then pinpoint exactly where things went off the tracks leading to each of these now end alternatives, disastrous alternatives. Let us simply start with some of the best of news for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the initial starting point for much of these situations were initiated during the President George W. Bush Administering of the area and even stretch back to principally French, British, Italian as well as the rest of the Allied Powers from World War I and particularly Sykes-Picot Agreement and the underhanded meddling for fifty years on average after a thousand years and more of Arab and Islamic rule. Let us look at what all this has wrought.

 

The Sykes-Picot Agreement is the underlying deceit which set the Middle East and eventually North Africa into a situation where the untenable borders set levels of internal intra-tribal rivalries vying for supremacy once the borders were released as independent nations. There are two dirty little secrets as to why to this day the nations which constitute MENA are a cauldron of explosives always roiling and why Europe is blamed. Europe gets the blame as they were the ones left holding a region where borders were traditionally meaningless and each tribe ruled by the oasis and wells they controlled. For over a thousand years either an Arab, Kurd, Alawite, Tripolitanian, Cyrenaican, Fezzan, Wahhabi, Houthis or a dozen others and this is indicative of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan and throughout MENA and beyond (see map below). There are multiple clans, tribal and even nation of origin divisions throughout the “Palestinian” populations in Hamas controlled Gaza, Fatah controlled areas of Judea and Samaria and within the “refugee” population (a fair number of which are now also Syrian refugees or Islamist rebels in various groups including al-Nusra and Islamic State presumably fighting against one another). The warring tribes rapidly led to one tribe being the dominant leader often through favor and arming by the departing Europeans or due to historic realities from the Ottoman Era or the Caliphate and even back to the Byzantine and even the Cyrenaic Greeks. These tribes ruled each country as drawn out by the Sykes-Picot Agreement often requiring an iron fist style dictatorship. The nations surviving the best, a relative term, would by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, the Gulf Oil Sheikdoms and Israel. The world of MENA is very much in flux and it will take quite some time and a great potential for violence beginning within and having a strong predisposition to drag much of the world into the coming maelstrom if the world leaders continue on their current course.

 

Sample of Potential Tribal Influences which
Could Decimate the Borders of Saudi Arabia and
Has Split the Borders of Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya

 

Let us look now at the pressing seven problems starting with the refugees now streaming into the West from all across the MENA nations and beyond into the Horn of Africa and Central Africa. Other than Jordan and Turkey there are no other Arab States taking in refugees and Jordan is keeping them in camps with the intent of their returning to whatever remains of Syria if and when the war ends. Turkey is either placing their refugees in camps, largely women and children, or passing the men mostly with sufficient women and children, around fifteen percent on a good day, for Western media to have their touching pictures to pluck heartstrings. The reality is the flow of selected refugees is an infiltration and when their population breaks ten percent they become bold and past twenty percent they turn belligerent and start demands backed by violence to force their religious edicts and demands on the rest of what has now become a victim population. Once the Islamists pass thirty to forty percent the war begins and continues until the Sword of Islam has submitted the population or the prey of Islam grew in strength and found their reason to stiffen their backbones and stand breaking the Sword of Islam. There will be no middle ground as Islam, in its current Islamist form, allows no middle ground. Either all will be Islam or few to none can be Islam. That is why Europe, the United States and the rest of the world taking in Muslim refugees need demand changes before allowing another refugee to enter. First, the numbers of women, children and the elderly must outnumber the numbers of fighting age men. Second, the refugees will be required to pass a rigorous vetting process which validates their standing past, present and, with hope, future. Third, and possibly most important, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and other stable Islamic nations must collectively take in twice the numbers of refugees than the rest of the world. Forth, the refugees must take an assimilation program and allow them to be placed outside of the Muslim concentrations taking work and show true assimilation efforts or be returned from whence they originated. These refugees have long not been from Syria as they are from failed nations lacking order or a working economy as well as infiltrators, organizers and training personnel from various Islamist organizations and terrorist forces including but not limited to the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, Hezballah, IRGC (Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution; Persian: سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی or Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), Hamas, al-Nusra Front (which left al-Qaeda according to the United States State Department and has been cleared to receive weaponry, training and other assistance –cash- and is a favorite of the Clintons) and numerous less or even unknown terror groups. The entire refugee system and assimilation of Muslims needs to aid them in learning, understanding, experiencing, appreciating freedom and finding the higher self-worth which comes from an independent life which once existed within Islam in their Golden Age. This could be the last hope of kindling the spark of freedom and liberty of the soul deep within Islam and perhaps finding a path to mutual acceptance instead of perpetual conflict.

