News for today's 2018: 05/18/13

<br /> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUPHLBFhOr655hLiCRwhFg6jzyWTg1jnLoPRuPITmnv9qVgulRkZP6isU2N0eMwq0Ec5-Vfh3YqVVAeVC_RgpohyKSq5NsTyVCxg7RoavWHd5LNfSu15DnobbzniQ18O11cRjtDpWFY6K6/s1600/2013-05-14_Europe_605.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUPHLBFhOr655hLiCRwhFg6jzyWTg1jnLoPRuPITmnv9qVgulRkZP6isU2N0eMwq0Ec5-Vfh3YqVVAeVC_RgpohyKSq5NsTyVCxg7RoavWHd5LNfSu15DnobbzniQ18O11cRjtDpWFY6K6/s400/2013-05-14_Europe_605.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #134f5c;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">PROFOUND STRATEGIC RIVALRY </span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from the original article written by </span><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Gregory R. Copley </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">via Oilprice</span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Executive Summary:</span></b></span></div><ul type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sunni versus Shia, Persians      versus Arabs - cultural and strategic drive which has been apparent for      more than three millennia</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: #595959; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fear on the part of the Sunni states and communities,      that IRAN can and will strategically dominate them</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Two ISRAELI airstrikes in SYRIA      not linked to one another</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: #595959; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Vilification of IRAN by QATAR, TURKEY and SAUDI ARABIA      in order to gain geostrategic leverage over IRAN</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">SYRIA      and chemical weapons</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: #595959; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">SYRIAN chemical weapons are designed for major urban      warfare and not open street warfare </span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The principal chemical weapon      in the SYRIAN arsenal is VX</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: #595959; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ISRAELI air strikes: creating the impression that      ISRAEL has now entered the fray in an attempt to ensure the overthrow of      Assad</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ISRAEL did nothing to strike at      SYRIAN military units conducting their campaign against the jihadist      insurgents</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: #595959; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ISRAEL anxious that Assad not be overthrown because      ISRAEL believes a Sunni-dominated outcome would be far worse for ISRAEL      and the region</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A Sunni-dominated SYRIA would      end, for the time being, any prospect of IRAN’S strategic reach to the      MEDITERRANEAN</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: #595959; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">IRAN mending fences with ISRAEL: repeating history?</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">KURDISH as well as ISRAEL      normalization deal with TURKEY, brokered by the USA, is illusory</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: #595959; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ISRAEL persuaded to foster ties with TURKEY because of      strategic interests</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Until the beginning of 1979,      ISRAEL fought hard to help sustain the unity and strength of IRAN</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: #595959; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Turkey’s transformation from secular and anti-Islamist      bastion to Islamist and anti-ISRAELI activist state</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">TURKEY openly opposes RUSSIAN strategic      interests, including RUSSIAN commitments to SYRIA</span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color: #595959; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Forthcoming IRANIAN elections </span></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">IRAN to take over SYRIA? - a      most unlikely scenario </span></b></li></ul><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: .5in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Biblical conversion of Paul to Christianity “on the road to Damascus” implied a turning point for the onetime antagonist of Christ. But now the road to Damascus is an unmarked and uncertain path, full of treachery and hidden motives ...</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Events unfolding in the LEVANT — particularly with regard to the externally-sponsored conflict underway within SYRIA — during April and May 2013 were being played out like a flickering, imprecise lantern show in the international media, distorting and mis-directing major states’ policies toward the region.