Darius Shahtahmasebi — The Real Reason Israel and Lebanon Are on the Verge of War

You guessed it. Oil and gas.

AntiMedia | OpEd
The Real Reason Israel and Lebanon Are on the Verge of War

Darius Shahtahmasebi

Pat Lang — Hariri resignation - Israeli attack comes next?

Odds of an Israeli attack? IMO - 50%.

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Hariri resignation - Israeli attack comes next?
Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.)
At the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lang was the Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism, and later, the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. At the DIA, he was a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service. He participated in the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates. From 1992 to 1994, all the U.S. military attachés worldwide reported to him. During that period, he also briefed President George H. W. Bush at the White House, as he had during Operation Desert Storm.

He was also the head of intelligence analysis for the Middle East for seven or eight years at that institution. He was the head of all the Middle East and South Asia analysis in DIA for counter-terrorism for seven years. For his service in the DIA, Lang received the Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive. — Wikipedia

Moon of Alabama — Lebanon - Hariri's Resignation - The Opening Shot Of The Saudi War On Hizbullah

More twists and turns in the snake pit. Here we go again.

Yesterday [Lebanese Prime Minister] Hariri was visited in Beirut by Ali Velayati, a top advisor of the supreme leader Khamenei of Iran. The Saudis did not like either. Thamer's plan was set into motion. They sent a private jet and hauled Hariri to Riyadh. There the Saudi clown prince Mohammad bin Salman gave Hariri his resignation statement (written by Thamer?) to be read by him on Saudi TV. 

Irony alert: The Lebanese PM (with a Saudi passport) resigns on order of Saudi Arabia, in Saudi Arabia, on Saudi Arabian TV. In his Saudi written resignation statement (excerpts) he accuses Iran of foreign meddling in Lebanese politics. 

(Hariri also suddenly claims that there was an assassination planned against him in Lebanon. This is nonsense. The Lebanese internal security organization says it has no knowledge of such a plot. Hariri needs an excuse to stay away from Lebanon and from the wrath of his followers. Saudi media are trying to create some fantastic story from that assassination claim. But there is nothing evident to back it up.)

Moon of Alabama
Lebanon - Hariri's Resignation - The Opening Shot Of The Saudi War On Hizbullah

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See also

Fort Russ
"US and Saudi Arabia forced the Lebanese PM to resign in an attempt to counter Hezbollah" - Iranian official
Breakingnews.sy - - translated by Samer Hussein

Also at Fort Russ:

Expert: Hariri's resignation is a sign that Saudis and U.S-Israel are pursuing a disastrous 'Plan B'

Analysis by Marwa Osman, Lecturer at the Lebanese International University and Maaref University and former host of the political show “The Middle East Stream”

The Western version:

Reuters
Lebanon PM Hariri resigns, assails Iran and Hezbollah
Angus McDowall, Tom Perry, Sarah Dadouch

Also

Israel is operating militarily within Syria.

Israel’s military said on Friday it was ready to protect a frontier village in Syria held by the Syrian government, where Damascus said jihadist rebels exploded a car killing at least nine people.

The statement was an unusually explicit Israeli pledge to intervene in the war in Syria, where Israeli officials are voicing deeper alarm at the role of Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, which are fighting alongside the Syrian government.


The Israeli air force says it has struck arms convoys of the Syrian military and Hezbollah nearly 100 times in recent years. Its most recent strike was on Wednesday according to the Syrian government.

Reuters

Israeli military says ready to protect Druze village in Syria

Pat Lang — Hezbollah – Capabilities And Role In The Middle East - South Front

Backgrounder.

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Hezbollah – Capabilities And Role In The Middle East - South Front
Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.), former military intelligence officer at the US Defense Intelligence Agency

It's also noteworthy that SST has reposted Philip Giraldi's 

How I Got Fired

Zero Hedge — US Coalition Attacks ISIS Convoy, Accuses Syria And Russia Of "Terror Transfer"

Calling out US hypocrisy and fake outrage.