 

The remaining six problems have no solution other than a hope and a prayer. They are all the result of grievous errors in judgement, poor planning, a foreign policy based in defeat, the removal of American presence and a total and singular White House policy to destroy the American influence and assistance in building a world based on mutual respect, liberty, freedom and basic human rights and instead encouraging tribalism and fracture of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and all other Western influences which were seen as an unwanted and negative influence over what was believed to have been the peaceful influences Islam had initiated during the years of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate before that. Someone making these decisions apparently must have missed the five hundred years of Arab and Islamist conquest and the intertribal violence which necessitated numerous severe crackdowns on such problems over the reported thousand years of peaceful existence. The problem was where it oft arises with Western nations who become tired of winning demanding their forces be brought home leaving a vulnerable and usually untenable situation so unstable that if things actually do not deteriorate immediately, then some unfriendly force has likely replaced the Western presence. This time the United States got some of both, Iraq became Iran West and Syria collapsed into a war with more fronts than a strip mall.

 

The premature withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq has had the actual desired effect permitting Iran to establish their presence in southern Iraq and the opportunity to expand into central Iraq permitting Iran to soon establish a second front in support of their interests in Syria, namely Bashir al-Assad. Talking about Syria and Bashir al-Assad; the United States has lately been claiming that their interest is in working out a change of power in Syria but whining that the Russians interests are interfering with any progress. Has anyone ever wondered and remembered how and why Vladimir Putin got his oversized Russian foot in the door. If our collective memories are still firing on all cylinders, then Vlad the Invader (as opposed to Vlad the Impaler as pictured in their element) was all but invited into Syria when President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to issue the “Red Line in the Sand which Bashir al-Assad would pay dearly from United States decisive and determined military action should chemical weapons be used back in 2012. That broad and definitive line got thinner and thinner and faded and faded turning pinker and pinker until it completely faded. Then came Vladimir Putin to the rescue and he has remained guarding Bashir al-Assad and his Mediterranean Sea military ports. Then there was Libya.

 

Vlad the Invader vs Vlad the Impaler

 

Libya was the culminating point where the Arab spring was going to be revitalized. Instead there was another power vacuum created and the nation fell back into its tribal factions while the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood backed terror organizations set up shop. One such group was in Benghazi where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her inner circle made the deal of a lifetime procuring Stinger Missiles for al-Nusra or who knows. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith were to arrange the transfer. The deal went sour resulting in the deaths of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith and former Navy Seals Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods all were murdered. There were reports that Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods held their position for eight hours before being subdued in a swarm of mortar fire. For reasons never made overly clear, there were no military or other assets available to ride over the hill and save the good guys. This is how we all got to this point and we are supposed to forget the past eight years of foreign intrigue and foreign affairs which have lighted so many fuses any one of which could be the initiator of the war of Gog and Magog while others lead directly to World War, which one are we supposed to be on, three, four, five or twelve? Those are the easy items to trace but then one must figure on a nuclear armed North Korea with a few more nuclear weapons than the CIA wants to admit, say maybe a cool fifty or hundred more with more than half either thermonuclear weapons or bombs made using the Soviet Union’s plans for their super EMP device. Additionally there is the little problem of Iran also building their own nuclear arsenal probably using the identical weapons plans they received from the North Koreans in exchange for advanced rocketry designs and testing of the North Korean ICBM designs. Well, we really need to continue with this foreign policy direction just to see if aliens are going to drop from the sky and save Earth. The coming ride is going to be interesting; as in the Chinese proverb, “May you live in interesting times.” Well, it will be interesting.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Khamenei Frightening Regret of Nazi Defeat

 

