Yemen and Tunisia- another tragic week for the Middle East

[Wannabestepfordwife]

Is anyone else following the two main terrorist attacks in the ME.

Yesterday's Mosque attack in Yemen www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3004359/Death-toll-rises-126-Yemen-mosque-bombings-medical-source.html and earlier in the week the Bardo Mueseum attack in Tunis www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/shots-fired-at-tunisian-parliament-10116173.html.

I was concerned about IS anyway but they have accepted responsibility for both attacks and I'm concerned about where and how big the next attack is going to be.

The Middle East really seems to me to be imploding. There's Syria and Iraq, the instability in Yemen and Eygpt, increasing amounts of refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, increasing brutality in Saudi and Netanyahu being re-elected.

I am really concerned about the precarious situation and what the immediate future holds.

Assad is not winning, far from it, (Non-IS) rebels are currently pushing Assad forces out of Idlib as I write this. Besides which, Assad has 1)An established army and militias (the dreaded shabiha) and 2) vast support from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, yet he still hasn't regained control of Syria, in fact, he can't even go to most of Syria!

Assad helped IS form and they rarely (if ever) fight each other, instead preferring to right the FSA and allied groups. www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/07/assad-and-the-art-of-the-devils-gambit/374501/

Assad's slogan is simply "Assad or we will burn the country", that is their mentality and that is exactly what they have done.

Claig, your consistent and ill-founded support for a brutal dictator (whom you supported even before the rise of IS) is disgusting.

The uprising in Syria was started by children in Deraa, who the regime abducted and tortured for the "heinous" crime of writing anti-government slogans on a wall. Will you claim that mere children are CIA stooges now?

What do you have to say about the barrel bombs that Assad drops on civilians? What do you have to say about the vast majority of death and displacement being caused by regime fighters and their allies? What do you have to say about Assad firing on peaceful protestors asking for reform back in 2011?

'Assad is not winning, far from it'

Of course he has won. He has defended his country against the combined onslaught of Jihadi mercenaries, in supplied Toyota trucks, of ISIS, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and all the rest of them, armed, aided and supplied by some rich Sunni backers in Saudia Arabia and Qatar He has survived the onslaught for 4 years, and after the third year, when it became evident that Assad had won and the plan by outside forces against him had failed, there were calls to bomb Assad which would have helped the rebels fighting him. Some politicians like Farage etc said "No" and the MPs voted the proposed bombing down in Parliment.

"With Latest Victory, Assad Has Won the War in Syria

As the eyes of the world and the media turn to Ukraine, Syrian President Bashar al Assad has quietly been making momentous gains in his three-year civil war with rebels that all but assure he will leave office on his own terms."

finance.yahoo.com/news/latest-victory-assad-won-war-111500116.html

"Syria’s Assad has won civil war, Israeli diplomatic official says

Regime has secured ’70-80 percent of essential’ territory in the country and benefits from mass refugee exodus, source says"

[http://www.timesofisrael.com/syrias-assad-has-won-israeli-diplomatic-official-says/]]

"Iran and Assad have won in Syria, say top Tehran foreign policy figures

Insiders say western strategy in Syria encouraged radicals and backfired, leading to threat to European security from returning jihadis"

www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/11/syria-crisis-iran-assad-won-war-tehran

'Assad helped IS form and they rarely (if ever) fight each other, instead preferring to right the FSA and allied groups. '

You don't actually believe that stuff written by a US professor in the Atlantic. Assad is a secular ruler who protected all faiths in Syria. He never detroyed Christian holy sites or pre-Islamic treasures in Syria or destroyed Sunni mosques or beheaded people for not following the Koran according to strict Wahabbi interpretation etc.

The US professor you quote believes that the American people are the most ideological people in the world. That is rubbish. The American people are peace-loving decent people with good values. Americans believe in live and let live and for many years America was always isolationist and non-intervionist and many Republicans like the legendary Pat Buchanan still are. The Neocons are a more recent phenomenon who have left wing Trotskyist roots, but they do not represent the long tradition of American live and let live non-intervionist philosophy. Leaders use ideology as a fig-leaf to grab power and resources, but this has nothing to do with American people.