Zero Hedge
US Coalition Attacks ISIS Convoy, Accuses Syria And Russia Of "Terror Transfer"

Tyler Durden

See also

AP correctly reports on what Nasrallah said about the deal involving a prisoner exchange, and then muddles it by reporting on "Turkish-backed Syrian forces" that have nothing to do with either Hezbollah or ISIS firing on US troops. 

AP News
The Latest: Hezbollah defends transfer of IS militants

Moon of Alabama — Syria Summary - Towards The End Of The Caliphate

What is left of ISIS, probably some 10,000 fighters in total, is now confined to east Syria and west Iraq. No more replenishment is coming forward. No new fighters are willing to join the losing project. Its resources are dwindling by the day. The U.S. is extracting its assets within the organization. The Euphrates valley west and east of Deir Ezzor will become the last defensible territory it holds. Six month from now it will be defeated. Its Caliphate will be gone.

The other Jihadi project in Syria is run under the various names of al-Qaeda in Syria. It is now mainly confined to Idleb province. The estimated strength is some 9,000 fighters with some 12,000 auxiliary forces of local "rebels". Like ISIS, al-Qaeda in Syria is now isolated and no one is willing to come to its help. Its local helpers will give up and reconcile as soon as the Syrian army will move in on them. The hard-core militants will be killed.

The U.S. has told its proxy "rebels" to give up on their political project. Jordan is sending peace signals towards Damascus. The Syrian President Assad will not be removed and the country will stay under the protection of Russia and Iran. The U.S. still supports the Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria's north-east. But its relation with its NATO member Turkey will always be more important than any national Kurdish project. In the end the Kurds, like others, will have to accept the condition Damascus will set for them.

Moon of Alabama
Syria Summary - Towards The End Of The Caliphate
b

Zero Hedge — CIA Director Mike Pompeo: Trump's "An Avid Consumer" Of Intel, Will "Punish Leakers"

Apparently President Trump is learning the ropes. Which doesn't bode well for peace. America First is likely to remain a campaign promise that DJT will report that he "doing great" on, as in war to end wars.

Much more in the post than the title implies. Of course, Israel is not mentioned but Iran happens to the the arch-enemy of both Israel and Saudi Arabia, which is mentioned. Syria is to be portioned or turned into a Sunni puppet state of Saudi Arabia, and Hezbollah is the only Arab organization to have beaten Israel (in 2006). Go figure.

 They really have it for Iran, and Wikileaks too. Israel and Saudi Arabia! Israel and Saudi Arabia! Israel and Saudi Arabia! USA! USA! USA!

The problem is that Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and leakers such as Wikileaks are not threatening US national security in any substantial way. Their sin is getting in the way of the US elite. 

Why is that a problem. Because then TPTB react in a way that is not completely rational and that means losing touch with reality. When one losses touch, with reality it seldom ends well. And the real problem is that this will affect all living American and Americans for generations to come.

Zero Hedge
CIA Director Mike Pompeo: Trump's "An Avid Consumer" Of Intel, Will "Punish Leakers"

Tyler Durden

Alastair Crooke — Trump Tumbles into Saudi-Israeli Trap

Jared Kushner did his father-in-law few favors when he enticed President Trump into the endless Israeli-Palestinian “peace process.” To this end, as one Israeli journalist put it, Trump’s advisers set up the Saudis to “embrace [him], and do the sword dance around [him], add a huge check for the arms deals – and [in return is expected to] create an anti-Shiite, anti-Iranian axis [around them].”

Yes, the iconic salesman (Trump), was himself sold a proverbial “bridge” (by his son-in-law, fueled by the conceit that having known Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for many years, Kushner was “ideal” for bringing peace to Israel). Trump in Riyadh thus paid full homage to the Sunni narrative that they – the Sunnis – are the innocent victims, and the Shi’a, the dark, nefarious, revolutionary, fifth-columnists, who must be driven back into their “pen.”

