Aiding Assad

"You will not be able to take Damascus by force and you will not be able to topple the regime militarily. This is a long battle. Syria has real friends in the region and in the world who will not allow Syria to fall into the hands of America or Israel."
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah Leader

Actually delusional. What need has the United States or Israel of Syria? There is a substantial and universal humanitarian need for the mutually-deranged hostilities to come to an end, but that is another story altogether. Two sects within the same religion, each convinced traditionally and through their separate heritage that the other is false, representing the insult of heretics maligning the one true religion, determined to obliterate one another.

Hatred that viral has no end other than to wear itself out with each suffering enough deaths to defeat the serpents of revenge and slaughter. Hezbollah is a terrorist group. A religious, political-fascist ideology, trained, supported and weaponized by the Islamic Republic of Iran, a sponsor-state of terrorism, and itself a terrorist enclave, with its basiji and its Republican Guard instilling terror of dissent internally.

Hezbollah is now well and truly established within Lebanon; a government and a military dedicated  to itself and its singular agenda, alongside the legitimate government of the country and its lesser-endowed military, eclipsed entirely by that of Hezbollah. Lebanon, before the advent of Arab terror unleashed because of the presence of an Jewish state by Palestinians determined to destroy it, was once civilized.

Once, Druze, Christians, Sunni and Shia Muslims, and Jews as well, lived together in Lebanon, in the usual semblance of Middle East harmony, balanced on a slender thread of tolerance and acceptance. Jews are now entirely absent, and Christians a dwindling presence, reflecting the general atmosphere elsewhere in the Middle East.

Syria's Christians do not anticipate tolerance by either the Shia Muslims represented by Iran and Hezbollah or the Sunni extremists fighting to unseat Bashar al Assad.

The president of Syria has had his confidence restored, with the greater presence of Hezbollah fighting alongside his own regime's forces, and knowing that he will continue to enjoy the presence of al Quds militias, and Iran's support. Supplemented hugely by the comfort of knowing that Russia maintains its naval fleet within its harbour, and China can be relied upon as well, within the Security Council.

The defection rate from his military has been stemmed. The head of Jabhat al-Nusra endowed him with an enormous favour by publicly allying his group with al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri. An event that made the West, teetering on the brink of supplying the rebel forces with more powerful weapons, flinch in dismay. Whatever is given to the rebels to aid in their resistance against the regime will filter through to the extremists among them.

 

"What do you imagine would happen in the future if things deteriorate in a way that requires the intervention of the forces of resistance in this battle?", Nasrallah taunted. Hezbollah's weapons arsenal is reputed to be powerful, and its growing presence in Syria has drawn reprisal threats from both Syrian rebels and the extremist jihadists among them.

Best case scenario: each confronting the other and battling to the death.

An equal outcome of mutual destruction would be most heartily welcome. Benefiting both the people of Syria and the worried expectations of the international community.

A Syrian rebel aims his weapon during clashes with government forces in the Ezza district of Aleppo