"It seems that zeal has been central to much of this nation's feelings behind war. You call Americans the most ideological people in the world. That must sound like news to most Americans.

There's a profound national ideology, which is this belief in democracy and freedom and self-determination and limited government. It's basically a consensus belief; Americans don't see themselves as ideological because everyone believes in this ideology. What's interesting is that Americans are far more ideological than Soviet communists or, say, Chinese communists were. At the end of the Cold War, those countries just discarded their communism. But it would be impossible for Americans to discard their belief in the American way so easily."

content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2038003,00.html

Assad is not a brutal dictator and before he signed the oil pipeline deal in 2010 with Iran and Syria, the London educated doctor, had little problem with the West. He ran a prosperous and stable secular country in the Middle East where Jihadi style fundamentalism had no influence. He is fighting Isis, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and all the rest of them in an attempt to spare his country and its diverse faiths from the onslaught of a Jihadi fundamentalist fate funded by outside powers.

Assad was interviewed by the BBC recently and he said that in the uprising police were shot, which was why he had to deal harshly with the protest, and the BBC repeatedly asked him about "barrel bombs" and he said he didn't know what they were talking about. He said they had bombs, but not barrels. So I don't know what that is all about.

Obama, who is a Democrat, has done a great job in holding out against immense pressure from some of the Neocon elements in the Republican Party and elsewhere, such as John McCain et al, who were all for bombing Assad when it became evident that Assad had won and had defeated the funded operation against him which used all manner of Jihadis to try and defeat him.

The British Parliament voted the bombing operation down and then no one revived it, even though just days before the vote, the BBC had been ramping up their reporting describing how bad Assad was. As soon as the vote was lost, the BBC turned to other matters. The plan to bomb Assad was dropped, it was not revived, and that may have something to do with Obama not being fully onside with the McCain crew, I don't know.

Obama is now trying to do a deal with Iran on their nuclear programme against immense pressure from some Neocon elements in the Republican Party again.

Obama has held out against McCain et al and has prevented what could end up being a wider war than what is currently hapening in the Middle East. Obama has taken lots of flak, but he has succeeded in reining in some of the Neocon warmonger rhetoric.

It has now got to the stage where some reports are saying

"Obama's ISIS strategy is going down a path with one destination: an alliance with Assad"

Bashar al-Assad has outmaneuvered President Obama. After the US threatened to bomb Assad in 2013, the Syrian leader allowed the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to grow into such a serous threat that the US is now bombing it instead. But it's looking increasingly likely that the only way that he can stay true to the goals and priorities that have shaped his Syria policy since the war began in 2011 is by allying, either explicitly or tacitly, with Assad.
...
Obama doesn't want to build up the rebels enough to defeat ISIS, he doesn't want to invade and occupy Syria (rightly), and he doesn't trust Turkey enough to sponsor a Turkish invasion. With those options off the table, only Assad is left as someone who is able to re-conquer ISIS-held territory and occupy it for many years, which is what it would take to end the ISIS threat. So it looks increasingly likely that Obama will come to view Assad as his only real option if he wants to defeat ISIS."

www.vox.com/2014/10/13/6961925/obama-ally-with-assad-isis-syria

Obama has done a brilliant job and he is going grey before his time as he tries to outmanoeuvre the warmongering factions whose plans might be to send the world world up in flames.

"He refused for years to intervene against Assad — denying calls from much of his cabinet, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to do so — and slow-walked programs to arm the rebels."

One day when the history books are written, it will be seen that Obama was a great President who stood up to the warmongers and didn't go along with their plans under immense pressure from them.

Here is an example of Republicans who are against intervention. It seems that Sarah Palin is not onside with the Neocon element who wish to arm the opposition against Assad.

"Former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has criticized the Obama administration’s decision to supply weapons to the rebels in the civil war in Syria, arguing that the U.S. should ‘Let Allah sort it out’ until there is a stronger leader in the White House.

