Arming the Syrian rebels is a sordid business that makes me deeply uncomfortable. While I am generally supportive of Secretary of State John Kerry’s effort in the Middle East, there are worrying signs. I don’t think that Martin Indyk is the right choice to serve as envoy to the Israel-Palestinian talks, and getting the European Union to classify Hizbollah as a terrorist organization is only going to increase the Shiites’ and Alawites’ sense of besiegement. I’m also not sure what to make of Iraq’s move to initiate direct talks between the U.S. and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program.
The situation in Egypt is growing sketchier by the day, and moderate leaders in Tunisia are getting gunned down in the street.
Two important persons here in my home town are a woman from Syria who runs a restaurant and her husband, Jim Abourzak, who was a US Senator-D from SD for one term in the 1980s. SD has probably had more senators of middle-eastern ancestry than any other state – Abourzak (D) and Abnor (R).
I have spoken to the wife about Syria a number of times. She is a Syrian christian. She is a woman who runs the restaurant – for herself. So she is a “liberated” person.
She is totally for al-Assad. She notes that 1) women have rights, and if the islamists win, back to the chador; 2) christians can survive. We have seen in Egypt that the Christians were taking it in the chin after the Muslim Brotherhood took over. Iraq has suppressed women, Iran, etc. Say whatever you wish about Islam, but it has a bad record when it comes to women’s rights. It is a religion which allows polygamy, and that creates a systematic need to keep men in the driver’s seat; 3) non-majority folks have power. Some would say too much, and I am no fan of al-Assad and his blood-thirsty wife.
I don’t support either side.
Syria had an ecumenical society and culture. But that’s done now, whether Assad stays or goes, the old Syria is dead and gone.
Likely correct.
The bigger question is why Islamic societies in this time go immediately to the most draconian, exclusivist, and intolerant Talibanist approach to governance. Jews are immediately at risk. Christians are barely tolerated. Shiites and Suunies kill each other, and other minor sects are also at risk.
Historically, this is not the pattern. Iraq had a flourishing Jewish quarter. Christians were welcomed. Many religions were tolerated, and practiced openly.
What was/is the sea change in Islamic attitudes/thought/policy that produced this unfortunate outcome?
The Saud Family isn’t throwing its money around to liberalize Islam. And a good deal of that money came over the decades from the gas pumps fueling our Camaros. When they build a school somewhere it makes Southern evangelical schools look liberal. This is essentially a spread of Islamic fascism, which isn’t surprising since the roots of the Brotherhood go back to WWII and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who spent much of the war in Berlin. Unfortunately, our foreign policy in that region is to control the oil, and so our military’s job is to put in place regimes that keep that oil coming. If I were investing, I’d say head to toe leisure wear for the women of Afghanistan would be a good one.
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Has been part of my many diaries about the Syria crisis. Saudi Royal family supports the Salafists and Wahhabist form of Islam. Qatar as supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood has been soundly beaten in Morsi’s Egypt with liability for Hamas in Gaza, Erdogan’s Turkey and the leadership in the Syrian National Council (SNC). Fortunately for Israel, the Arab Nationalists and later the extreme Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt were divided by great animosity. The legacy of the US intervention in Iraq has spurned the Sunni – Shia conflict and the Arab uprising led to a division between Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar. A sort of self-defeating policy in the Arab States of North Africa and the Gulf region. In Tunisia and Libya (Benghazi) the Salafist militants do the important assassinations of any party they deem to be their enemy. Morsi’s problem as President was the party doctrine and his ties to Hamas in Gaza. Morsi faces a trial because it were Hamas militants who freed him from jail in 2011 and were responsible for the deaths of Egyptians.
See my diary – The MB Axis Egypt – Turkey – Qatar Faces Defeat.
Good stuff, Oui. Thanks.
For a long time, Islam had the most advanced culture and strongest military, and then the Enlightenment happened in Europe, the Ottoman’s picked the wrong horse in World War One, and BAM! they suddenly became victims of a foreign culture that had massively superior technology. So, first they went for imitation (Attaturk) and then they tried adopting various European ideologies whether they were fascist, communist, socialist, nationalist, or whatever. They tried Pan-Arabism. None of it worked, so Islam became the vehicle of choice. It’s a familiar thing. The Old Testament is just a story of the Jewish people periodically deciding to take their religion more seriously in an effort to stop some ongoing calamity.
