... that is a small minority in Syria) Bashar al-Assad and is controlled mainly by Alawate Shiites. It is backed by Shiite Persian Iranians and the Arab Shiite Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Sunni Muslims, in general, do not like Shiites, and that is an understatement; many Sunnis do not even consider Shiites to be Muslims. That is why so much money from rich Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar is going to fund, train, arm, and equip Sunni jihadist extremists like ISIS to go fight Assad’s regime, and this has been the case for a while now. It is part of the reason why the Syrian Civil ...
... incompatible to the other, have accomplished nothing and seem all but certain to go nowhere for the foreseeable future, the focus on ISIS and on chemical weapons has obscured the fact that the Assad regime and the war in general slaughters civilians on a mass ... ... opposition, 3.) has been very lightly involved compared with other major international meddlers in this conflict (e.g. Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, the Gulf states…), and 4.) since the overall post-2003 Iraq mess, for which the U.S. does bear a majority of overall responsibility,...
... here’s what we can expect:
1.) America will try very hard to distance itself from the Gulf.
It’s amazing that it’s taken us so long to realize how much our... ... back to haunt us: though Joe Biden recently got in trouble for saying so, support for ISIS and other Islamic extremists and terrorists from very wealthy individuals motivated... ... pariah within the Western world.
4.) There’s a good chance for a thaw/deal with Iran in the near future.
More than any president since the Iranian Revolution in 1979...