‘Militarily, where is our commander in chief? We’re talking now more new interventions. I say until we know what we’re doing, until we have a commander and chief who knows what he’s doing, well, let these radical Islamic countries who aren’t even respecting basic human rights, where both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line, “Allah Akbar,” I say until we have someone who knows what they’re doing, I say let Allah sort it out,’ Palin said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference on Saturday."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2342307/Sarah-Palin-courts-controversy-claim-Syria-conflict-left-Allah-sort-out.html

Palin implies that Obama doesn't know what he is doing. But that is wrong. Some of Obama's strategy seems contradictory but that is because Obama is under immense pressure and has to throw some bones to the Neocon warmongers to keep them off his back. But at every turn, Obama has prevented escalation and attempted to prevent a growing conflagration in the Middle East.

Cameron was all for bombing Assad, but Obama never mentions it and dropped it.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-battle-for-the-middle-easts-future-begins-in-yemen-as-saudi-arabia-jumps-into-the-abyss-10140145.html

sorry if been linked I thought this ^ was V interesting article on it.

Claig .... for someone opposing western intervention, by applauding the UK Parliament turning on Cameron trying to help the Sunni majority getting slaughtered by Syria's Assad (you still seem in denial about) - are you saying they (the west) should now send in the armies, and there would not be a negative Muslim reaction to it?????

In fact what ARE you saying in YOUR OWN words without anti American jibber jabber?

And if Syria does win, they will have Iran to thank for it, as will the current Shia Iraqi government, so look on the map; look at the prospect for Saudi Arabia of the aggressive Iranian influenced Shia 'block' of Syria/Iraq/Iran on their borders, with just a slither of land of Jordan and the pin prick called Kuwait, the only 'buffer' between them.

I'm not anti American. I agree with Obama.

"Obama's ISIS strategy is going down a path with one destination: an alliance with Assad"

"are you saying they (the west) should now send in the armies, and there would not be a negative Muslim reaction to it?????"

Yes, because I think the funded Jihadiis - Isis, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and all the rest of them - would evaporate overnight if a Western army confronted them, just as they do when Assad's Syrian army confronts them.

I think Saudi Arabia has been instrumental in funding the Jihadis, so if they are reined in, then there will be fewer Jihadis creating havoc in the Middle East and elsewhere.

'for someone opposing western intervention'

I am not against Western intervention, I just think it should be against the Jihadi extremists in Isis, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and all the rest of them rather than against the secular Syrian regime which could be our ally against the extreme Islamists.

And in the midst of all these threats, we continue to cut the defence budget and the size of our armed forces. Do you know, that according to the definition of an army in terms of numbers, we no longer have a British Army? It is now too small to meet the criteria required for that definition. We have, according to a very senior officer I met last week, a militia.
The Navy are concerned they dont have enough personnel to actually crew the two new commissioned aircraft carriers....
The RAF walk out of RAF Leuchars this week for the last time when Russian submarines and jets are "regularly" seen around the Scottish coast because " there isn't anything we can do about it."
Scary times...

Yes, the world is getting far more dangerous and we are facing greater threats and yet our politicians cut our defence forces.

At least Farage, who opposed the bombing of Syria, has said that he wlll spend 2% on defence.

The United States is begiining to talk about talking to Assad. Good news. Let's put an end to Isis, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and all the rest of them.

"The United States will have to negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad in order to end Syria's five-year civil war, Secretary of State John Kerry concedes.

"Well, we have to negotiate in the end. We've always been willing to negotiate in the context of the Geneva I process," Mr Kerry said in an interview recorded on Saturday.

He stressed Washington was working hard to "re-ignite" efforts to find a political solution to the conflict."

www.smh.com.au/world/john-kerry-concedes-us-must-talk-to-syrian-president-president-bashar-alassad-20150315-1lzuiu.html

Here is the eminent journalist, Robert fisk, on the myth that is the Free Syrian Army

"There isn't any moderate opposition in Syria now"

John Kerry is becoming more and more like William McGonagall, the "worst poet in the world" whose horror at the 1879 Tay Bridge railway disaster yielded the imperishable observation that it "will be remembered for a very long time".

