The Mideast is stumbling into one of its most dangerous crisis in decades.  I’m just back from the region – and as an old Mideast hand,  I am very worried.

This region is always tense, but right now a series of separate conflicts are rapidly beginning to intersect.   We see the Mideast, North Africa and the Sahara buffeted by revolutions and counter-revolutions.  Old colonial powers France and Britain, and the US,  are trying to reassert their domination in the region. The jihadist are back.

In a brazen act of war, Israel launched airstrikes on Syria last Wednesday in a clear attempt to worsen the crisis in that war-torn nation and challenge Syria’s ally, Iran.  Israel’s forces are on high alert and may invade Syria, whose strategic Golan Heights were seized and annexed by Israel.   Will more Syrian land follow?

Goaded by Israel, Iran thundered “any attack on Syria is an attack on Iran.”   An Iranian general warned Tel Aviv might come under attack.  Hot air, as they say in Farsi.   Separated from ally Syria by Iraq,  Iran’s not very mobile ground forces would be unable to intervene in Syria in any substantial way.  Israel’s air force would devastate any Iranian columns advancing in open terrain.

Iran’s feeble air force is barely operational after decades of crushing embargos by the United States and its allies.    Tehran’s dilapidated warplanes are far more menacing to their pilots than their enemies. Iran’s passenger airliners are flying coffins thanks to the US embargo of new aircraft and spare parts.

The only way Iran could strike at Israel is by firing medium-ranged Shahab-III missiles and a small number of Sajjil-2 solid propellant missiles.   Both are inaccurate.  Their 750-1,000 kg conventional warheads  would only do limited damage – unless they made a lucky hit on  Israel’s heavily defended Dimona nuclear reactor.

Israel estimates that a major Iranian non-nuclear strike would only cause a few hundred casualties. Israel is fast deploying a multi-layer anti-missile system: the Arrow-III, which has shown high hit probability in tests against missile warheads.  The low level Iron Dome system, which had an 80% hit probability against rockets fired from Gaza, and the new, highly accurate David’s Sling high altitude system, and more systems in the pipeline, give Israel’s the world’s most advanced and accurate anti-missile system that could be relied on to knock down a majority of incoming missiles from far-away Iran.

More important,  Israel would quickly counter-attack once its powerful radars (and a US-manned X-band radar based in Israel that can scan Iran) spot missile being launched by Tehran.  Israel has its own arsenal of accurate medium-ranged missiles, armed drones,  its powerful air force, and satellites watching Iran.

How would Israel know that an incoming Iranian missile was conventionally armed and not carrying a nuclear warhead?  Rather than gamble, Israel would probably hit Iran with its own nuclear arsenal, including nuclear-tipped cruise missiles fired by Israeli submarines lurking in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

Iran is not believed to have nuclear warheads – but how can Israel really be sure since it successfully concealed its own nuclear program from the United States.

Meanwhile, Egypt threatens to turn into another Syria.  The chief of staff of Egypt’s armed forces just warned his strife-torn nation is on the “brink of collapse.”  Conservative Arab nations, the US and Britain are fuelling a counter-revolution by Mubarakist forces and Christians.  Egypt’s economy has all but collapsed, igniting violent social unrest. A coup may be  imminent.

Syria is teetering on the brink of national collapse.  The Assad government has no popularity beyond its Alawi base, but half of Syrians don’t want to live in an Islamic state and fear what will happen to them if insurgent forces seize power.  Syria’s economy has almost ceased to function.  This bloody civil war threatens to turn Syria into a larger version of the ghastly 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war that I covered.

Russia is growling in the background.  Syria, recall, is as close to Russia’s southern border as northern Mexico is to Texas.   Washington is underestimating Russia’ growing anger.   Israel is still determined to push the US into war against Iran.  The Turks can’t decide whether to be neutrals or reborn Ottomans.  Caution: danger ahead.

30

copyright  Eric S. Margolis 2013

We saw this same one-dimensional, deceptive reporting recently in Libya that was designed to support foreign intervention. It’s as incomplete today about Syria as it was in Libya which, by the way, is turning into a dangerous mess.

My assessment based on reliable primary sources in Washington, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon:

Support for the Asad family’s Ba’ath regime, now in power for 41 years, is clearly slipping. But important sections of the armed forces, the 17 intelligence and security agencies, the powerful Alawai minority, most Syrian Christians, tribal elements and much of the commercial middle and upper class still back the Asad’s. In spite of intense western efforts to overthrow  him, Bashar Asad, a  mild-mannered former eye specialist, is still hanging on.

The US, Britain, France, and some conservative Arab allies have funded and armed the Syrian rebellion from its start a year ago. In fact, the US has been funding anti-Asad groups since the mid 1990’s. Arms and munitions are said to be flowing to Syria’s rebels through Jordan and Lebanon. Extreme rightwing groups in Lebanon, funded by western and Arab powers and Israel, are playing a key role in infiltrating gunmen and arms into northern Syria.

The Sunni Muslim Brotherhood has once again risen against the Alawi-dominated regime in Damascus. In 1982, this writer was outside the Syrian city of Hama when government forces crushed a Brotherhood uprising, killing an estimated 10,000 people and razing part of the city with heavy artillery.

Enter the jihadis. Recently, small numbers of al- Qaida veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have entered Syria and are using car bombs to try to destabilize the government. Current al-Qaida leader, Dr Ayman al- Zawahiri, has called for all-out war against the Asad regime.

Interestingly, the US, France and Britain now find themselves in bed with the very jihadist forces they profess to abhor – but, of course, whom they used in Afghanistan in the 1980’s and, lately, in Libya.

Add to this dangerous mix growing numbers of local militias in Syria who are battling one another and committing many of the atrocities against civilians, recalling Iraq and Lebanon’s bloody civil wars.

Washington’s key objective in Syria is to overthrow the Asad regime in order to injure its closest ally, Iran. There is so much anti-Iranian hysteria now in the US, that any blow against the Islamic republic is seen as good. Former US fears of a chaotic, post-Asad Syria are now forgotten in the rush to undermine Iran, by destabilizing Syria. Republicans, led by Sen. John McCain, are baying for war against Syria as President Barak Obama tries to hold back the war hawks.

Israel, whose influence in Washington in this election year is unprecedented, is stoking war fever against Syria and Iran. Israel is delighted that the crises with both nations have eclipsed the issue of Palestine and of Syria’s Golan Heights, which were illegally annexed by Israel in 1981. Golan supplies on third of Israel’s total water. Israel’s objective is to see Syria splintered into feuding cantons like today’s Iraq.

France’s right wing, led by President Nicholas Sarkozy’s UMP party, has long desired to re-establish France’s former colonial influence in Lebanon and Syria. The Asad regime in Syria has been a thorn in France’ side for four decades, particularly so in Lebanon, which Syria still insists is a historical part of Syria. France hopes to duplicate in Syria its success in stirring up and profiting from the uprising in Libya.

Russia has been defending the Asad regime and is determined not to be outfoxed in Syria by a false “humanitarian” intervention as it was in Libya. China is similarly cautious. But both are slowly lessening their former staunch support of Damascus as seen by last week’s UN Security Council call for a new peace plan in Syria.

A cease fire is urgently needed. Syria must stop using heavy weapons in urban areas. But outside powers  must also stop supporting violent armed groups that Damascus calls “terrorists.” There are no clean hands in Syria.

copyright Eric S. Margolis 2012

For German translation of above column, please visit: http://antikrieg.com/aktuell/2012_03_26_diegefaehrliche.htm