Emerging Divisions

My, my, my ... the chessboard of the Middle East is beginning to take on some interesting facets.

Last week, a suicide bomber has disrupted the 15 day old truce between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Of course, Israel has blamed both the Palestinian Authority _and_ Syria. Although Syria has committed to "pulling out of Lebanon", this most recent incident plays onto the staging of a joint invasion of Syria by both Israel and the United States. Among other things, the United States and Israel have an unusually cozy relationship. From the perspective of G. W. Bush, Syria makes a perfect "adversary" in his so-called "War on Terror" (possibly better named "War on Human and Civil Rights" {but that's another tirade}). Syria has been quite blatant in its support - tacit and explicit for organizations like Hammas and Hezbolla ever since they occupied Lebanon.

Politically, Syria's an easy target for BushCo. - most of the world doesn't know much about Syria, and frankly if you told the masses that they "support terrorism" {whatever that means}, they'd take it at face value. In fact, Syria isn't even a significant resource supply line as far as the US is concerned, which removes the accusation of "oil war" levelled against BushCo regarding Iraq.

Second, invading Syria has a relatively easy exit for the US forces. Hand over the keys to the Israelis. Israel may not have the forces available to engage in a long term occupation of Syria - I'm not sure about that - but they could have enough with a US "garrison" force to help out while an appropriately sympathetic government is installed.

The second division of interest is an emerging "East Bloc" allied with Russia and China. Iran has just signed a supply agreement with Russia for its nuclear facilities. Wrap this up with agreements involving China for Natural Gas, Iran has created strong economic ties with two emerging powers. Russia has never been "small" - even after the collapse of the USSR, it's a huge economic weight in Asia, and capable of assembling significant military might. China, well, with an economy growing at close to 10% GDP/year, is "on fire" and is busy securing its access to various materials needed to fuel their booming economy. By forming significant economic alliance with China and Russia, the Iranians have created what could easily be the most effective counter-weight to the prospect of American invasion. The United States may believe that they can roll over top of nations that are relatively isolated on the world stage, but surely even BushCo's hawks can't be so naive as to believe that they can win war against both China and Russia in Iran. (Of course, since few of the hawks in Washington have ever actually seen action personally, they may yet be deluded into believing that the "superior technology" of the US will win out.)

There is some recognition of these issues emerging in Washington, who seems to be (for now) approaching Iran through diplomacy and overture. I suspect this is an important aspect of the US strategy in the Middle East. The coming weeks and months will uncover the direction of the US in the region - I expect the current "truce" in Israel will slowly crumble, giving the Israelis the "right" to engage in military action to "stop" terrorists. The US will miraculously discover that the "insurgency" in Iraq is being supplied/funded/recruited from Syria, forming the reason for the US to launch a full assault on Syria from Iraqi soil. (This will happen before the current Iraqi government has a chance to agree on the form of a constitution - while the US has the 'rights' of an occupying army to disregard inter-governmental 'politeness'.