Like McGonagall's verse, Kerry's attempts to explain America's crusade against its latest evil enemy are so awful. Just when you think that Kerry's lame explanation to American politicians of Obama's Iraqi crusade — "(Isis) has to be defeated, plain and simple, end of story" — can't get any more childish. Most immediately shocking was the Obama fantasy world which Kerry, in his clod-hopping, schoolboy way, represented.

Anyone who has studied Syria from afar, let alone those who go there, know that the fictional "moderate opposition" — supposedly deserters from the Syrian government army — does not exist.

Corrupted, disillusioned, murdered or simply re-defected towards Isis or some other Al Qaeda outfit, the old "Free Syrian Army" is now a myth as ridiculous as Mussolini's boast that the Italian army could defeat the British in North Africa. Any Syrian soldier will tell you that they are happy to fight the FSA because these warriors of the "moderate opposition" always run away."

www.timesofoman.com/Columns/2310/Article-There-isn%E2%80%99t-any-moderate-opposition-in-Syria-now

Here is an article in the New American about the Free Syrian Army

"What is the Obama-backed Free Syrian Army?"
...
The outfit’s main selling point appears to be that, as opposed to the more effective fighting forces in Syria, the Free Syrian Army is not technically al-Qaeda. But what is the Free Syrian Army, really? No two analysts have the same answer. To some, the Free Syrian Army is the group that sent a spokesperson to tell the world that it was preparing an ethnic cleansing program targeting Shia Muslims and Alawites. Among warmongers, especially American "neocons" such as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and the Obama administration, the FSA is touted as a heroic organization that should be propped up even more heavily than it is — even after McCain’s “moderate” FSA rebels turned out to be kidnappers. To others, the “army” is really an “army in name only.”

Virtually everyone agrees, however, that it is dominated by Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood and various other hardline Salafist groups known for violently seeking sharia law and strict enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic doctrine. In December of 2012, Reuters, among numerous other establishment sources, reported that the Free Syrian Army had chosen a leader for its new “Islamist-dominated command.” At a meeting in Turkey attended by hundreds of rebel leaders, Western officials, and representatives of Gulf Arab autocracies, a new 30-member “Supreme Military Council” packed with Muslim radicals was selected.
...
The NBC article also essentially admits that, as one analyst put it, the Free Syrian Army is really a “myth” while its supposed commander, Brig. Gen. Salim Idris, is a “general of nothing.” “Idris acts more as a chairman of the board than a battlefield commander, offering advice and money to other groups that he feels are benefiting the cause,” NBC reported. “But he and his [largely Islamist] senior aides don’t do much vetting of groups or individuals wanting to join the fight, being focused more on winning than on developing a litmus test for membership. Those decisions are typically made by local commanders, say numerous rebel fighters interviewed by NBC News.”

Journalist Daniel Greenfield, whose reporting focuses on radical Islam, commented on the admissions and pointed out that there is no Free Syrian Army in any real sense. “It’s an umbrella for providing Western aid to a front group run by the Muslim Brotherhood,” he observed. “Idris is basically a politician. He isn’t running the war. Putting him out in front of a lot of Salafist commanders is a scam. They’re the ones running the war. Not him. He’s just another politician funneling money and weapons from the Saudis, the Turks, Qataris and us.” Greenfield also blasted the “funny moderate math” employed by the Obama administration to downplay the overwhelming role of extremists in the Syrian rebellion.

Meanwhile, despite claims of moderation by Western supporters, self-styled Free Syrian Army fighters and groups have been implicated in more than a few atrocities — many of which, such as executing captured prisoners without due process, constitute clear war crimes. Most recently, the FSA worked with the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra front and the jihadist Ahrar al-Sham group to seize control of the ancient Christian town of Maaloula — one of the few remaining places on Earth where Aramaic, the language of Christ, is still spoken. As reported by The New American and numerous other media outlets, including among the establishment, Christian villagers there said they were ordered to convert to Islam or die. Others were simply slaughtered, in keeping with a developing pattern.