Probably the success of the Iranian Revolution in keeping both the West and the Soviets at bay was the primary driving force in the appeal of Islamism as the righteous resistance to various tyrants.
As for the Sunni/Shia divide, for a long time it was much more of a problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan than it was in the Arab world. But George Bush’s excellent Iraqi adventure upset the apple cart. It didn’t help that both Iraq and Syria were upside down societies in which the minority sect held all the power.
I also think that the Saudis, with the approval of the U.S., created a lot of the problems we’re seeing when they decided to weaponize their Wahhabi version of Islam to fight the godless communists.
On the whole, though, this is just a hangover from colonization and the humiliation the Muslim world has felt over the last couple of centuries.
There’s an interesting book called Aristotle’s Children which follows the complex debate that ensued in the church when the Greek classics were rediscovered. Basically, they tried like the dickens to get rational thought/scientific inquiry and religious faith to align in a coherent system, but they ended up just having to separate them and assign them to different realms of human endeavor, at which point religion lost a lot of power and science began its ascendency. The Islamic world accurately perceived that for religion to maintain its dominance, it was all or nothing, so the scholars were snuffed out and the head start that the Islamic world had in science evaporated. In the west, the scientific thinkers came largely from learned folk inside the church itself, so you couldn’t really snuff them out without snuffing out the church.
While some of what you say makes sense, the Ottoman “backing of the wrong horse in WWI” suggests that you delve deeper into WWI and the Ottoman history.
The Ottomans were actually a client of Britain somewhat before WWI. Britain backed the Ottomans to keep the Russians away from the Bosporus strait. The Russians were always interested in Istambul because they have no warm-water port in the West save the Black Sea, and Istambul is the key to the Black Sea. The Ottomans were somewhat coerced into the Central Powers side by the Germans, who pushed the issue early in August, 1914, by several German warships who sought refuge. The entire thing was decided by one guy, the port supervisor of Istambul, who authorized the use of the Bosporus harbor by the Germans.
That’s interesting, but it doesn’t change the outcome for the Ottoman Empire.
It should be noted the Ottomans were on the uptick again in their final century. Had they won the 1877 war (a near thing) things might have been very different.
Dataguy, this tendency toward religious extremist power is hardly limited to “Islamic” societies. The constantly increasing power of religious extremists is a huge concern in Israel even for less extremist Orthodox Jews. In one small example extremists in Beit Shemesh have finally succeeded in driving out of the city a conservative Orthodox woman and her family, visible for her opposition to the Haredis’ behavior. Orthodox Jews I know who live there have been battling very hard against the takeover of their city by extremist elements, and they don’t seem to be winning. This kind of thing is happening throughout Israel, and religious extremists are gaining power in the government as well.
Any liberal or progressive American who does not see a threat in the growing political, economic, and social power of extremist Christians and their organizations has their head in the sand (or up a part of their own anatomy).
When it comes to the Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – freedom in general and especially minority and Women’s rights rise or fall in inverse proportion to the prominence and power of religious extremism. It doesn’t matter which religion it is.
Religious extremism is on the rise pretty much all over the world. There are even Buddhist extremists, and I have seen reports of “Buddhist violence”, as odd as that might sound.
So, don’t single out Islam. It’s happening pretty much everywhere, and it is a very dangerous trend.
Your points are well-taken. The extremists in Israel appear more and more like the extremists in Islamic religious cultures every day. Suppression of women, refusal to allow women to come into contact with men, attacking women – it’s all there in Jewish religious fascists as well as Islamic ones.
No one in the US appears to notice this except a very few.
Thank you for your expansion of my point.
You refer to the Burma anti-Muslim Buddhist attacks.
The Sri Lankan Buddhists invented modern suicide bombing IIRC.
You must be referring to the Tamil Tigers, considered one of the best-organized, and brutal terrorist groups in the world. True, they invented modern suicide bombing, but if memory serves Tamils, and the Tamil Tigers are predominantly Hindu. I was told years ago by Tamils who support the Tigers that the group consists of mostly Hindus with some Buddhists, and Christians. There are no Muslims among them, which might explain why hardly any Americans have ever heard of this particular terrorist group.
