A Conspiracy Against The Shia Crescent?

April 10, 2012

How the Iraqi vice president travel plays into the current conspiracy that tries to destroy the Syrian state is yet unknown, but the coalition involved seems to be the same and that lets me believe that this issue is part of a larger plan against several countries in the Middle East.

The Sunni Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashemi's bodyguards allegedly ran death squads in Baghdad killing Shia pilgrims. An arrest warrant was put up for him but he fled to the mostly independent Kurdish north of Iraq where the Shia led government of Iraq can not assert its rule.

First he seemed to be set to stay there but a few days ago he suddenly started to travel. First on a Qatari government jet to Qatar where he met with the Qatari dictator and was interviewed on the Qatari government station Al Jazeerah. Then to Saudi Arabia where he met the foreign minister. Today he arrived in Turkey to meet the Turkish prime minister Erdogan who himself is just traveling from China to Saudi Arabia after cutting short his economically important visit to Beijing.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are obviously cooperating against the Syrian Allawit led government. (Of interest today on that issue is this Kofi Annan letter to the UNSC.) The same countries now also seem to work on a plan with al-Hashemi against the Shia led Iraqi government. At the same time fresh negotiations about Iran's civil nuclear program are coming up with conditions set by the U.S. that make these talks likely to fail.

There is for some time talk of a Shia crescent. The connection of Shia or associated beliefs rule from Iran to Iraq to Syria to Hizbullah in Lebanon. We now see plots against three of these entities coming together at the same point in time. There recently also was an unconfirmed, and likely faked, sniper attack against the right wing and anti-Shia Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea which I see as an attempt to create an anti-Hizbullah crisis in Lebanon.

I do not regard these various crises coming up as a simple coincident. But I have yet to see a sensible coordinated strategy behind creating them. Is there one?

Posted by b on April 10, 2012 at 18:47 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Yeah, I’m pretty convinced tha

Posted by: alexno | Apr 10 2012 19:09 utc | 1

Yeah, I’m pretty convinced that the Gulf has been funding the current disturbances in Iraq. The Iraqi Sunnis don’t have any energy left to fight the government. It must be foreign jihadis in the service of al-Qa’ida in Mesopotamia.
That said, it means that the Salafis in the Gulf and Saudi are sufficiently obsessed by the danger represented by the Shi’a, to covertly support fighters against the Maliki government.
A grand offensive against the Shi’a is what one must conclude.
I don’t think it is a good idea for Saudi and the Gulf States. Only likely to stir up more their already unhappy Shi’a populations.

Posted by: alexno | Apr 10 2012 19:17 utc | 2

This will not end well…The longer this continues the more exposed the actors behind the scenes become.Tuekey has clearly overplayed their hand. They thought Syria will go down as quickly as Libya did – that was a gross miscalculation. They’ve already set the ball rolling so they must keep playing. How it ends, nobody knows. On one hand Turkey is army rebels and on the other Erdogan is blaming Syria for violence.It’s also now clear there’s an alliance between Turkey and the Sheiks in the Persian Gulf with the US/EU/Israel playing in the background and pulling the diplomatic muscle at the UN. The West is playing on Turkey’s Ottaman ego and slowing pushing them towards war. The ultimate goal, as always is the weakening of Iran..But can they win?
Turkey will end up disintegrated if a war ever breaks out..I hope Erdogan is smart enough to see throw the plot.. Interesting times, indeed. 😉

Posted by: Zico | Apr 10 2012 20:26 utc | 3

zico, you imagine Turkey taking a much stronger hand than they need to. They can follow the Brookings plan, allow weapons to flow in all without moving a diplomatic muscle. Almost any conceivable (democratic) outcome will likely bring to fore a gov’t more closely aligned with Turkey and less with Iran. This is an easy zero sum game between Iran and Turkey. Why not, and it keeps Erdogon in the loop.

Posted by: scottindallas | Apr 10 2012 20:59 utc | 4

Wha!? Huh? Whoa, hamburgermensch. “We have likely seen the last of the threat to the regime.” That was two weeks ago. You said it, bub .
Conspiracy. Seems the Conspiracy Theory is the ready refuge of the chronically incorrect.

Posted by: slothrop | Apr 10 2012 22:21 utc | 5

Conspiracies happen

Posted by: brian | Apr 10 2012 22:26 utc | 6

Of course the elite powerfuls coordinate their efforts, or conspire.

Posted by: Alexander | Apr 10 2012 22:47 utc | 7

@slutthrob: What exactly is false, falsified or invented, hero?