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">SUNNI VERSUS SHIA, PERSIANS VERSUS ARABS - CULTURAL AND STRATEGIC DRIVE WHICH HAS BEEN APPARENT FOR MORE THAN THREE MILLENNIA</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The actual events on the ground were on one planet; those same events portrayed in the international media and political arenas were on an entirely different one. But that was not by accident: there has been a strong element in reporting and policy statements of attempting to portray the origins and the “inevitability” of outcomes along the lines of wishful thinking.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">FEAR ON THE PART OF THE SUNNI STATES AND COMMUNITIES, THAT IRAN CAN AND WILL STRATEGICALLY DOMINATE THEM</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What is being disguised by all of this is an underlying series of conflicts. Again, there are several fundamentals:  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1. The deep geo-strategic competition — indeed, profound strategic rivalry — between IRAN and TURKEY, something which is now coming to a head;  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2. The historical rivalry between RUSSIA and TURKEY briefly contained in recent years, but now resurging;  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">3. The evolving (over the past half-century in particular) fear on the part of the Sunni states and communities, that IRAN can and will strategically dominate them, not merely on the grounds of IRAN’S Shi’a religion, but on historical Persian (ie: non-Arab) cultural and strategic drives (which have been apparent for more than three millennia); and  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">4. The reality that there is no external power presently in the LEVANT-MASHREQ-ARABIAN-PERSIAN GULF-RED SEA region which has sufficient authority to ensure quiescence and compliance. This has not been the case for about 500 years.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But on the current situation: To begin with, there were reports during the first week of May 2013 that chemical weapons had been used in the conflict in SYRIA, and this — very significantly — followed “concerns” by the US about possible use by the SYRIAN Government of chemical weapons, despite the fact that there had been no suggestion of such use.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">TWO ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES IN SYRIA NOT LINKED TO ONE ANOTHER</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then there were three significant strikes by ISRAELI Air Force aircraft (probably F-16Is launching a series of highly-accurate SPICE smart bombs and possibly other weapons from LEBANESE airspace) against targets in SYRIA on May 5 and — against the Republican Guard base the Mount Qassyoun military facility outside Damascus — on May 7, 2013.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">TURKISH and US official agencies indicated that the two events were linked, and made misleading — and knowingly incorrect — statements on some aspects of what were, in fact, two very separate and unrelated incidents.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Background Information</span></u></b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;">ISRAEL’S – SYRIA AIRSTRIKE AFTERMATH<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u> </u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">IRANIAN general and two aides were the real target of alleged ISRAELI airstrike in SYRIA. At:</span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></b><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/02/israels-syrian-airstrike-aftermath.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/02/israels-syrian-airstrike-aftermath.html</a></span></u></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">SYRIA AND ISRAEL, AIRSTRIKE REPERCUSSION </span></span></span></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; line-height: 115%;">Falling into Assad's trap? At: </span></b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/05/syria-and-israel-airstrike-repercussion.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/05/syria-and-israel-airstrike-repercussion.html</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The statements by US and TURKISH officials seemed to indicate that a “red line” had been crossed by the SYRIAN Government of Pres. Bashar al-Assad, and that this opened the way for possible US intervention.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">VILIFICATION OF IRAN BY QATAR, TURKEY AND SAUDI ARABIA IN ORDER TO GAIN GEO-STRATEGIC LEVERAGE OVER IRAN</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All of this has been against a backdrop of an international portrayal of the SYRIAN situation that:  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(i) The Government of Pres. Bashar al-Assad was about to collapse at any moment, a portrayal which had been defied by events for some three years;  </span></div><h3><span style="font-size: x-small;"><u><span style="color: blue;">Background Information</span></u><span style="color: blue;">: </span></span></h3><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">SYRIA: ASSAD WINNING THE WAR?</span> </span></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Assad pulls ahead in SYRIAN war. Putin, Khamenei are co-victors<span style="mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">. At</span></span></b></span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/02/syria-assad-winning-war.