Before that, a spokesman for the Sunni-dominated Free Syrian Army went on Turkish television in May and openly threatened that rebel forces would exterminate Shia Muslims. According to a report in Bloomberg about the statements, FSA “Colonel” Abdel-Hamid Zakaria said the minority communities would be “wiped off the map” in response to advances made by Assad’s forces. “It’s going to be an open, sectarian, bloody war to the end,” the spokesman said in May as U.S. lawmakers were working to restrain Obama’s lawless support for the opposition.

www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/16550-what-is-the-obama-backed-free-syrian-army

Claig ….. so you want a western culling of Islamist Sunnis, called ISIS or anyone else NOW, when they could have anywhere between 50,000 and 200,000 combatants, yet were against allowing the UK to stop killing the Syrian Sunni population, Assad’s citizens, by ‘taking out’ Syrian military hardware on the ground and air, carrying out these state ordered murders.

Why is this important in the Syrian – ISIS time line?

How many ISIS combatants were there in 2013, 15,000 or 20,000, BEFORE the west left the Sunnis to fend for themselves and trigger the HUGE GROWTH in ISIS combatants through 2014?

The UK parliamentary ‘no’ vote end August 2013 that allow Syria’s Assad, leading a minority Alawite (Shia) population under 20%, killing Sunnis with nerve gas, tank shells, aircraft launched bomb and all sorts – which gave an excuse the U.S. and other countries to make limited action throughout Syria, even against an ISIS with its headquarters there – GAVE RISE to the current power of ISIS, as Sunnis flocked to their new caliphate from throughout the world.

When in late 2013 ISIS had 20,000 well trained combatants, facing an Iraqi army several times their number and Syria’s Assad, with heaven knows how many troops and hardware, THAT was the time for the two countries involved to rid themselves of ISIS IF they had got their domestic shit in order i.e. Iraq running an inclusive Shia. Sunni and Kurd state, and Syria not murdering their own citizens.

Even now there are more than enough Middle East regional opponents to ISIS to get the job done over the next few years, with airpower help from the west, WITHOUT the west inflaming the situations by REINVADING Iraq or anywhere else and killing Muslims – and the FACT Iraq has said THAT THEY DON’T WANT western armies with their sized 10 boots on their sand, settles the debate.

A Syria with a minority Alawaite Assad that has tried to kill their much larger Sunni citizens men, women and children can never end the civil war, his position is untenable. Quite WHO can unite the non ISIS Sunnis within Syria is anyone guess, but over time, in the time it takes to rid them of Assad, a Sunni solution may be found.

The war against ISIS is one of attrition, estimated to last a few more years, and currently going well.

Claig ... for those that feel Saudi Arabia is the aggressor rather than Iran, within the Sunnis vs Shia Middle East undercurrent affecting so many other States, this just confirms what other Middle East watchers have known for many years, only ONE has ever called for the complete destruction of other States;

“Netanyahu condemns nuclear talks after Iranian commander vows to 'wipe Israel off the map'”
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iranian-military-commander-vows-to-wipe-israel-off-the-map-as-nuclear-deal-nears-10148351.html

”Speaking this morning, the Israeli Prime Minister also condemned an Iranian military commander who reportedly vowed to “wipe Israel off the map” and claimed Saudi leaders will face “Saddam Hussein’s fate”.”

”Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, who leads the Basij volunteer force, made the declaration to mark Islamic Republic Day in Tehran on Tuesday.”

“Wiping Israel off the map is not up for negotiation,” he said according to Kol Yisrael radio.”

”Brigadier General Naqdi has made threats against Israel before, saying in 2014 that Iran was supplying weapons to Palestinians in the West Bank.”

”Iran’s Fars news agency reported comments made by Brigadier General Naqdi in the same speech, threatening the Saudi-led international coalition fighting the Houthis.”

