I listened to Fareed Zacharia speak with General Dempsey who is head military advisor to the President through the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Military. I think this is probably the most useful conversation that I have heard yet in regard to what is actually going on from a military U.S. strategic point of view. Fareed compared Israel's relationship with Iran to the U.S. relationship with the Soviet Union around 1948. I can speak to this a little because I was born in 1948 and the same kind of thinking in 1948 sort of morphed slowly into something else by 1960 when Kennedy was elected President. For example, Fareed speaks of someone very high in British Government writing in his diary in 1948 that he thought there was only a 1 in 90 chance that Europe would not be destroyed by the Soviet Union then in 1948. So, basically at that time Europeans felt they were dead and the the U.S. might survive the Soviet Union but they wouldn't. Fareed spoke about how Israel feels now a lot like Europe did in 1948 and because of this they might act against Iran. However, the most Israel might do is to slow down Iranian Nuclear activities by at most 2 years.
And the potential fallout to U.S. and Israeli interests if Iran reacts militarily could be catastrophic for Israel and could also bring the U.S. and Iran to war which would stop all oil coming out of the middle east for a long time. So, what I found interesting is just how many different interests are going on and how General Dempsey looked at all this. For example, he said that it is difficult to know who is leading or who is in real charge of the Syrian Liberation Army because of all the factions and independents fighting against Assad's army now. And there are indications of Al Qaeda being one of these factions fighting against Assad. Then you have the Iranian Revolutionary Guard there (incognito) fighting alongside of Assad's troops, now with two Iranian Frigates in a Syrian port. So, what General Dempsey said is that there is also a proxy war being fought now in Syria between Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim nations against Shia Muslims in Syria. So, there is a battleground for Sunnis now to fight Shias in Syria. However, even in Lebanon last week Shias were fighting Sunnis there.
So, the fighting between the Shia Assad Government and the majority Sunni Arab Governments throughout the middle east is growing in strength and ferocity every day with the Sunni Arab Governments fighting by proxy and supplying secretly rifles, rocket launchers and grenades to Sunni fighters in Syria. Then to add to the tensions the Chinese and Russian and U.S. and European interests there and you have a complete mess. So, General Dempsey said that Coalitions need to form around the world to see how everyone wants to deal with the Genocide in Syria of Sunni Muslims now every day. Also, later I heard an ex-CIA agent say on CNN that the Alawite Shia Governing Body of Assad's Government would fight Sunni Muslims to the very last man. So, the future for Syria is not like Libya at least for now. Because of Russia and Iran there likely will be incredible suffering and death in Syria for some time to come, especially of Sunni Muslim families genocided by Russia, Iran and the Assad Syrian Government. Because this appears to be a new Cold War involving Syria, Iran and Russia against Europe, the U.S. and Israel and All Sunni Muslims this has just become about 100 times more internationally serious than it was before. China mostly wants to make sure it can keep its economy moving with enough middle east oil whereas Russia makes more money as a country the higher the prices of oil get since the Russian economy is based upon selling oil by the government.
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