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/02/syria-assad-winning-war.html</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">SYRIA – ASSAD FIRM IN SADDLE</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">IC (international community) tactical retrieve, in order to avoid another LIBYAN style fiasco? At:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/01/syria-assad-firm-in-saddle.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/01/syria-assad-firm-in-saddle.html</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: blue;">US INTELLIGENCE: ASSAD FIRMLY IN CHARGE IN SYRIA.</span> At: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/03/syria.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/03/syria.html</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(ii) A spontaneous civil war was underway in SYRIA, despite the reality that it was a war promoted by the US and fueled by weapons, manpower, logistics, and propaganda, from QATAR, TURKEY, and, to a degree, SAUDI ARABIA, with those players pursuing separate agendas which all entailed the removal of a pro-Shi’a ‘Alawite SYRIAN Government supported by, and supporting, the Shi’a Government of IRAN; and  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Background Information</span></u></b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: </span></span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">SHIITE PERSIANS VERSUS WAHHABI SAUDIS</span></span></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The MIDDLE EAST is pervaded and increasingly infected by the sectarian rivalry between the SHIITE PERSIANS and the WAHHABI SAUDIS, who are now fighting proxy wars all over the region</span></b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">. At: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/turkey-shiite-persians-versus-wahhabi.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/turkey-shiite-persians-versus-wahhabi.html</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">TURKEY AND SYRIA: AN UNDECLARED STATE OF WAR</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; line-height: 115%;">Sectarianism - “Sunni crescent” At: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/07/turkeys-sunni-crescent.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/07/turkeys-sunni-crescent.html</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(iii) The vilification of IRAN for its pursuit of nuclear weapons (which was true insofar as this was the stated case by the WEST, but which case was supported by TURKEY, QATAR, and SAUDI ARABIA out of their direct geo-strategic competition with IRAN, in the hope that the US and ISRAEL would actually be prompted to fight IRAN on their behalf).  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What has been attempted by the TURKISH, US, UK, and some other governments and media is to obfuscate some of the realities, and blur other issues so as to portray a situation which is not realistic. That is not to plead a case for Pres. al-Assad or IRAN, but rather to highlight that, if policy judgments are to be taken, that they be taken in light of the facts seen in appropriate context.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">SYRIA AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS </span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLf0pej2I3c2FAHqHSoZR8Ux7Yh8BJGCJkqFolbEuEPN-bq9ncJKkTiO3sW7rEA9L2NZAVq_-nRg7sOYbTXYqVmNWw0hBQ3oFReyei2Ca4Yi7s1bLjDIz8ILx9L8x4nmiPXxFmEjm71AUm/s1600/pg39.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLf0pej2I3c2FAHqHSoZR8Ux7Yh8BJGCJkqFolbEuEPN-bq9ncJKkTiO3sW7rEA9L2NZAVq_-nRg7sOYbTXYqVmNWw0hBQ3oFReyei2Ca4Yi7s1bLjDIz8ILx9L8x4nmiPXxFmEjm71AUm/s320/pg39.gif" width="290" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The SYRIAN Armed Forces have long held stocks of chemical weapons. SYRIA is considered to have chemical agents and munitions. It has a biological agents and munitions program and may already possess biological agents and munitions. ISRAELI and US analysts report that SYRIA has the capability to produce botulinum toxin, ricin toxin and anthrax at its two biological warfare centers. Additionally, SYRIA is considered by UK and US analysts as having the most sophisticated chemical weapons program in the ARAB world. It has delivery systems suitable for use with chemical and biological munitions. SYRIA signed the Geneva Protocol with reservations, and signed but has not ratified the Biological Weapons Convention.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Background Information</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: </span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">GIVEN FACT: SYRIA DOES POSSESS CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL MISSILE HEADS </span></span></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Contrary to us “weapons of mass destruction” hoax justifying the invasion in IRAQ, SYRIA really possesses a lethal arsenal of chemical and biological warheads. At:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/03/given-fact-syria-does-possess-chemical.