“Imposing war on Yemen will, God willingly, have no result other than Saddam's fate for the aggressors and the US that is the direct sponsor of this crime will have to leave the region forever after losing its puppet, the Al Saud regime,” Brigadier General Naqdi said.”

Here is an article from the left wing luminary, Owen Jones

"To really combat terror, end support for Saudi Arabia"

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/31/combat-terror-end-support-saudi-arabia-dictatorships-fundamentalism

Obama is in the middle of a possible deal with Iran and Saudi Arabia is starting to worry

"The Israeli prime minister’s public confrontation with President Barack Obama over the U.S. administration’s pursuit of a nuclear bargain with Iran may have drawn all the spotlight this week. But America’s other key allies across the Middle East—such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates—are just as distraught, even if they lack the kind of lobbying platform that Benjamin Netanyahu was offered in Congress.

These nations’ ties with Washington have already frayed in recent years, dented by what many officials in the region describe as a nagging sense that America doesn’t care about this part of the world anymore."

www.wsj.com/articles/like-israel-u-s-arab-allies-fear-obamas-iran-nuclear-deal-1425504773

"The US is rethinking its approach to the Middle East and has even found commonalities with erstwhile archenemy Iran. Meanwhile, relations with traditional American allies, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, are cooling. A nuclear deal could further the shift."

www.spiegel.de/international/world/nuclear-talks-with-iran-show-new-us-approach-to-middle-east-a-1026489.html

The news is reporting that a preliminary deal with Iran has been reached.

Hats off to Obama. Historic deal. The longterm conequences might change the relationship between America and some of its allies like Saudi Arabia.

"Mr. Khashoggi, the Saudi editor, argued that Saudi Arabia’s own campaign to push back against Iran without waiting for the Americans was showing signs of success. Saudi Arabian and Turkish sponsors, he said, had backed the coalition of jihadist groups that recently captured the Syrian city of Idlib in the first major victory in months against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

One participant in the coalition was the Nusra Front, the Syrian arm of Al Qaeda, a terrorist group in the eyes of the West. But members of the jihadi coalition “are the ones who captured Idlib, it is an important development, and I think we are going to see more of that,” Mr. Khashoggi said. “Coordination between Turkish and Saudi intelligence has never been as good as now.”

www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/world/middleeast/saudis-make-own-moves-as-us-and-iran-talk.html?_r=0

"Several U.S. allies in the region, watching Iran's growing influence, worry that whatever berth the United States is giving Iran, it goes well beyond the nuclear talks and the fight against ISIS.

Instead, they fear the beginning of a wider détente with Iran that some are calling a "Persian pivot."
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Obama's domestic foes are less diplomatic.

"I heard repeatedly from leaders in the region that they believe we are forming some kind of Faustian bargain with the Iranians which would then lead to great danger to those countries," Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said last week.

"They believe that we are siding with Iran."
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The Saudis are using Yemen to send messages "to Iran and to a lesser extent to us about their lack of confidence in the American security blanket being able to protect them from Iran's machinations in the region," said Stephen Seche, a former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen."

edition.cnn.com/2015/03/31/politics/irans-influence-nuclear-deal/

It looks like the US may be making a deal with Iran, a major regional power, which can create stability and easily finish off Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, Isis and all the rest of them, some funded by rich backers in Sunni countries, as the US begins to pivot towards Asia.

"Balance Of Powers:

Obama's overarching foreign policy goal is to pivot to Asia, devoting greater political, economic and military resources to the Pacific Rim, which would inevitably mean less emphasis on the Middle East.

Many analysts warn that if the U.S. pulls back too rapidly it would leave a vacuum in the world's most unstable region. Still, some argue that if the U.S. wants to shrink its Middle East footprint it will have to work out a strategic understanding with Iran. It doesn't mean that the U.S. and Iran would be friends, but their combined powers could stabilize the Middle East.