And speaking of the invention of terrorist techniques, it is a little-known fact that the Zionists invented car bombs, and airplane hijackings.
That’s right, it was the Buddhists that cornered them. I have not been the closest watcher of the Tigers. I am more interested in the historical Dravidian kingdoms (Cholas) and the colonial history of Sri Lanka but there is some overlap.
I only found out what I did about the Tigers because I wanted to hear some background about them, their history, religious composition, and so on. I went straight to the source and located a group of Tamil who support the Tigers, and interviewed a few of them. So, while I’m far from an expert I do consider what information I have to be pretty reliable.
Buddhist terrorists – what a concept!
Dataguy, just to counter any misunderstanding that might have been caused by your reference to the “Jewish quarter”, while there were “Jewish quarters” (and Armenian quarters, and other quarters) in major cities, they were emphatically NOT “ghettos”, and Jews were generally well-integrated into the society, professionally economically, intellectually, artistically, and socially. Jewish homes were distributed throughout the city, and not confined to the Jewish quarter.
What initially changed the relatively good situation for Jews in the Muslim world was political, and had nothing to do with religion. It was all about the events in Palestine, which contrary to current impressions was not a conflict between religious groups, but a conflict between western colonizers bent on taking over the land for themselves, and the indigenous peoples (including no small number of Palestinian Jews).
The rise of classical European anti-Semitism in the Muslim world is a very recent phenomenon, as is the transformation of a conflict over territorial and national rights into a pseudo-religious conflict. In the ’70’s by and large Arabs, Muslim, Christian, and “other” were careful to make a distinction between our opposition to Zionism and its results, and Jews.
In general the problems faced by Jews in Muslim lands were far less at the hands of their fellow citizens than at those of their governments, and boiled down largely to the “dual loyalty” question. The “dual loyalty” concern seems to exist pretty much everywhere there are Jewish citizens, and is something we have heard about quite frequently in the United States and other western countries, so was hardly confined to Muslim countries. For the record, I think it is as silly to accuse Jewish citizens of “dual loyalty” as it is to accuse Arab or Muslim citizens of being terrorist-sympathizers.
Hurria, that’s interesting, but what do you mean that Arab antisemitism is a very recent phenomenon? Is 3-4 decades in the past recent? While traveling for a couple of months through Morocco in the late 70’s, I met many Moroccans from all levels of society, from Berbers to the upper -class western educated elite. While friendly and welcoming toward westerners, it was my impression that all were strongly antisemitic; ‘jew’ was a curse word. (Their attitude toward women was also, put kindly, fairly medieval.)
First, clearskies, let’s be clear that I was referring specifically to classical European anti-Semitism, a western Christian invention that historically was rejected by Arabs when western missionaries tried to introduce it into their thinking (there are specific references to this in literature, missionary diaries, etc.). The best-known instance of this that I am aware of took place in Damascus during the 18th or 19th century – sorry, just don’t remember the exact period right now, and no time to look it up.
Classical European Christian anti-Semitism is of a different basis and nature than anti-Jewish attitudes based on the actions and effects of Zionism and Israel. Some people would argue that anti-Jewish is anti-Jewish is anti-Jewish, but I tend to believe that knowing what is behind a belief or attitude affords a chance to change it, and attitudes based on a distorted view of reality are easier to change than those based in religious belief. I have experienced this myself with a number of young Palestinians whose anti-Jewish beliefs and attitudes were almost exclusively based on the fact that their sole direct and indirect experience of Jews was horrifically negative. I was able in a number of cases to help them slowly change those attitudes by pointing out counter-examples of Jews, including Israeli Jews who did not fit their perfectly-understandable negative images. It’s also true that the Qur’an is very specific about respecting “people of the Book” – the book being the Bible – which include Jews, Christians, Mandaeans (a small sect for whom John the Baptist is Prophet), and a few others. The Qur’an actually speaks of the commonality with Jews and Christians in particular, and the value of the Torah and the Gospels.