Iranian Supreme Leader and Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei in a speech on September 18, 2016, while denouncing President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani calling for more investment in the economy rather than increasing military spending also made commentary which was far more disturbing. Khamenei lamented the results of World War II and insisted that military spending continue to be the highest priority even if the people are made to suffer economic hardships as Iran must not suffer the same fate which was the fate of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. What makes this all the more threatening is for Iran to suffer such a fate would require their placing themselves in a similar situation threatening other nations to the point where warfare is thrust upon much of the world in a determined effort to resist the threat of world conquest be a single minded nation led by people determined to commit genocidal cleansing of the world of all who are not subservient to them and their philosophy, or in the case of Iran, surrendered to Islam, and that would be Shia Islam. Khamenei was disturbed by the forcing of Germany and Japan into submission and forced to be disarmed which was, according to the Supreme Leader, a humiliation which Iran must never be made to suffer. Khamenei lauded the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) as the key to the success and completion of the Islamic revolution which was started in Iran in 1979 and is expected to enforce the Quranic call to conquer the world for Allah. This was the cause which Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini set as the purpose of all efforts and dedications of the Iranian people onto perpetuity. Khamenei has reinvested Iran in the dreams and goals set forth by Khomeini thus making more than their names sounding so similar as so is their dedication to the supremacy of Iran and Shia Islam.

 

Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei
Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini

 

For most nations to be led by a dictatorial leader with dreams of world conquest there would not be any serious concern as it is unlikely that they could build sufficient military to potentially pose such a risk. Muammar Gaddafi often made speeches telling his people that their suffering would be alleviated once they defeated the nations oppressing them and denying them their rightful place as leaders ruling over much or all the Earth depending on his feelings of bravado on any given day. After pushing his terrorist sponsoring too far he faced a severe kick in the ego from the United States when President Reagan struck Libya responding to a Libyan terrorist strike on the “La Belle” nightclub in West Berlin which killed three people including one American Serviceman. The American and allies response came on April 15, 1986, in the early morning hours striking numerous targets throughout Libya including the Bab al-Azizia barracks, Murat Sidi Bilal camp, Tripoli military airfield, Benina military airfield, the air defense networks in Benghazi and Tripoli and Muammar Gaddafi’s house in an attempt to kill the dictator himself. Muammar Gaddafi, with his family, rushed out of their residence in the Bab al-Azizia compound just before the bombs dropped. The warning phone call came from Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi. Among the estimated sixty killed was one infant girl who was used as an attempt to vilify the American raid. Her name was Hannah and she was displayed before Western reporters with the claim she was the recently adopted daughter of Muammar Gaddafi. All things considered, this raid ended any claims from Muammar Gaddafi of Libya being a world leader and destined to lead the entirety of the world. Libya was never actually a threat to attempt world conquest and that claim was made to excuse a retrograde economy and the suffering of the population from the failed economic state. Iran has sufficient oil which as long as the price per barrel remains above approximately $50 to $75 Iran makes a profit from a percentage to all of their wells as their oil is thick and of poor quality thus costing more to draw from the ground. This is part, if not most of the reason for Saudi Arabia pumping out close to full capacity oil production to force the price per barrel below that $50 price. This has the additional effect of starving Russia from large oil profits and makes American fracking no longer cost effective thus having a deleterious effect on every oil producing nation with whom the Saudi Arabian Royals are having difficulties.

 

Still, Iran is currently cash flush thanks to the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), better known as the Iran P5+1 Nuclear Deal, plus other additional payments made by the Obama Administration with a reported four-hundred-million dollar payment for presumably a broken arms deal with the Shah and definitely not a ransom for the released four American hostages. But wait, there is rumored to be more as that four-hundred-million dollar payment for the arms deal has been rumored to have been followed by another payment more than three times that size; a staggering one-point-three-billion dollars claimed to be interest of the original payment. As this payment was delivered in a secret aircraft delivery in actual American cash, thousands of hundred or even thousand dollar bills, hard currency, something unimaginable but somehow true. One can only wonder whether President Obama is going to further finance the military build-up before leaving office, and if so, how much more will he send? Additionally, even by the assessment of President Obama himself, the Iran nuclear deal will allow Iran to be within a few months of attaining nuclear weapons status after the ten year deal expires and there will be nothing to prevent Iran from building a nuclear stockpile challenging that of the United States within a year or soon thereafter once the deal has expired. But don’t worry, Iran will have calmed in that time and will no longer be set on world conquest in a decade or so. Just because Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei just declared the need for Iran to be so militarily powerful that should they set out to conquer the world they will not end as did Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan and be humbled in failure a full thirty-seven years since the 1979 revolution when the military path was first set upon. Sure, of course Iran will be a happy and cooperative nation in a decade or two, sure they will, right? Well, time will tell.