"The Levant will likely be in a state of violent and chaotic conflict for decades, much as Afghanistan has been since the late 1970s," global affairs analyst Robert Kaplan wrote recently in The Atlantic. "The more the United States and Iran coordinate with each other, the less chance there is that America will have to put additional boots on the ground in the Middle East."

www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2015/04/02/397081251/the-iranian-nuclear-deal-it-isn-t-just-about-the-nukes

isitmebut this is going way back to the beginning of the thread but the schism between Sunnis and Shi'a has nothing to do with one being more progressive than the other. It started as a dispute concerning how the prophet's successors were chosen, with Shi'a believing that the caliph should be chosen only from within the prophet's family and the sunni majority believing that the closest male in manners, learning and standing in the community should be chosen regardless of ancestry. With time the two sides developed different doctrines but initially the difference was restricted to this one point.

claig I am not sure anyone can say they are 'winning' in Syria given the horrible damage done to the country and its people, though I do accept that Assad is in a better position than he was in last year.

One thing I wanted to add was how much Saudi foreign policy is driven by fear and a sense of vulnerability. They have a longstanding feud with Iran and it has been clear for a while that sanctions on Iran will be lifted and an agreement made.

To the north they have Iraq which is not in control of large parts of its own territory. A couple of months ago some Saudi border guards were shot dead at a border crossing with Iraq which I can't remember having happened before.

To the south they have Yemen which is quickly becoming a failed state. They can take their pick from the shi'a houthis who hate them or sunni alQa'eda who also hate them.

Oman has a very ill leader with no clear heir.

Qatar is positioning itself as a key player in ME politics and openly challenging Saudi interests.

No wonder they are throwing money at Egypt to help them in Yemen.

I am no fan of Saudi Arabia but their view of their position is drastically different to ours. It was only 30 years ago that extremists occupied Mecca and the Holy Mosque.

Anyone else notice how quick the US were to unblock military aid to Egypt when the Yemen campaign started? They didn't even pretend their democratic goals were reached, which is just as well because it was announced today that Egyptian parliamentary elections (which were originally slated for January 2014) have been postponed again until after Ramadan, which means August at the earliest.

I wouldn't describe Egypt as unstable really. There are serious problems in Sinai, which have been ongoing for a while, but there is a very strong centralised state and independent and powerful armed forces which Syria, Yemen, Libya and even Tunisia lack. There are small improvised bombs and occasional attacks on police but it is in no way threatening the state. Sisi is very much in control and the security services are not leaving much to chance.

Egypt's biggest problem, Sinai aside, is Libya which is absolutely a disaster waiting to happen. It is clearly going to get much worse before it gets better and so far no one except for Egypt and the UAE are that fussed. I really hope it doesn't blow up in EU states' faces.

Very good post, alteredimages. Very informative.

'claig I am not sure anyone can say they are 'winning' in Syria given the horrible damage done to the country and its people'

You are right. It is an absolute tragedy what has happened to Syria and its people. I think it is outside forces that have stoked it, funded it and trained it and have prevented an agreement which would have ended the terrible suffering of the Syrian people.

Yes, for a while it has been a proxy war between Saudi and Qatar and Iran. No one really comes out of it well.

What is especially sad is the way Syrian refugees are treated. Here in Egypt they are treated with immense suspicion because of Muslim Brotherhood support for the rebels during the Morsi era. They are all viewed as terrorists and are having a really really rough time. Lots are being picked up and held at police stations without charge for extended periods.

Yes. Russia Today did a half hour documentary on Syrian refugees living in Lebanon. The families work 12 hour days for factory owners who treat them harshly and sometimes don't pay them. Young children work those hours and get no education.

A child of 13 said he can't read and "without being able to read you are nothing" and said that he had hoped he would one day become a doctor, but now he can't read. They have very little to eat.

The mothers decided to return to Syria with their young children and they left the 15 and 16 year old boys to work in the Lebanese factories and to send money home. The boys had to stay because otherwise the whole family would starve in Syria. The women said it is better to die than live like animals in Lebanon.

The tragedy is immense and the war shoud never have started and should never have been funded. But power and politics and money does not care for people's lives.

One day the suffering will end. It can't last forever. Let's hope that day comes soon.