Trump has thus declared himself an explicit partisan in the geo-strategic power plays between the region’s northern-tier states and the Gulf states. Instead of remaining distant and “above” these Middle East conflicts, he has allowed himself to be persuaded to do the opposite: to dive in, on the Sunni side (perhaps partly to counterpoint with President Obama’s engagement of Iran).

Why? Well, the dollars (should they materialize), will be useful. But essentially, because Kushner persuaded his-father-in-law that flattering the Saudis and demonizing the Iranians, represented the entry price into the peacemaking process between Israel and the Palestinians, which if achieved, would constitute the Trump foreign policy “legacy” for history.

View from the snake pit: This is deal that is destined to blow up in DJT's face. It's bargaining with the devil.

We have here the eternal problem that the Arab leaders cannot afford to normalize without an Israeli concession to the Palestinians, and the Palestinians in turn will not make a gesture, until and unless, Israel halts settlement building, which the latter will not do.

Another reason to think that this plan will come to nothing (after being spun out as long as possible by Prime Minister Netanyahu) is that, while it is true that the Palestinians presently are weak and divided – paradoxically Netanyahu is even weaker. Any concessions to Abu Mazen, however banal, could bring down his government. Netanyahu’s right-wing sees no reason to make any – even symbolic – concessions to the Palestinians. Why should they? They are on the cusp of having it all....

The Trap

This – the Sunni-Israeli regional Alliance; the renewed peace process – is a trap into which Trump has been persuaded to enter. It is a trap, because once entered into, the peace process becomes formaldehyde to all other political processes. How often have we been told “you can’t do this; you can’t do that” because it might endanger the (vacuous) “peace process.”
A peace process gives Israel huge anesthetic leverage in the region – as always it has so done. It is a trap – because it ties Trump into trying to assuage the Irano-phobia of Saudi Arabia, which will prove to be just as insatiable as are Israel’s “security needs.”

These liabilities will undercut Trump’s possibilities for defeating ISIS and for détente with Russia. Russia has been trying to bring the Shi’a and the Turks to the negotiating table on Syria. Trump’s role was to be to help bring the Sunni side to the table – in order to forge a wider regional settlement. That will be less likely now, as Saudi Arabia levers Trump’s visit towards weakening Iran.

With Trump’s homage to the Sunni cause, it is more likely that the Sunni-Shi’a fissure will deepen, rather than its sore edges be reconciled. And, viewed from a pure realpolitik perspective, does Trump really believe that Saudi Arabia and its allies will succeed in weakening the Russia, Iran, Syria, Iraq and Hizbullah alliance?

And Israel? The writing was plainly on the wall, as we now know, at those post-Six Day War Israeli cabinet meetings. The Americans did warn the Israeli cabinet that it would become progressively harder and harder for America to defend Israel’s hold over the disempowered, disenfranchised and dispossessed (and enlarging), Palestinian people – if Israel insisted on its “winner takes all” end of war policy....

Consortium News
Trump Tumbles into Saudi-Israeli Trap

Alastair Crooke | founder and director of the Conflicts Forum and a former British diplomat who was a senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy 

Pat Lang — Netanyahu does not seem to fear Russia

So, the strike in question was near Palmyra far from the Lebanese border. This supports the belief that the strike was intended to assist IS which is now hard pressed by R+6 forces in that area.

Why should Bibi fear Russia when Israel is the 51st state?

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Netanyahu does not seem to fear Russia
Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.), former military intelligence officer at the US Defense Intelligence Agency

See also

Russia Insider
Israeli Policymakers: ISIS Is ‘Useful Tool’ Against Syria

Matthew Allen

Robert Parry — The Need to Hold Saudi Arabia Accountable

Background that is important in light of Donald Trump's stance on Iran, as well as that of Lt. General Flynn, Trump's choice for National Security Advisor and appointment of General Mattis as Secretary of Defense.