 

Still, one has to understand that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is seventy-seven years of age and in unknown health as such is a very secretive piece of information. Besides that, in a decade he will be eighty-seven (higher math skills paying off) and even with good health that is an advanced age. There is a possibility that he will have stepped down and a new Supreme Leader and Grand Ayatollah have been selected by the Assembly of Experts (aka Council of Experts) and now setting the direction of Iran. There could be a turn around and the next Grand Ayatollah and Supreme Leader will decide that the economy and the lives of the people are far more important than the destruction of the Great Satan (United States), the Little Satan (Israel) and/or the Wahabbist menace of Saudi Arabia. You doubt this? But President Obama has set the hopes of the free world on Iran becoming another nation happy to be a member of the community of nations and live in harmony with the rest of the world including those mentioned above. Come to think about it, you are probably right and things will probably get dicey. How dicey will depend on what the rest of the world does and the outcome of the Islamic infusion into the Western World and whether they assimilate or set on conquest, and the reaction to whichever path is chosen. The leadership in the Western World and beyond over the next decade or two will be very important and revealing on the importance for the continued freedoms of the developed Western World. Why am I so seriously concerned over this outlook?

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Iran Destroying Sykes-Picot as World in an Israel Panic

 

France is planning a multi-national convention in order to force a solution on the Arab-Israeli conflict by, if necessary, forcing the formation of a new Arab state they would call Palestine. They would try to do this without any promise from the Arab leadership that this would end the conflict, end the demand for five-million or more Arabs be admitted into Israel swamping the Jewish state thus destroying her, end all demands for destroying Israel in stages and demand more land be relinquished by Israel, or end the violence and terror attacks. France is seeking to gather at least twenty other nations including the United States, European nations and whichever other nations might show any interest with one distinct nation excluded, forbidden might be more accurate. That excluded nation would be Israel as having Israel might actually stress and interject the problems and deficiencies with any plan which demands from Israel everything and asks nothing from the Arab leadership other than their promise to be nice and where accepting an answer of , “we refuse” would be considered an affirmation for proceeding. They would not require the Arabs to recognize a Jewish State, Israel’s right to exist, the freedom of Israeli public to continue to choose their own leadership or even to end terrorism and the launching of rockets into Israel. The Arab Palestinian leadership has already reserved the right to hold military drills with any nations they desire, import weapons from whoever was willing to sell them such including rockets and missiles, import heavy weapons such as main battle tanks and mobile rocket launchers, and develop nuclear weapons and warheads. The Arab Palestinian leadership has promised to endeavor for one item with a steady and consistent inclusion of any and all manner of facilitating overrunning the State of Israel and cleansing all the lands of those who are not Muslims or even judged to be sufficiently Islamic. And the French and their allies will find such only a minor obstacle and soon dismiss all difficulties or complete rejections coming from the Arab leadership as they will simply turn to pressing Israel to take huge risks and make injurious sacrifices entering into an open ended and incomplete treaty where Israel meets final conditions while the Arab side simply marks the occurrence as simply another step towards the eventual elimination of Israel. All of this, while the borders formed by the results of the last time Europe forced their will on the Middle East in the form of Sykes-Picot are dissolving in fire and bloodshed.

 

Meanwhile nobody appears to have learned anything from the Israel complete withdrawal from Gaza and the dangerous results. They all appear to be unable to correlate and equate the lessons from Gaza to the entirety of Judea and Samaria with their holding the high grounds which overlook the beating heart of Israel. The world also appears to be unaware of the disintegration of the Sykes-Picot agreement and the borders drawn up along with everything else resulting from the breakup of the Ottoman Empire apparently remaining calm as the redrawing of the borders from the Austro-Hungarian Empire (see map below), Germanic Empire, the Balkan lands and the rest of Eastern Europe appear to have survived with only minor conflicts thus far and hopefully time will not change this fragile stability. What is frightening is the alliance which appears to have been behind this disintegration and who is the leading player and who simply appeared to take orders and provide cover and facilitate the immobilizing of the world to defend or even relieve the disasters across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) with a blithe disinterest and total disregard. Perhaps a quick summation of these problems might serve us well.