Second, Berbers are not Arabs, and most Berbers are quite unhappy at the suggestion that they are. 🙂
Third, Moroccans should not be taken as typical of Arabs or Muslims. It surprised me to find out how “conservative” (I’m being “nice” here) they are toward a lot of things, especially women and non-Muslims. I would have thought that given the proximity of Morocco to Europe, and the heavy European influence in its history they would be more “western”. Believe me life for women in places like Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and other Arab countries is (or was in the case of Iraq) nothing like in Morocco.
I first started hearing about classical European anti-Semitism in the Arab world around the 80’s, so it probably bagan to rear its ugly head somewhat earlier than that.
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Wikipedia is a poor choice because of biased edits on anti-semitism in Europe and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Netherlands had a large and prosperous Jewish community that was in the Dutch tradition of an open and religious tolerant society during the Golden Age. Of course, the Dutch treated the indigenous people poorly in the Far-East colonies which they robbed of its riches. But during the Spanish Inquisition, many Jews came to the low countries and settled in thriving commercial districts of Brussels, Antwerp and Amsterdam. The diamond industry is a well-known part of both Amsterdam and Antwerp in Belgium. I recently wrote about the Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam, an amazing story of survival and support by the Amsterdam community. [website] The purge of Jews during the German occupation 1940-1945 from Holland was in large part due to the extensive personal data stored in the administration of towns and cities. (A major reason of my opposition to NSA/GCHQ and Prism data storage)
Anti-semitism has become more complicated after 9/11, Bush’s War on Terror and Israel’s war on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. After the murder of Theo van Gogh and the assassination of politician Pim Fortuyn, Dutch society has dramatically changed for the worse. The Dutch has become intolerant against the Muslim population, far worse than the minor transgression against Jews. The deep divide over Israel and Palestine plays a major role. The Jewish (Likud) lobby group CIDI has to bend over backwards to get enough “data” to show anti-semitism in The Netherlands. The Dutch top soccer club Ajax in Amsterdam call themselves “Joden”[ie Jews] and wave the Israeli flag during the matches. Any hassle between the crowds around the games are counted as “anti-semitism”.
From a recent comment of mine:
“The intolerance of Turkey towards homosexuals, lesbians and Christians is well demonstrated by their rhetoric. Inside the Netherlands, the state has accepted a large group of immigrants and family members from Muslim nations. At 15% of the population, their culture is a large part of multicultural society in The Netherlands. The nationalists of which Geert Wilders is most outspoken (paid for by US Likudniks), agitate against the Muslim population. Racism is spreading in Dutch society and the Muslim youth are revolting and brought the Israeli-Palestinian issue inside Dutch cities. Racists remarks towards the Muslim population and their youth with anti-semitic remarks towards Jews, synagogues and monuments.”
Oui, I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out how this relates to what I wrote. Could you clarify, please?
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I know, I probably went off on a tangent.
I fully agree on your comments about the root cause of anti-semitism in Medieval Europe (Christianity) and the lack of it in the Islamic regions of the world. I was trying to find out about the phases throughout history where the Jewish people in Europe could live their lives and under what circumstances they were persecuted. I looked through Wikipedia, but I know of recent analysis these topics are edited for a very biased view, so I wanted to post about my country The Netherlands which was known for its religious tolerance.
This all changed during the German invasion and occupation 1940-1945, the death camps and the creation of the State of Israel. The ensuing Arab wars, US vetoes at the UN Security Council, using oil as a diplomatic weapon in 1973 and further development of the Gulf region was a major power changer in global politics. The immigration into Europe of large number of worker immigrants from North Africa and Turkey is the origin of cultural instability. Since the invasion and occupation by Israel of Southern Lebanon and its refusal to adhere to the intention of the Peace Treaty with Egypt, this has changed the mindset in Europeans of being pro-Israel to anti-Israel. It’s the Jewish lobby groups which are well funded to obfuscate the true facts and cause uninterupted stream of propaganda against the Palestinian people and Muslims in general. A major shift took place after the 9/11 attacks on the US by Saudi terrorists trained and funded by OBL and his Al Qaeda cohorts. See my comment – The attack of 9/11 did not satisfy Israel on aspect of terrorist designation.
As I have written so many times, the stupidity of the Bush administration to invade and occupy Iraq has pushed the envelop for the Gulf States. The turmoil in the Middle-East is “Made in Washington DC.” Many Americans won’t accept that and are in denial because they believe in US exceptionalism. The people in power and the WASP part of the US come awfully close to fascism and the believe of the Arian race. History does repeat itself, except it will be not be easily recognized as it is cloaked in a different form or identity.
