The Arab Spring Disease

Jordan is playing host to the Eager Lion 12 international military exercises, the biggest in Jordan’s history. (AFP)

Over twelve thousand special forces troops representing nineteen countries: Australia, Bahrain, Brunei, Egypt, France, Italy, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Spain, Romania, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States, calling their combined operation Task Force Spartan will all be in Jordan for a two-week period for war games named, provocatively, Exercise Eager Lion 12.

It is particularly provocative if your surname just happens to be Bashar al-Assad whose name, quite coincidentally means "lion".

"Training events such as Eager Lion provide our forces with an opportunity to practise their language skills, immerse themselves in the culture, learn different tactics, techniques and procedures", is the casually reasonable explanation uttered by Major General Ken Tovov of the U.S. Special Operations Forces.

Jordanian officials are quick to deny any possible association with events in Syria, where 9,000 people have died in the last year, resulting from the intransigence of an opposition against the tyrannical regime of President Bashar al-Assad, causing 12,000 Syrian refugees to flood across the border into Jordan to escape the ongoing violence.

A quick survey of the participants includes one surprise.  Given that Hezbollah, central to the Lebanese government - in concert with Iran and the Iranian Republican Guard have their militant emissaries in Syria, aiding and guiding the Syrian military in its efforts to destroy the intentions of the Free Syrian Army to remove the Alawite regime from power in the country and hand controls to the majority Sunni Syrians - the inclusion of Lebanon is a bit of a surprise.

There are those within the group that are somewhat shy of being identified and would prefer not to be for no doubt very sound reasons of their own, even though intrigue is the traditional lifeblood of the Middle East.  The message, however, is there, implicit and clear.  Intervention has an international flavour, should it become necessary, and where else other than possibly Syria, possibly Iran?  All things are possible.

One key player is absent, integral to the drama, but silent, reserved and patiently waiting out the fall-out of the Arab Spring as Egypt continues to be in flux and its potential new Islamist leadership may spell out huge problems for Israel.  Just as the final outcome in Syria may present a problem directed specifically toward Israel as well, should the radical Islamists whom the Syrian regime speaks grimly of also prevail.

Last week the United Nation's special envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, gave warning of impending disaster.  Arms, he stated, are continuing to flood into Syria from Lebanon.  Hezbollah, yet again.  One sees, then, what a tangled web is woven in the Middle East.  "What we see across the region is a dance of death at the brink of the abyss of war", he prophesied.

As for Israel, that nation as always, acts alone.  Not included in Exercise Eager Lion, though her existence hangs on a thread should the entire region indeed cater to war drums.  The IDF called up six reserve battalions to sit on the borders of Egypt and Syria, with another 16 reserve battalions should circumstances prove them required.

In Lebanon, spill-over of the tensions between sectarian interests resulted in gunfights between groups in support of the different factions in Syria, serving as a hint of what might erupt on a wider scale.