 

Austro-Hungarian Empire

 

The greatest representation of the world’s disregard and laissez-faire attitude of the world generally and the Western World led from behind, way behind, by the United States, towards the extents of Arab and Muslim nations and their citizens lives, which have all but dissolved into complete disarray and bloodshed, is criminal. The posterchild country for all that had gone wrong has been and will continue for some time to lead the rest is, of course, Syria. As far as functioning governance in Syria there is next to or absolutely no governance and where there may be a semblance of governing, it is done through force of arms and not any other legitimate form. Syria started as protests for Syrian strongman Bashir al-Assad to step down and be replaced with an actually legitimately elected leader. When Bashir al-Assad responded with force, the protesters ended up being replaced by separate and disparate terrorist groups. There were both Shiite and Sunni terror bands descended onto the Syrian countryside attacking the Syrian military forces which remained loyal to Bashir al-Assad as well as one another. The first climactic series of events which threatened to blow the entire Syrian civil war wide open started with the use of chemical weapons on civilians of his nation. These usages of these weapons of mass destruction was a direct challenge of United States President Obama who had threatened that such usage would cross a red line and bring a definitive response from the United States which would affect great consequences. After a couple of debatable usages of chemical weapons where the tests were determined by the White House to have actually been unconforming with the levels required for a clinical determination to be finalized and with a use of chlorine gas being determined not to be a chemical weapon of mass destruction because Chlorine was only an element and the White House had meant a manufactured agent not found naturally in its usable chemical compounds, they stalled even more. It soon became evident that the actually sanctioned nation from the Syrians resorting to gassing its own citizens was the United States. President Putin offered President Obama a way out with an offer to assist in the destruction of all of Bashir al-Assad’s chemical weapons stores. There has been evidence that not all of the compounds were destroyed and that amounts of chemical weapons stores may have been captured by the Islamic State and other terror groups including at least one al-Qaeda aligned group.

 

Another distressing location of failed governance has been Iraq. Here the Shia government, after the premature exit of allied forces, arrested the Sunni high office holders while the remaining Sunni and Kurdish representatives took the hint and fled. This left a core government which ruled solely over the most southern areas of Iraq while the Kurds are holding the North both in Iraq as well as Syria and the Islamic State had settled in the lands between these two groups. The failure in Iraq is troubling for American policy makers and White House communications office as they are tasked with shifting and spinning blame away from the Administration. Astonishing as it now appears, back in early 2010 Vice President Biden stated flat out that Iraq was stable and about to hold open, democratic elections and thus the United States was done and the troops were already scheduled to pull from Iraq. He further claimed that Iraq would very likely prove to be a central point in the legacy of President Obama. Surprisingly, we believe that Vice President Biden was dead on correct, Iraq will be a central policy choice of the Obama Administration and with its current ongoing disaster and growing chaos, well, let it suffice to say that we bet President Obama wishes he had never heard of Iraq. If it were not for the Kurdish fighters in the north, the Islamic State could have concentrated all their efforts southward and likely have taken the entirety of Iraq and be directly threatening Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and their oil fields.

 

 

 

 

Another location of a failure of the United States was in Yemen where the refueling docks which had been used by United States warships are currently no longer under the steady and complete control of the former government which was friendly with the West while the Houthi are threatening to greatly expand their territory and al-Qaeda was holding the southern end of the nation. The existing shipyards and fueling stations utilized by United States Navy are now in questioning hands making their utilization questionable at best. This is also an ongoing confrontation which, as far as we are able to gauge, with the regular government on the short end of the deal more often retreating than reclaiming lands lost to the Houthis. There is also sporadic violence in Lebanon as well with the largest contingent of Lebanese Hezballah militiamen are fighting alongside al-Assad’s forces in Syria. The point of interest which will require continued attention to detail are the actions of Iran in each of these national tragedies and is also sometimes working with Hamas and has shown signs of hoping to gain influence with Mahmoud Abbas, the Arab Palestinian Authority or at the least of Fatah directly or even the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

 

We need to understand a few realities about Iran, its topography, population distribution and political philosophy. Iran is split by a mountain range stretching from the north to the south running about one fifth of the way in from the western border. This range acts as a defensive barrier at the western part of the nation and also marks the divide between the more populous Persians in the center and east while the Arabs reside in the western edges. The oil fields are also in the west beyond the mountains. Iran is a Shiite nation run by the Supreme Leader, a cleric who is virtually all powerful and with the generals of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) run the nation partially through threats, intimidation, fear and some sense by the people that they mean every threat they make. The Iranian people are well educated and have many who receive high level degrees in the hard sciences in American, British and European universities. They believe that Shia Islam should be supreme in all of Islam and those who are not Shiites are apostates or idolaters depending on the day of the week, hour of the day and number of captives to be judged. Well, right, it is not that bad, yet. The Persian Iranian have no great love of the Arab people believing them to be lesser uneducated barbarians who are barely worth using for manual labor and are only good for murdering non-Muslims, especially Jews and Americans. The Persian Iranians who mostly run Iran desire to rule the Middle East as well as finally settle the Arab (Islamic) Israeli (Jewish) conflict. Their reason is they desire to reestablish their Persian Empire and more plus see themselves as the new and original Aryans. They even renamed their country in 1935 from Persia to Iran which means Aryan. They also believe that they should be the real and only true rulers of the world and are willing to take a thousand years to conquer the planet and convert every last soul to Islam, Shiite Islam, or return that soul to Allah for judgement and eternal damnation.