See my diary – US Will Be Ousted by Saudi King Abdullah in Middle-East.
Thanks for the clarification, Oui.
This is actually an easy question IMO.
Because they’re weak.
The historical pattern for Islam tends to be magnanimity when they have power (security) and fundamentalism when they’re under threat (insecurity). This is not an unusual pattern in other societies. Economic stagnation and political instability are recipes for insecurity.
Once again Muslims are singled out for displaying the most common human traits and reactions. When groups/populations and individuals feel insecure they tend to turn to stricture rules, whether those be religious, political, social, or professional. Muslims are no different.
Didn’t I just say “this is not an unusual pattern in other [non-Muslim] societies”?
Sorry, then, perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying. I took it to mean that while it is “typical” of Muslims, it is merely “common” in other types of peoples. Apologies if I misconstrued what you said.
My point was that this kind of thing occurs across cultures, it’s not a unique feature of Islamic societies.
I didn’t and don’t intend to say that Muslims are somehow more susceptible to acting this way.
Got it. Thanks for the clarification.
I was mostly with your Christian Syrian friend until the “bloodthirsty wife” comment. Huh?! 🙂
As for Islam having a bad record when it comes to women’s rights, that’s far too broad a statement, and ignores the bad record on women’s rights borne by Judaism, and Christianity. In the area of women’s – and minority – rights, it is not Islam that is the problem, it is the individuals in power. It also depends on which region, which family, and which period of history you are referring to.
OT. Kangaroo court.
So?
He obviously won’t get the appeal, if one comes.
You seem to be grasping at very thin straws. When someone does that, the only conclusion for a reasonable person to draw is that there are no big, sturdy straws available.
Yup.
SNAFU, alright..
Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.
Just the way the U.S. PermaGov likes it.
Imagine what would happen if the Islamic world actually experienced several years of relative peace. Imagine what would happen if the Islamic world actually managed to unite!!! Imagine what would happen if the Sunnis and Shi’ites decided their whole argument was uselsss. Imagine what would happen if there was a was a U.S.I. !!! (A United States of Islam) There would go the PermaGov’s whole oil-first applecart, upended by rising oil prices. There would go the whole fairly stable (Everybody involved has too much to lose.)
Oceania/Eurasia/Eastasia…errrrr, ahhhh…NATO/Russia/China triad fix. And there would go American exceptionalism.Chris Christie is making damned sure everybody knows on which side of the (nonexistent) centrist line he stands. Bet on it. He don’t want no peaceniks in office, fer sure!!!
“I’m very nervous about the direction this is moving in.”
Yeah.
He’s nervous alright. He’s nervous that he might not get the RatPub nomination in 2016, no matter on which side of the fix he might be told to reside. What a waste!!! All that anti-obesity surgery for naught!!! So many missed gluttony chances!!! Whadda drag!!!
Station WTFU signing off.
Have a lovely day fretting about Lieutenant Kerry’s little feints and stumbles. Puppets always look a little…controlled.
Herky jerky.
Well…just jerky, actually.
Have a nice day…
(Whadda buncha maroons!!!)
AG
What does CHristie have to do with Syria? Honestly, this is ridiculous.
Arthur owns stock in a company that supplies 86% of the world’s computer mice. (Despite the different labels on them, it turns out mice are all coming from one big factory in Kuala Lumpur.) He just likes to fill long bits of HTML real estate so that we all wear out our mice faster as we scroll down, down the page.
Keep laughin’, folks.
You know what the Greeks believed regarding alla that “Ha Ha” shit, right?
One mask always morphs into the other.
Bet on it.
Keep laughin’…
You should also know what the Buddhists say:
Prey now, pray later.
Bet on it.
Keep on laughin’…
AG
Now THAT is something I did not know.
IMHO, for a realistic shot at Israeli-Palestinian progress the US envoy needs a deep understanding of the history, cultures and societies there AND extraordinary negotiating experience. With the pro-Israel lean the US has maintained for decades I doubt we have managed to cultivate anyone like this in politics, state department, think tanks or academia. I have zero hope for positive results from a US brokered negotiation in our current times – particularly with Netinyahu as a participant.