Posted by: m_s | Apr 10 2012 23:05 utc | 8

God damnit… I wrote a really long comment only to press backup on the wrong tab and lose the whole thing. Don’t have the heart to try writing it all again 😀
Basic jist: The one thing that binds the US-Iran confrontation, Arab Spring, Sunni-Shia violence, and even the Israel/Palestine issue, all together is a single tectonic shift. The collapse of the US order in place since the Suez Crisis of 1956.
Whether it is “the Shia Crescent” falling to Anti-American forces over the last 30 years (the Iraq withdrawal being the latest), or the “Arab Spring” knocking down US puppets across North Africa last year. All the signs point to US roll-back in the entire region. I presume there is not a single country on the entire Middle East map that anyone can point to and say US influence is gaining or even holding steady. Even Saudi King Abdullah is furious with Obama over Mubarack and going rogue.

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Apr 10 2012 23:17 utc | 9

B,
This conspiracy always existed. Shias were always sidelined. The rise of the #IRI and Hezbollah changed this fact so much so that Saudi Arabia had to beg the US to ‘cut the head of the snake’ (Wikileaks revelation).
It is a shame that the pretenses of an awkward and reactionary theocracy drive policy in the ME.

Posted by: Sophia | Apr 10 2012 23:23 utc | 10

There’s going to be a whole lot of shit in the air up til the election in Syria, but I bet their going to pull it off anyway. Assads party won’t let the election be jeoperdized by some western stubbornness, the west knows they have failed, and any prolonging of this conflict is only going to shed blod, not fail the Syrian government. I wonder how and where Israel is going to free up more territory where they can intervene and annex. For now they will probably have to go full on for the west-bank, and postpone any plans for Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi-Israelia and Libya.
By the way, the No-fly-zone in Libya was quite a surprise even for some NATO-countries. When the term “No-Fly-Zone” was used, not everyone were prepared for NATO-planes to fly over Libya, and bomb Gadafhi-positions. Russia and China certainly was not pleased by the NATO definition of no-fly-zone.

Posted by: Alexander | Apr 10 2012 23:48 utc | 11

” I’m pretty convinced that the Gulf has been funding the current disturbances in Iraq. The Iraqi Sunnis don’t have any energy left to fight the government. It must be foreign jihadis in the service of al-Qa’ida in Mesopotamia…”
It is very likely that the Sunni uprising against the US occupation was always supported from Saudi and GCC bases. It is hard, for me, to understand it but there seems no doubt at all that, whether it be in Afghanistan, en route to the WTC in hijacked airliners, in Libya, Syria, Lebanon or Iraq the Saudi kleptocracy is never very far either from al qaeda or the US government. It backs both sides in the interests of chaos. In Palestine it does the same thing, supporting Israel and Abbas, while being akin with hamas.
As to the US: plotting regime change is what it does. It has been doing it in Latin America for 200 years, in the rest of the world since 1945. It can’t stop itself. It is addicted to changing other people’s governments.
And like all addicts it has long since ceased to have any connection with reality. Did it need to overthrow Noriega? No. Did it need to invade Grenada? NO. Was there any reason to attack Ghaddafi, just when he had learned to lick their boots? No. Does it make sense to attack Syria? Not really. Is there any point in attacking Iran? What good did invading Iraq do?
It is irrational but it will go on. Until one day, perhaps next week, perhaps in 2030, it has to be fairly soon, a nuclear power, Russia or China, or both huddled together as they face down the dreaded bully, realising that they are coming up soon on the list of regimes to be done in, tells the US that the madness has to end.
Until then: Syria is doomed, which is what Turkey recognises, to become another Libya or Iraq or, more likely, another Somalia.
From the Russian and Chinese point of view, however, it is tempting to watch the US making enemies and committing forces, building bases and swimming into quagmires until it so weakens itself that it does not need to be confronted.
What makes this dance of death most interesting is that the United States’ regime change programme has been successful enough in the past to ensure that when it goes down so too will western Europe, the whole pretence that the EU could be an alternative having slowly dissolved as its member states revealed their real lap dog natures.
What is ending is a 500 year old Empire founded upon the looting of America, whose defenders had been paralysed by disease and overwhelmed

Posted by: bevin | Apr 10 2012 23:59 utc | 12

There is no more coherent certain the international response to the Syrian crisis, then there is a coherence to the native opposition to the Assad regime.
And if there is one thing that a conspiracy theorist needs, above all else, is coherence.

Posted by: slothrop | Apr 11 2012 0:12 utc | 13

Hillary Clinton and USA has coherently pushed for regime change in Syria for at least a year. The Assad government was on a path to a western legitimacy rivaling the Israeli position of “only ME democracy”.