 

Black Triangle of Oil Wealth
Containing Over Half the Known
World’s Oil and Natural Gas Supply

 

Currently there is something the Arabs control that the Persians desire to control, the quarter of the oil which is the Black Triangle. This is the area (see map above) where all of the Middle East oil wealth, or at least very much of the Middle East oil and gas reserves, exist in this triangle. The triangle currently sits on lands stretching in the northwest in Turkey and Syria continues down through Iraq, Kuwait, into Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iraq, Qatar, and western-most Iran. With the Black Triangle existing almost exclusively in Arab lands and the levels traditionally of mistrust between the two peoples, Iran knew gaining control of the wealth of the Middle East was not going to be easy. The first impediment was that the majority of the Arabs were Sunni and not Shia. Fortunately the Shia ruled Syria at the beginning of the Iranian situation, Iraq had a predominance of Shiite Muslims and Saudi Arabia and the remainder were the problem one could and should put off for now. The real challenge was how to conquer the Arab world despite being vastly outnumbered. Well, remember that it was the Persians who invented chess.

 

The one split in the population which was as wide as the Grand Canyon was the Shiite-Sunni divide. This split had driven wars over the centuries. Iran has begun to use it once again and to great prevail. Iran has neutered Turkey by charm and guile and has promised Egypt in return for the same, peace in our time, and knows that Saudi Arabia who is hypersensitive when other people’s business encroaches on them or their protectorates so they play it close to the vest but one should still not press their luck. These are the playing fields. Syria promised the easiest place to pick a side and keep it as viable and oddly enough, the most vital place if Iran was going to keep open its crescent to the Mediterranean Sea. Both Iraq and Syria have proven a problem that with continued carnage would continue to serve the Iranian machine. As long as the problems scared the Europeans and the United States remained standing off in the distance, then Iran could continue her march to her goal. The triangle was currently broken into segments which nobody truly knew who owned what at the end of the day. Still, each day somehow was unable to swing the attentions of the Western World from their main obsession, what had Israel done which could be condemned today. Iran marches on across the Middle East maiming and murdering but nobody cared, but should Israel harm the hair on the head of a single Palestinian and war crimes tribunals are called into session. A war in Syria had murdered millions, but wait, Abbas has accused Israel of building a deck onto a Jewish house, the deck must be destroyed unless Israel should claim all the land by building decks onto settlements. Millions of refugees are fleeing Syria, but that does not matter unless there is a way to make them the problem of Israel. The Islamic State is destroying precious artifacts which are irreplaceable and destroying world heritage sites, wait, world heritage sites, those can be granted to the Palestinian State of the future just so they are never allowed Israel or the Jews to claim. Of course every site in the Holy Lands, be they Hebrew or Christian, they can be used to further the Palestinian claim as the indigenous peoples if only we grant them every last site. This is the picture of a world gone mad.

 

This is the desired and long sought Iranian Shiite Crescent across the Middle East reaching from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea after Islamic State Defeat and Iran Surge Retaking Syria for Bashir al-Assad with Hezballah retaining their iron-fist control over Lebanon and the Iraqi Shiites retaining their hold on the southern half of Iraq. This could very well be the starting positions for a final World War resulting in exchanges of nuclear weapons before the end is reached. This map also depicts the areas bordering the Iranian influence which could become the future red lines and the trip wire for a horrific conflagration, exactly what the Twelvers desire to bring back the Twelfth Imam and the Islamic Messiah who will lead them to finally realize their destiny of world conquest. Despite what many in the West view as an outdated and dead idea, the Iranian leadership dreams of world conquest and desire to that end.