One of Official Washington’s favorite “group thinks” is to insist that Iran is the “chief sponsor of terrorism,” but the reality is that Saudi Arabia is much guiltier and U.S. officials know it, says Robert Parry.…

Parry shows that it is impossible for anyone in the deep state or the military not to know that Saudi Arabia is the chief state sponsor of terrorism and not Iran. Iran is opposed by Israel and the Wahhabi-Salafi Sunni states, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Is Donald Trump either misinformed, or carrying water for Israel?  But if that is so, why would he be backing off replacing Assad in Syria, which IsraelI officials have stated as the number one goal?

Are the generals are also misinformed (which is highly unlikely), backing Israel also, or just uttering a shibboleth as a secret handshake to be admitted to the game.

Consortium News
The Need to Hold Saudi Arabia Accountable
Robert Parry

See also

Some of President-elect Trump’s national security appointees are part of Official Washington’s “we-hate-Iran” group think, raising concerns about another Mideast war, notes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

Trump and His Iran-Haters

Paul R. Pillar

Vijay Prashad — The Battle for Aleppo is Over

Short interview that covers a lot of ground. Video and transcript.

Real New Network

Vijay Prashad: The Battle for Aleppo is Over

Sharmini Peries interviews Vijay Prashad, George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College

Pat Lang — Lebanon is still a mess.

Backgrounder. You can't tell the players without a scorecard.

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Lebanon is still a mess.
Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.), former military intelligence officer at the US Defense Intelligence Agency

Pat Lang — "The Greatest Battle"

The ground game in Syria is heating up since the US, Turkey and the Salafi Sunni States commit more troops, more weapons and more funding to Al Qaeda affiliates.

Hezbollah is in to counter. Is the US plan to draw Russia and Iran in, too? What could go wrong?

Sic Semper Tyrannis 

"The Greatest Battle" — Hassan Nasrallah
Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.), former military intelligence officer at the US Defense Intelligence Agency

nsnbc international — GCC Designates Hezbollah as Terrorists – Deploys Al-Nusrah Against them in Lebanon

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) designated the Lebanese Hezbollah as terrorist organization. Meanwhile, several GCC member States, most prominently Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as Israel use [Al Qaeda affiliate] Jabhat Al-Nusrah  to weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon.…

Hezbollah is a lawfully registered political party in Lebanon that maintains a militia that is lawful according to Lebanese law. Hezbollah is operating in parts of the Syrian Arab Republic with the permission of the Syrian government. It coordinates its military operations in the Syrian Arab Republic with the lawful government, with the Syrian Arab Army and with the Syrian National Self Defense Forces. It does so, arguably, not because Hezbollah or Iran necessarily endorse a secular government in Syria, but because Syria constitutes an important strategic ally for Hezbollah and for Iran.

…Hezbollah is being threatened by the Qatari and Saudi Arabia sponsored Syrian Al-Qaeda franchise Jabhat Al-Nusrah, which has been declared as a terrorist organization by the UN Security Council. Jabhat Al Nusrah is also being supported by Israel, which facilitates Jabhat Al-Nusrah’s access to the Lebanese Bekaa Valley via the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights...

Got that? "Our" state sponsored "terrorists" fighting "their" state sponsored "terrorists."

nsnbc international
GCC Designates Hezbollah as Terrorists – Deploys Al-Nusrah Against them in Lebanon

The Saker — Week Ten of the Russian Intervention in Syria

The “Assad must go” policy implies war with Russia, Iran and Hezbollah

The Unz Review
Week Ten of the Russian Intervention in Syria
The Saker

See also

Fort Russ
Assad wants to negotiate with Syrians, not with foreign mercenaries
RT en Français
Translated from French by Tom Winter

Good backgrounder.

21st Century Wire
SPECIAL REPORT: ISIS Oil? Follow the Money (Back to Europe)

Randy Johnson

Daniel Lazare — The Collision Course in Syria

After Bush's folly in Iraq, Obama's folly in Syria and it far from over yet in both Iraq and Syria with both the future costs on all sides and the ultimate outcome uncertain.