Posted by: Alexander | Apr 11 2012 0:21 utc | 14

Sophia @ 10: Somewhat OT… never seen/read “Les Politiques” linked by your sig, thought your FP article there: “Are we headed for a Bay of Pigs in Iran?” was… excellent. The parallels are… parallel.
You said there you were in White House during Carter’s Iran episode: I assume you’d sign w/full name if you wanted, nevertheless… I’m curious if you are known by real name out here on the web?
WRT your comments in above article by various “names”, all predicting imminent Israeli military action against Iran… you mention Jeff Goldberg. In line w/B’s comments of late on Guenter Grass’ poem and the fuss about it, Bloomberg gave Goldberg some real estate today, in which to tie Grass neatly together w/his “complicity” in the holocaust, with Iran’s current desire to “destroy” Israel (remember the Holocaust!), and… particularly annoying to me, Goldberg’s assertion of Israeli innocence intruding upon other nations foreign affairs.
(just thought you may be interested)
…
“We were borne with feet, roots. We were meant to
be mobile”.
Buckminster Fuller

Posted by: jdmckay | Apr 11 2012 1:42 utc | 15

Sorry, posted this link on the wrong thread. The PNAC folks haven’t gone away, they’re embedded still in the U.S. halls of influence and power.
http://www.reasoned.org/e_pnac.htm

Posted by: ben | Apr 11 2012 2:57 utc | 16

well, the unknown unknowns are clear – how would Iran react to an Israeli strike, would they walk into an escalation
like this doomsday scenario – in German – Benny Morris threatening the Iranian people with nuclear extinction in 2008
http://www.welt.de/politik/article2230158/Stehen-Israel-und-Iran-kurz-vor-einem-Atomkrieg.html
or would Gazan groups and Hezbollah attack, and how is the situation in Sinai?
What does the destabilization of Syria mean for the Golan heights?
It is no accident that there was a “testing” of the Iron Drome after Netanyahu returned from Washington, and an Israeli general? politician? said the aim was to regain military manouverability.
fact is Gazan groups (look up the tiny stretch on the map) had rockets that brought the economy of half a million Israelis (if not more) to a standstill, and they did not really aim at anything and are supposed to have used the lesser stuff.
never mind what friends of Iran – not Iranian troups – could do to the US army in Iraq and Afghanistan.
now, international law has become quite hollow, but I do not think it is in any book strategic or otherwise to shoot the owner, whilst you get bitten by the dog, so where to go from there …?
basically there has been a war all those years, trying to get rid of Iranian allies, which is difficult as Israel has no friends in the neighbourhood,
and will not be able to emotionally blackmail the US or Europe into an alliance both have no interest in.
US foreign policy is disfunctional but not that disfunctional.
So if there is an attack on Iran, it will be the US that decide that, which might let the dog it feeds from the leash to get killed in the fight as the other side has its own well trained attack dogs, and it will not be the US that get counterattacked, but Israel.
Netanyahu is telling lies about this, it must be clear in Israel though. It is no surprise they are hysterical. As the alternative is to negotiate, and that means they will have to acknowledge all those international laws that will be the end of the Zionist project.
Re Syria – the destabilization of Syria is completely stupid, as the weaker the Syrian regime is, the more dependent it is on Hezbollah and Iran, the less it is able to act its own national interest ie. keep out of a regional war. I think there has been some fusion of Hezbollah and the Syrian army along the Syrian border after the last war.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 11 2012 7:59 utc | 17

Unless Israel plans on grabbing more Syrian land.

Posted by: Alexander | Apr 11 2012 9:21 utc | 18

B,
Have a read of this – plans for Hezbollah are in motion by GCC (Qatar is been kept at bay by the Saudis – Khaleeji Arabs, have to make you laugh!):
“Examining Qatari-Saudi Relations
German newspaper Die Welt recently reported that Saudi Arabia held a meeting with fellow Gulf States to discuss what should be done to counter increasing Hezbollah activity – but it did not include Qatar in the discussions. The clear implication was that Saudi Arabia’s elite do not appear to trust their Qatari counterparts in respect to sectarian issues”
http://thegulfblog.com/2012/02/28/examining-qatari-saudi-relations/
Any thoughts?

Posted by: Irshad | Apr 11 2012 12:02 utc | 19

19, “any thoughts?” yeah, don’t fuck with Hebollah or Nasrallah.

