Israel: Death By Friends

[Valin]

Strategy Page

August 5, 2020:

Iran is becoming increasingly aggressive and desperate in Syria. Iran needs a win against Israel and all it is getting in Syria is an endless string of defeats. Because of the “death to Israel” obsession Iran is destroying its alliance with Turkey and Russia. Yet Iran is not the only one with an Israel obsession.

Turkey seems to be at war with everyone, officially or unofficially. The reality is that Turkey has different priorities in Syrian than Iran. Turkey wants to avoid war with Israel yet portrays Israel as an “enemy of Islam” and tries to ignore the fact that Russia and Israel have long been friends and that relationship continues. Turkey and Russia agree with Israel when it comes to Iran in Syria. Turkey would prefer that Iran go home. Many Iranians and Syrians openly agree with Russia and Turkey on this point. The Iranian government responds with “Israeli airstrikes are killing people in Syria.” Syrians note that most of the dead are Iranians or mercenaries (usually Arab) on the Iranian payroll. The Iranian government deliberately keeps as few Iranians as possible in Syrian bases likely to be hit. Iranians getting killed in Syria, even if they are IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) Iranians, is very unpopular back in Iran.

(Snip)

Turks Versus Egypt

Turkey does not seem to fear an Egyptian military response to their invasion of western Libya and threats to move east to the Egyptian border. The official Turkish view is that Egypt is a wholly owned subsidiary of Saudis Arabia and the UAE who have been backing the anti-Islamic terrorist/Moslem Brotherhood LNA (Libyan National Army) in Libya for years. The Turks may underestimate the Arab hostility towards Turkish aggression in North Africa.

 

Another source of concern is that the Turks and Iranians both agree that the Saudis are unfit to be the guardians of Islam’s’ most holy places in Mecca and Medina. Turkey has it in for the Saudis and Egypt for the way the current Egyptian government, with financial support from Saudi Arabia, forcibly replaced the elected Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood government in 2014. Turkey does not like to discuss how similar Egyptian and Turkish voters respond to efforts to force Islamic law on them. That was what caused the popular uprising against the elected Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood government. The current Turkish Islamic government favors the Moslem Brotherhood, a popular group throughout the Moslem world that believes you can have a secular democratic Islamic government. The problem is that every time it is tried it does not work because the radicals (there is always a radical faction) demand that an Islamic religious dictatorship be installed and this always triggers popular resistance. Iran wants a more “Islamic” government in Syria, which has long been a secular dictatorship led by the Shia Assad clan. The Assads always hated Islamic movements, be they Moslem Brotherhood or anything else with “Islamic” attached to it.

(Snip)

_________________________________________________________________________________________

 

What A Fluster Cluck!

[Valin]

Related......................

Aug. 6 2020

Jim and Austin discuss the myriad of problems facing Iran including some very aggressive Israeli actions.

[Valin]

Turkey blasts new Egyptian-Greek agreement in Mediterranean as ‘invalid’

2020-08-07

BEIRUT, LEBANON (11:50 A.M.) – The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Thursday evening that the agreement to demarcate the Egyptian-Greek maritime borders is considered “invalid”.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry stated, as reported by the Anadolu Agency, that the agreement on the so-called “demarcation of the maritime borders” signed between Egypt and Greece is invalid for Ankara.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said: “The specific area within the Egyptian-Greek agreement lies within the Turkish continental shelf.”

The ministry said that Turkey considers the agreement null and void, adding that it also violates Libyan maritime rights.

(Snip)