A quarter of a million people would eventually die as a consequence of Obama’s miscalculation, 7.6 million would be displaced, and another four million would be driven abroad, all this in a country of just 22 million prior to the onset of civil war.

To put this in perspective, it is as if 3.6 million Americans had died as a result of a foreign-financed civil war, 110 million had been driven out of their homes, and another 58 million had been forced to flee abroad to Canada, Mexico or whatever other country would take them, where they would have no choice but to beg or perhaps sell ballpoint pens to passers-by in hopes of scratching out a living.

Instead of democracy, the U.S.-led push to overthrow Assad put Syria on the path to catastrophe. Obama could have hit the pause button at any point once it became clear where the effort was going.…

Daniel Lazare outlines how Obama got in bed with the devil.

Daniel Lazare catalogues how this is now spinning out of control.

Consortium News
The Collision Course in Syria
Daniel Lazare

See also

The “War on Terror” – now more than 14 years long – has trapped the U.S. and other nations in the “dark side” of human behavior, a dilemma that is both moral and practical because the continued use of brutal methods has only made the crisis worse, as Nicolas J S Davies explains.

In the Dark on the ‘Dark Side’
Nicolas J S Davies

Tony Cartalucci — Why the West Won’t Hit ISIS Where it Hurts

Those familiar with the Syrian conflict would recognize this section of the Syrian-Turkish border as precisely the boundaries of the long-sought after “safe zone” the US, NATO, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have attempted to establish since as early as 2012. The Paris attacks and several minor border incidents recently reported, seem to be only the latest in a long line of cited provocations this axis has attempted to use to implement its preconceived plans.

This region between Jarabulus and Afrin constitutes the primary corridor through which the summation of Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front and the so-called “Islamic State” or ISIS, receive weapons, supplies, and fresh fighters. Through coordinated efforts between Syria’s Kurds and the Syrian government itself, the rest of Syria’s northern border with Turkey has been sealed. As this process has progressed, the desperation of the Western-led axis seeking regime change in Damascus has increased proportionally.

In reality, regardless of the West’s repetitive platitudes regarding its determination to “fight ISIS,” its actions and the actions of its regional allies have fully illustrated a desire to preserve the terrorist group. Its feigned “war on ISIS” helped open the door to the recent Russian military intervention. With Russia’s entry into the war, the West can no longer afford to drag out its nonexistent operations against ISIS, hoping for an opportunity to finally divide and destroy the country.

Russia and the Syrian Arab Army for whom it is providing air support, have nearly closed the Jarabulus-Afrin corridor themselves. In fact, the week before the Paris attacks, Syrian troops had established a corridor to the besieged Kweires airbase, just 40 kilometers from the Euphrates. Since then, the Syrian military has expanded its control around the surrounding area. Should it reach the Euphrates, along with taking Aleppo and moving northeast from Latakia in the west, Syria will fill the void NATO has long sought to establish its “safe zone” in.

In other words, there is a race between NATO to implement a partial occupation of Syria, and Syria and its allies racing to fill the void before this happens – and the race is nearly over.

The race is on to partition Syria against Russia and Iran who are determined to prevent it.

But that is just the initial objective.

ISIS is not only destined to divide and destroy Syria and Iraq. If the West has its way, the terrorist organization is destined to move into Iran, the Caucasus region of southern Russia, and Central Asia next. It is a proxy army built atop of what the United States and Saudi Arabia accomplished with Al Qaeda starting in the 1980’s, which itself was merely a continuation of the British Empire’s use of Wahabbi fanatics to overthrow its Ottoman rivals over a century ago.

When the West calls this a “long war,” they mean it. And it will be longer still until the people of the West realize their governments aren’t waging a “War on Terror,” they are waging a “War of Terror.”

Russia knows this. Iran knows this. And China knows this.

NEO

Why the West Won’t Hit ISIS Where it Hurts

Tony Cartalucci