The Chaotic Turmoil of the Medieval Middle East

An anti-government protest in Tehran on January 14, 2020. Demonstrations erupted after Iran admitted to unintentionally shooting down a passenger jet last week.

Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

"Aware of the anti-Iranian mood on the Iraqi streets—exemplified by protesters beating their shoes against portraits of Khamenei, just as they had done with former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003—an unnerved Khamenei did not hesitate to intervene."
"Referring to the unrest as a conspiracy orchestrated by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the 'Zionist regime' [Israel], the ayatollah called on forces in Iraq to 'remedy the insecurity and turmoil'—a metaphor that served as a green light for Iranian-backed militias to quash demonstrations in Iraq." "But Suleimani’s fingerprints have been found in other parts of Iraq too. It recently emerged that the day after the protests started, the Iranian general secretly flew to Baghdad to meet with security officials. Suleimani called for a heavy-handed approach to deal with people on the streets, reportedly saying, 'we in Iran know how to deal with protests', an implicit reference to prior violent suppressions of peaceful demonstrations in Iran and, more aggressively, in Syria. The death toll in Iraq surpassed 100 the day after his departure, confirming the power of Iran’s word."
Kasra Aarabi, Foreign Policy

Protesters gather in Baghdad, Iraq, amid anti-government demonstrations on Dec. 10, 2019. Sabah Arar/AFP/Getty Images

"If there was no escalation recently in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their families."
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"In Iraq and in Lebanon, society is rebelling against an entire political class that, while ostensibly sharing power on a multi-sectarian basis, is actually looting state resources and failing to provide the most basic services. The protesters, furthermore, do not want to be part of a quasi-Iranian protectorate. Ominously for Iran, the Iraqi protests spread like wildfire from Baghdad — a mainly Shia city — throughout the Shia heartlands and holy cities of the south."
"In Lebanon, where demonstrations inside the capital have mixed Sunni and Shia, Christian and Druze, the Shia southern suburbs, and other Hizbollah strongholds in south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, have been a sea of Lebanese flags rather than the Party of God’s strident yellow banners. In Iraq, militia snipers as well as security forces have shot protesters, with more than 250 dead. In Lebanon, a tense peace has held — so far. Nobody has forgotten the sectarian bloodletting of the 1975-90 civil war. Thugs from Hizbollah and allied Shia militia Amal have attacked demonstrators."
David Gardner, Financial Times

Iraqi demonstrators take part in one of the ongoing anti-government protests in Baghdad, Iraq, (Reuters)

On Tuesday night, 59 people were arrested in Lebanon, protesting in cities like Tripoli, Sidon, Bekaa and Beirut. Serious injuries to protesters took place amidst riot police, broken windows, ambulances and tear gas. Hundreds of thousands of protesters  have come out since last October to pour through the streets, protesting the government's incompetence and Hezbollah's influence; most of all they raged against the presence of Iranian interference in the country.

Riot police confront anti-government protesters blocking a main road in Beirut, Lebanon © Getty

There have been nothing like the violence of those riots in Iran, though the protests have been numerous and vehemently expressed in viral antipathy against the theocratic government, the Basij and the IRGC preoccupied with their interference in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, while the nation's economy is in freefall as a result of biting U.S. sanctions and Iranians are suffering privation. People on the streets of Iran's cities decry the dictatorship they suffer under and call for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's removal.

In Iraq, a wave of street demonstrations, strikes, marches and occupations begun last October has seen brutal violence causing the deaths of at least 500 protesters, and the injurious wounding suffered by another 19,000, all of which failed to put an end to the protests. Iraq has been coping with its most severe crisis since the 17 years of a U.S.-led invasion and occupation to remove the Butcher of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein which unleashed a sectarian backlash of slaughter.

And then there is Syria and the collapse of a former thriving country whose crumbling into chaotic destruction of its society and its heritage began with a quiet protest by Sunni Syrians over their second-rate status in a minority Shiite-Alawite-dominated regime whose president, Bashar Assad sneered at the 'terrorists' confronting his rule and unleashed chemical warfare, barrel bombs, the targeting of hospitals and schools and markets to convince Syrian Sunnis they have no future in Syria.

Getty Images

The common denominator in these Shiite-led countries is their hegemonic relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran which had set out to form a sectarian alliance of aggressive Islamist strength on its way to achieving power and influence over its Arab, Sunni-majority neighbours. Iranian tentacles throughout the Middle East, from Lebanon and Yemen, Syria and Iraq to Qatar and Turkey has served to roil the geography in an escalating hurricane of Islamist disequilibrium, long predating  the Hellfire missiles from a Reaper drone over Baghdad airport, targeting Qassem Soleimani.

Yet, despite this background of escalating dysfunction, hundreds of thousands of lives extinguished, millions of refugees created, amidst a high-boiling point of distrust and fear born of hatred and vengeance, Western leaders like Canada's Justin Trudeau quail at the prospect of holding Iran to sole and full account for the Quds Force malfunction causing the death of 176 passengers on Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752, killing 57 Canadians of Iranian origin, and countless more Iranian students heading to Canada on student visas.

From Damascus to Beirut, Baghdad to Sanaa, and Gaza included, the Khomeinist regime holds full sway, plaguing the region with its nefarious, violent agenda, exploiting sectarian divisions while continuing to defy injunctions and sanctions against uranium enrichment and technical advancements of the delivery systems in ICBMs. At the same time exhorting its proxies to wreak havoc in the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, while the IRGC speedboats hector and harass shipping in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.

So, in fact, the 'escalation' of hostilities does not rest with the current White House administration which has finally departed in earnest from the folly of its previous resident's disastrous 'agreement' for nuclear deterrence of the JCPOA which Tehran endorsed but never intended to implement, succumbing instead to steeper sanctions imposed by the U.S. when it opted to have its satellite militias bomb U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria, never anticipating that this administration would commit to a 'disproportionate' response, which on reconsideration was entirely proportionately appropriate.