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[Samson Blinded] Look at Syria: Syria's Alawite regime is isolated from the population and needs foreign support. Lebanon's real choices are a Shiite state aligned with Iran, an Afghanistan-type area of perpetual tribal conflicts, or a secular state under Syrian control.

[Syria Comment] Syria Comment » Archives » “Reshuffling the Cards?: Syria's ...: However vindicated leaders felt by events in Iraq (where they opposed the U.S. war), Lebanon (where the Western-backed coalition was unable to bring Damascus to its knees, and Hizbollah stood its ground against Israel) or Palestine (where its Islamist allies have gained influence), they remain preoccupied by lingering conflicts and persistent fault lines. The spread of sectarianism, uncertainty on its eastern and western borders, stalemate in the Arab-Israeli peace process and threat of confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program cloud the horizon.

[Qifa Nabki | A Lebanese Political Blog] New ICG Report On Syria: And unlike years past, when the Soviet Union and then Saudi Arabia offered support, Iran or Iraq provided cheap fuel and Lebanon was prey to its plunder, Syria no longer can count on a foreign rent. All this, coming amid an increasingly competitive global market and financial crisis, calls for structural reforms that the regime almost certainly cannot undertake without Western help and a more pacified regional environment.

[Global Geopolitics News and Analysis] U.S. Creates Its Antithesis in Iraq : Global Geopolitics News and ...: Within this context it has been noteworthy that the government of al- Maliki and its security officials, when they were questioned by the parliament in closed and public sessions last week, were divided over whom to blame for the bombings: Syria and other “Arab” countries or infiltrators of their security agencies by resistance elements whom they dub as “terrorists,” but they never hinted to the U.S. occupying power as a possible culprit, which maintains the capability to really infiltrate the security shield around the “Green Zone” and could be the major beneficiary of portraying the government as still incapable of maintaining law and order; this possibility was given substance, for example, by the report of The New York Times on December 11 that Blackwater gunmen, ostensibly contracted as security guards in Iraq and Afghanistan, “participated in some of the CIA’s most sensitive activities””clandestine raids with agency officers,” and by CIA Director Leon Panetta’s briefing before Congressional intelligence committees last June about a covert “assassination program” involving Blackwater.

[Planet-Iran.com] Analysis: A bus blows up in Damascus - exploding tire or terror ...: The world of extreme Sunni Islamism is notoriously murky and riven, with many groups operated and/or supplied by governments for their own aims. It can only be a matter for speculation and theorizing (of which there will be much) as to who might have had an interest in striking a blow at Iran, its religion and its allies in the heart of a regional capital.

[Syria Comment] Is Syria to Blame for the Bombings in Iraq?: …Assad had surrendered nothing to warrant the embrace….Assad has been getting away with murder, literally….Syria continues to export instability in defense of its regime and interests, and the reality is that no one is doing anything about it–not the United States, the United Nations, the Arab states or the European Union….Syria has also benefited from Obama’s impatience to leave Iraq…..Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki publicly blamed Syrian-backed Iraqi Baathists….Syria has not only used Hamas against Israel, it has also pushed the movement to thwart Egypt’s ability to act as principle Arab mediator between Israelis and Palestinians……The Saudis believe that one way to contain Hezbollah’s power, and therefore Iran’s, is to endorse a Syrian resurgence in Lebanon…..Everyone is knocking at his door while Hariri lies forgotten.

[Cplash - The Citizen Journalism Site] Arab Paper: Iran to target Netanyahu if nuclear sites attacked ...: Quoted by the Iranian opposition among its own sources in Iran as saying that the intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard »developed cells in the required locations in the Western and Arab countries to be used in sabotage operations, adding to the goals of the installations of the human internal economic, security and popularity in the event of an attack on Iran, which includes elements of cells by »Revolutionary Guard« living in Iranian embassies in those countries also includes elements of the »Hezbollah«

[The Daily Beast - Blogs and Stories] Will Iran Ignite? - Page 1 - The Daily Beast: Muharram and the story of Imam Hossein’s martyrdom have obvious political resonance. Hossein’s battle was one of an underdog fighting for his rights, certain of the justice of his cause, and willing to give his life to oppose a much stronger but oppressive monarch who was considered to be abusing the true meaning of Islam.

[Untitled] Mahmud Ahmadinejad: ”A divine hand will come soon to root out the ...: Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad believes and acts on the expectation that the reappearance of the Hidden Imam is imminent, and that U.S. efforts in the Middle East are primarily focused on preventing his return. Shi’ite Muslims believe that their 12th imam, the Mahdi, born in 869, did not die but was hidden by God and will eventually reappear as the savior of humankind, ending tyranny and bringing justice to the world.

[What's Pissed Me Off] What's Pissed Me Off » Blog Archive » Time to End the Neocon Con Game: They were wrong about Iraq's WMD stockpiles, about Saddam Hussein's links to al-Qaeda, and about how the U.S. military conquest of Iraq would terrify other U.S. adversaries - like Iran, Venezuela, Syria and Lebanon - into retreat. The sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite also began burning out as the two groups, which had once lived side by side in peace, retreated to their own enclaves, separated by concrete walls running through Iraqi cities.

[blog.Tribulationperiod.com] blog.Tribulationperiod.com » Blog Archive » SHIITE FORCES WILL ...: The two are members of the House of Representative’s Committee on Appropriations and their appeal has special significance due to the financial aid the United States grants Lebanon and the fact that Hezbollah, which is on the American terrorist list, has become a part of the Lebanese government.

[Syria Comment] Syria Comment » Archives » Bus Bomb? Syrian-Israel Peace Talks ...: I remember how David Shenker suggested that Syria had bombed itself when a small extremist cell tried to attack the US Embassy in 2006. Others suggested that Syria killed Mughniya to please the US or that it staged the extremist shoot out at an abandoned UN site in Mezzeh in 2004 because it wanted to look as if it suffered from extremism to garner world sympathy.

[CTD Weblog] Petraeus Admits US Giving Security Support to Yemen to Al Arabiya ...: Petraeus added that he asked Syria to exert greater effort to prevent terrorist infiltrators from passing through its territory into Iraq and revealed that the recent drop in the number of infiltrators from 110 to less than 10 per month was due to al-Qaeda movement restrictions and not because of Syrian efforts.

Reflected tags on Technorati: Blog, Shiite, Iran Reviews