 

Iran had a simple plan, bleed the Arab world dry and then simple blow the empty husks away and claim the prize. Pit one against the other, the Sunni against the Shia, both against the Kurds and all the while making sure that none triumphed who the Iranians did not control. The wars allowed Iran free access to southern Shia Iran and into the cauldron that was Syria with their old puppet al-Assad. Meanwhile they earned points with the Muslim Brotherhood though many found such so confusing as they were Sunni, how could their friendship help Iran? Well, they are the pipeline to Hamas and that allows for Iran to foment another crisis for Israel and for the world to worry over and conduct more inquiries. Iran knows the longer inquiries into the presumed sins of Israel continue, the longer they can play their bloody game of Arabic genocidal conflict. Who benefits from the war in Syria, the conflict in Iraq and the threats to Sisi in Egypt? At first glance one is tempted to say nobody and that is the obvious response. But looking deeper, and there is a story line here which reads that the Arab world must be set against itself, whenever there is the first inkling that the world is starting to understand, then some front must be agitated against Israel as a distraction.

 

Today the latest crisis is whether or not the United States will join the French initiative and give it weight. Why is this a story? It is a story because the French initiative which is a guaranteed non-starter as even Abbas will refuse to accept any peace as he needs the conflict in order to continue the money trains carrying billion and trillions of guilt monies pouring into his coffers far beyond any credible need. Will anybody ever do an investigation as to where the treasures poured into the Arab Palestinian cause flow to and for what purposes are it used? Such is as unlikely as is anybody realizing that Iran is sowing discontent and violence across the Arab Middle East simply to gain advantage and eventually form a greater Iran across their crescent and encompassing all the Middle East oil fields. Are they really that blind that they refuse to see? They will sit up and take notice once Iran controls the spigots to the Middle Eastern oil and turns the flow to Europe off. When Iran then demands five-hundred dollar a barrel oil as winter approaches and Europe faces freezing to death slowly or paying the price, the world will sit up and notice when another world war appears around the corner and this time the enemy holds one quarter of the world’s oil and all the nuclear weapons they could have built in a couple of decades.

 

And when numerous European capital cities lie as radioactive smoldering ruins, these nations will demand yet another panel to discern how all this is Israel’s fault. Europe is facing a slow death at the hands of refugees caused by Iran yet cannot escape their visceral hatred of Israel. Europe sits at the front of a crisis which they will not survive should Iranian schemes continue and they take control of the Saudi and Arabian Peninsula oil fields in addition to those they already control yet they obsess over Israel. Iran is quietly producing nuclear weapons for use against the United States, Europe and the Western world but the French are calling for a meeting of as many nations as are willing to force another failed state onto the Middle East map simply because this one guarantees the death of Israel. Wake up before it is too late. Israel poses no threat to any of you and simply desires to live in the region promised her and allow the rest of you to go your own path. Leave Israel be and tackle the real problems, but no, we understand, we are the Jews amongst the nations and as such you are hardwired to obsess over Israel. It is Israel, has always been Israel and will always be Israel and the Jews; otherwise we might go an entire generation without some fool rising up against us only to be destroyed. Why has the world never realized that obsessing over Israel and the Jews only brings ruination down upon your houses. Look at the history; it is not that difficult to see. All those kingdoms are vanished or soon to be and we are still vibrant and the leading force to bring light and invention into the world. We brought the world so much and ask nothing but to be let alone to continue to serve all mankind, but instead you and those before you decide that we must be crushed. Why? We are willing to bet that none amongst you can come up with an honest and real answer other than we are Jews. And you talk every day about racial hatred, Islamophobia, class warfare, the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer but never does one of you ask why there is still anti-Semitism and it is allowed throughout your world and your history and all the Jew ever did was give you the Ten Commandments, the idea a ruler should not enrich themselves on the backs of their people, the concept of a fair trial, the weekend, bar-b-que, and a moral and just society. We understand that the world may desire to continue after the model first attempted to be the framework for a society used by Sodom and Gomorrah and such is your choice, but please, for once just leave Israel alone, allow our children and people to live here in peace even if only here. Try it for a century or two and see how you like it. We’ll behave, we promise. Then, if you desire such, we will attempt to show the world a better way. Until them can we develop miracles to share with you in peace. Imagine what we would have invented if we were not constantly being warred against in one form or another by almost all the nations of mankind? Let us have peace as we use our word for peace as our greeting and parting thought as we simply say, Shalom.

 

Beyond the Cusp