The Bomb Will Not Save Iran from Increasing Isolation
The National / Alan Philips
12-Nov-2011 (one comment)

One of the greatest achievements of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution had been to perfect a universalist Muslim discourse that won popular appeal around the Islamic world...Now the Arabs have their own heroes. Iran's clear pursuit of its own interests with Syria has exposed the hollowness of its revolutionary rhetoric...

By standing with President Bashar Al Assad against the protesters, Mr Ahmadinejad now looks as hypocritical as some other leaders. The fact that the Iranian flag has been burned in Syria has not gone unnoticed in Tehran...

In this light Iran's position does not look so comfortable. As American troops prepare to leave Iraq, it is not hard to predict a new outburst of sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, with the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki forced to rely ever more on his Iranian backers. With Sunni Muslim Arab states supporting the Iraqi Sunnis, we could be looking at civil war....

There may come a time when Iran looks back with nostalgia on the time when America held the ring, and Iran's role was to creep below the radar, rather than taking responsibility.

>>>
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Other developments re: Iran, Syria

by FG on Sat Nov 12, 2011 07:46 AM PST

1. Deadly blast hits Iran arms depot

//www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/20111112105645946264.html

Since that article appeared, Now, however, the opposition site
Kalemeh says 40 people died at the depot and Revolutionary Guards barracks,
according to Enduring America.

2. Economic Developments (from Enduring America)

According to Fars, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries
has reported that Iran's crude oil output fell 23,000 barrels per day in October.

OPEC puts the current output at 3.578 million bpd. Iran's average production
was 3.725 million bpd in 2009 and 3.597 bpd in 2010.

The BBC reports on Iran's
airlines coping with sanctions, affecting their refuelling at many European
and some Asian airports --- Iranian flights returning from London stop in
Marston in southeast England to take on petrol.

3. Arab League to suspend Syria over bloody crackdown

//www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45268111/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/arab-league-suspend-syria-over-bloody-crackdown/

Note the interesting voting pattern. The resolution did not call for a no
fly zone but held out the possibility that the Arab League could call on the
United Nations to help protect the rights of Syrians.

4. Video of new defectors at Syrian police academy

//www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OMWSi4kwpCg

The Lesson Applicable to Iran's Ruling Thugs: When you alienate most of the
population, the number of reliable police or military conscripts you can depend
on shrinks for obvious reasons.

5. An interesting report on Syrian developments from the Associated Press
contains this excerpt:

“We have seen urban warfare in some areas where army defections occurred,”
said Hozan Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees, an
activist coalition. “The soldiers are having a hard time advancing. They often
come under attack from the defectors and this explains why they are shooting
more.”

//www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/syrian-forces-fire-on-protesters-as-rights-group-accuses-damascus-of-crimes-against-humanity/2011/11/11/gIQAs2zjBN_story.html?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost


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