The Deterrent Effect

That would be the vocally engaged 'red lines'. Bluster and threat is what those in the Middle East do so well. One doesn't expect it from other, western sources, which usually hold their counsel, quietly advise against continued controversial and threateningly destructive acts lest there be certain consequences. Israel, speaking the language of the Middle East, warned of red lines, and when those red lines appeared, acted to obliterate their cause.

The United States found itself in an inconvenient place with its warning of red lines which did in fact appear, and which were a trifle too pale in colour to act upon. Meriting, however, add-on warnings. "Small scale" use of chemical weapons do not equate to wholesale slaughter through the use of sarin gas. Best to wait until that occurs.

And it may; Bashar al Assad is furiously warning that he intends to pass all advanced weapons on to Hezbollah, as best friends are wont to do. And the unrestrained target is Israel.

The trouble with the Middle East and acting on impulse or even compulsion is that it never guarantees outcomes that can be predicted. The worm that turns becomes savagely unpredictable, it grows itself into a serpent of astonishing proportions, well equipped with poisonous venom, liable to strike at any time and with ferocious impulse; best to stand back.

There is the Baathist regime of the Alawite Shia minority led by the chinless Assad who has the eye, the ear, and the voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and behind that, the aggrieved entitlements of Russia which sees no profit to itself in the ascension of an alternate tyranny which will be hateful to Russian interests in the Middle East. Russia battles its own Islamist fascism at home.

While Tehran pours emergency aid and material resources into Assad's conflict (a reputed $12.6-billion thus far, an astonishing commitment for a country being squeezed financially by UN- and US-inspired sanctions). Sending its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to train Syrian national militia, and dispatching its creature militia Hezbollah simply demonstrates its own anxiety over the outcome.

And while Saudi Arabia and Qatar are nervously hedging their bets by funding and arming the rebels they have no love for al Nusra and the al-Qaeda-inspired and -affiliated elements that have flowed to Syria from all quarters of the Islamic jihadist movements erupting wherever tyrants and dictators let down their guard. They may be exponents of Wahhabism and Salafism, but the insurrectionist jihadi brand threatens them as well.

The majority Shia countries like Iran, Iraq or the Shia-led ones like Syria who have unleashed their hesitation to launch sectarian religicide on Sunni majorities will have set in stone for the ages, an unquenchable thirst for revenge that can unbalance the Middle East for generations. The overwhelming numbers of Sunni faithful worldwide could wage an unforgiving war against the minority Shia.

And it will begin in Syria itself, when finally the regime does its inevitable collapse and the ruling Shia hierarchy and its civilian supporters find themselves in the crosshairs of the avenging Sunni, whom no power on Earth will stop in their bid to exact the final revenge, brought to a head by the bloody brutality of a regime that will stop at nothing itself to retain its hold on a power slipping away, long past the potential of a bargain with that particular devil.