As strange as this all gets, Syria’s main ally is Tehran. This is why the Saudi’s want Syria gone. But as always, political views only change with economics. Communism fell not because of some battle to the death. Communism collapsed all by itself because it was economically a disaster.
In Iran, the June elections ushered in a political change in the wind. President Hassan Rouhani won the election in Iran with a landslide. He campaigned on trying to get rid of the economic sanctions by engaging with the West. His victory was so impressive among the youth that he won even the very cautious backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to move forward and try engage with Western countries and attempt to ease Iran’s isolation over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Nevertheless, the old hardliners who Rouhani defeated at the polls still dominate parliament. They also control the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Their agenda is to return Iran to the familiar posture of defiance. A strike by the USA is more likely to end the one chance we have for easing problems in the whole region.
President Hassan Rouhani is preparing to travel to New York to attend the UN personally this month. This will be a real first for Iran. The US military strikes on Syria seem almost a desperate attempt to stop Rouhani’s diplomacy efforts. A rational play here would be to back off and try to encourage President Rouhani and show the Iranian people that joining the world community is better than confronting it.
So there are clearly questions that spring forward as to why would Obama derail the entire region and support the hardliner’s who will say – see, you cannot trust the yanks. When President Rouhani is coming to the US this month, this is even stranger timing. It is as if Obama is deliberately trying to create an unstable Middle East.