I recently read a review of Indyk’s 2009 book and it doesn’t exactly inspire me that apparently he is only just now coming to awareness like this:
“[T]he dark side of [American] innocence is a naiveté bred in ignorance and arrogance that generates a chronic inability to comprehend the multiple ironies of the Middle East”
http://mepc.org/create-content/book-review/innocent-abroad-intimate-account-american-peace-diplomacy
-middle-east
In my opinion this accurately summarizes what American foreign policy has nearly always been toward any country or region.
And this is petty, but I find it irks me that he steals Mark Twains title (“Innocent Abroad”) of a wonderful, humorous self-abasing account of American tourists. Tourists can afford some naivete while traveling – it is after all for many meant to be an educational experience. Professional diplomats are paid to know WTF they are doing. Does Indyk now finally know enough after learning from mistakes of the Clinton administration?
“I doubt we have managed to cultivate anyone like this in politics, state department, think tanks or academia.“
Oh, there ARE such people, some of whom like the wonderful Helena Cobban and her equally wonderful William Quandt, live in the DC area. It’s just that the government ignores them in favor of its mostly-very-pro-Israel hacks who act more as Israel’s lawyers than “honest brokers”.
The problem with Helena and Bill and others like them is that they actually dig below the surface, particularly on the Arab side where it is most needed. Helena, for example, has done a number of interviews of heads of Hamas and Hezbollah, and as a result written some truly insightful and well-rounded articles. These are the kinds of people we need advising the U.S. government, not the usual crowd brought in from AIPAC.
The tail is wagging the dog again.
That is a prescription for a foreign policy disaster.
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How on earth can Obama nominate Samantha Powers as the US Ambassador at the United Nations?
She’s doing as instructed. Look back to the core of national security advisers in the White House and the Middle East desk at the State Department. Add in President Obama’s over-reliance on information from the military and the political advisers’ reading of Jewish-Americans and you will see that the problem is systemic, not a matter of personality. Susan Rice took the same tack.
Retweeted by Juan Cole
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Great summary Martin! I fully agree.
Just one slight, though important:
“European Union to classify armed wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.”
On labeling products from Israel’s
West BankJudea and Samaria, minister Ya’alon already has taken retaliatory measures againstEuropeansPalestinians.See today’s diary – Kerry On a Mission to Convince Friends of a Political Solution in Syria.
So the EU is clasifying a significant part of the Lebanese army as a terrorist organization but not the political wing. Symbolic bowing in Washington’s direction; serves US propaganda, but little else.
Anybody told Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller, and Thom Hartmann about Sodastream?
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Both the US and Israel wanted for a long time to have Europe list the Hizbollah party as a foreign terror organization. See the State Department listing and the lobbying by Netanyahu last month.
Who else mentions Palestine, on NBC’s multitude of channels, besides Chris Hayes?
Sordid is a good choice of words! Yes, it is a sordid business, and it makes me far more than merely uncomfortable.
The choice of Martin Indyk sends one very, very strong message about these “new” talks, and that is that they will be nothing new, just SSDD.
Getting EU to classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization utterly ignores the reality that Hezbollah is a legitimate political entity.
Egypt needs to be left alone for once in history and allowed to work out its own situation.
Surprise surprise…
http://www.tehrantimes.com/economy-and-business/758-iran-iraq-syria-sign-major-gas-pipeline-deal-
Good for them! I’m glad to see this kind of thing happening.
Considering that the West wanted a pipeline through Afghanistan to get some of the Central Asian petro product to run the factories in India for the last couple of decades (and that doesn’t look very likely now), it looks to me as if this is a real blow to Western oil interests. Iran gets a western market for its gas, the non-Sunni coalition works together to protect its interests, Syria will get some wealth to rebuild. When the sanctions come down, Iran and Iraq are in a great position to power India and get in on supplying any developments along the Indian Ocean.
In short, better times when the US keeps its hands to itself. Too bad the CIA couldn’t have figured out a way to dump the Shah for an ally with fewer negatives.
I am happy to see the people of the region working together in their own interest and not being coerced to act in western interests.
I wouldn’t make too much of the “non-Sunni coalition” thing, though.