Posted by: scottindallas | Apr 11 2012 13:58 utc | 20

You just noticed? Remember, the initial neo-con plan, which they expressed quite freely, was basically to make war on everything between the Mediterranean and China: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan (in the process weakening Pakistan). It looked for a while like the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan had ended that glorious vision, but two things prevented it from winding down:
1) The Iraq disaster, far from ending the neo-con vision, forced its continuation. By creating a power vacuum in Iraq, the US must be drawn more heavily into the region, and genuinely fears that Iran could actually assert itself in Iraq and become a major regional power like it hasn’t been in centuries.
2) The Arab Spring created cracks and opportunities to finally take down Syria (and a fear that Syria might fall on its own to the Muslim Brotherhood, therefore requiring US management of the process). This, while an independent goal, would of course aid the other two major goals of taking the war to Iran by eliminating its chief regional ally, and of course isolating Hezbollah so Israel can launch its last great war to wipe them out.
The neo-cons launched this cresent strategy (they called it the Arc of Instability, but Shia Crescent works fine for now), and the fact that we’ve travelled so far down this road effectively forces the Obama Administration to continue the same strategy, whether or not he actually embraces the neo-con ideals, strategies, or goals. As is so often the case, what Obama might want personally is meaningless, the US government is trapped by its own strategic decisions.

Posted by: Bill | Apr 11 2012 15:28 utc | 21

some people never learn, just google “Shia strategy”
from 2003
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/361ssuxr.asp?page=3
Regarding the Iranian “threat” to the new Iraq, Khomeini has been dead for 14 years, and “Khomeinism” is slowly but surely passing away before our eyes, as the new generation in Iran pushes the national leadership toward a goal similar to that of the Iraqi Shias–a “civil society” within a nonreligious state. Even leading clerics like Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, designated successor of Khomeini, have declared the experiment in Islamic rule formulated by the latter a failure. Rather than fear Tehran, we should anticipate that a democratic Iraq in which Arab Shias exercise a significant influence will provide an incentive for the consolidation of the reform process in Iran. After that may come major steps in a Saudi transition to a constitutional and parliamentary monarchy. Liberating Iraq, applauding reform in Iran, and assisting the subjects of the Saudi kingdom in dismantling the Wahhabi terrorist network, as well as removing the Wahhabi ideological monopoly over Mecca and Medina, means facilitating the definitive entry of the Arab and Muslim world into the global system of pluralism, capitalism, prosperity, and stability.
The beginning of such a transition also means that America can fulfill its promise as a liberator, making clear to millions of Muslims that we have turned a page in our history, and will no longer support corrupt regimes in the name of immediate interests or the amoral principle of loyalty to our putative friends, no matter who they are or who they kill. That kind of thinking led us straight to September 11, when the products of the Saudi-Wahhabi order demonstrated that 60 years of accommodation to the Saudis had only made it easier for them to strike at our heart.”
and then this
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/shia-backlash-wrecks-us-strategy-1-1396866#
Bill, the US government has no “strategic decisions” they are muddling through …

Posted by: somebody | Apr 11 2012 16:13 utc | 22

if the US government has made no “stategic decisions”, would you like to comment on israel’s strategic decisions?

Posted by: retreatingbladestall | Apr 11 2012 16:30 utc | 23

seems to me like there’s a pretty clear path… anyone can trace it from decades back…
the neocons, consulting with israel, draw up a plan, and that plan is being followed, and i’d imagine there’s a few of us that are getting bored with your attempts to obscure that plan.

Posted by: retreatingbladestall | Apr 11 2012 16:35 utc | 24

battle lines being drawn… you cant sit on the fence forever, you cant even fake sitting on the fence.
sooner or later, you will declare yourself, whether you want to or not.

Posted by: retreatingbladestall | Apr 11 2012 16:42 utc | 25

retreatingbladestall, you leave out a simple point – what or who are those contradicting plans for – if I lived in Israel now, frankly to feel safe I would leave if I could.
These plans are the fantasies of think tanks drawn up on green tables, in competition against each other, to justify the salaries they get and to further their careers. They have no interest in any outcome.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 11 2012 17:36 utc | 26

well, yes, i agree.
there’s no such thing as zionist jews, and the whole works is nothing more than a scheme to preserve mobs at the AEI.

Posted by: retreatingbladestall | Apr 11 2012 17:41 utc | 27

idiot

Posted by: retreatingbladestall | Apr 11 2012 17:42 utc | 28

it just gets tiresome, you know?

Posted by: retreatingbladestall | Apr 11 2012 17:58 utc | 29

it would be fitting if syria allowed weapons to flow into turkey to aid the kurds…Turkeys Erdogan must be aware his country has its very own ‘rebels’ just waiting to receive aid

Posted by: brian | Apr 11 2012 21:57 utc | 30

@brian, do you mean harbor PKK rebels the way Hafez Assad did
for more than 10 years?
Syria harbored PKK bases, and PKK command, both in its protectorate in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley and in Damascus. So this would be nothing new.
🙂

Posted by: kodlu | Apr 12 2012 3:32 utc | 31

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