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/03/given-fact-syria-does-possess-chemical.html</a></span></span></div><h3><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">SYRIAN MISSILES WILL PRE - EMPT ANY MILITARY INTERVENTION</span></span></span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">SYRIA threatens to unleash missiles against any country preparing for military intervention in SYRIA. At: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/03/syrian-missiles-will-pre-empt-any.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/03/syrian-missiles-will-pre-empt-any.html</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">SYRIAN CHEMICAL WEAPONS ARE DESIGNED FOR MAJOR URBAN WARFARE AND NOT OPEN STREET WARFARE </span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">However, it is clear that the chemical weapons and CW doctrine and units in the SYRIAN Armed Forces are directly and absolutely copied from those of the (former) USSR. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The claims of sarin gas being used in the current SYRIAN fighting, however, show a substance and use doctrine totally alien to SYRIAN Army practice.</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Defector debriefs have indicated that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SYRIAN chemical weapons are designed for major urban warfare in which entire communities are targeted for destruction; they are not suitable, or designed, for open street warfare where SYRIAN Government forces would be exposed</b>. As well, Sarin is a substance — often made up in a bathtub concoction — used more by al-Qaida and other terrorist groups (such as the attack by members of Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995, against civilians in a Tokyo subway).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">THE PRINCIPAL CHEMICAL WEAPON IN THE SYRIAN ARSENAL IS VX</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Evidence” of SYRIAN Government alleged use of “chemical weapons” came in the form of polluted soil samples provided by the Sunni jihadis fighting the Government. Significantly, however, there was no actual evidence of chemical weapons residual in these samples, nor in the corpses delivered as “proof” of a Government CW attack.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Despite this, significance, the US Government issued statements implying the credibility of the CW use reports by the SYRIAN Government, and noting that this was pushing the US closer to a situation whereby a “red line” had been crossed by the Assad Government, requiring US response. Not surprisingly, this was further promoted by the TURKISH Government.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">However, by escalating a climate which, de facto, promoted a belief that the SYRIAN Government was using, or would use, chemical weapons, the US White House has begun to build acceptance for an escalation of US aid to the Sunni rebel groups to include, initially at least, weapons and munitions. That was strongly suggested by US Defense Dept. officials at the beginning of May 2013.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ISRAELI AIR STRIKES: CREATING THE IMPRESSION THAT ISRAEL HAS NOW ENTERED THE FRAY IN AN ATTEMPT TO ENSURE THE OVERTHROW OF ASSAD</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimIruWuWcpm9IOz2bK3wZKCWeKBaypDH80HSFg_Oi6R-3bph7D7OZrtE3SJKSZmn7y9WJEuye2jCKjN0FQ4YOTdhece8JjN9FCweqmXmZeGyoYx_nY-APhctlhB3cBSs7OQNeeoeqmNBgC/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimIruWuWcpm9IOz2bK3wZKCWeKBaypDH80HSFg_Oi6R-3bph7D7OZrtE3SJKSZmn7y9WJEuye2jCKjN0FQ4YOTdhece8JjN9FCweqmXmZeGyoYx_nY-APhctlhB3cBSs7OQNeeoeqmNBgC/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is clearly a process which was being created to generate or sustain the sense of “inevitability” that the tide was (still) turning against Assad, and the threat of US intervention remained high. As well, the confluence of events with the allegations of chemical weapons use and the ISRAELI air strikes, the impression was being given that ISRAEL had now entered the fray in an attempt to ensure the overthrow of Assad. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">[<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">However, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on SYRIA emphasized in a statement May 6, 2013, that it had reached no conclusions about the possible use of chemical weapons in SYRIA’S civil war, but indicated that the “rebels” appeared to have been the ones using the Sarin</b>.]</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But it was clear that ISRAEL’S actions had nothing to do with the media froth — stirred by politicians — about chemical weapons. Neither was there any indication that Israel wished to see the end of the Assad Government.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><u><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Comment by geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring:</span></b></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">COULD IT BE THAT KEEPING ASSAD IN POWER IS MAYBE THE EXACT INTENTION OF ISRAEL? </span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In June 2012 Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring wrote: ISRAEL’S INTERESTS……….</span></b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is almost certainly because the ISRAELI Prime Minister would, on balance, prefer the Assad regime to continue; <b>it is a known quantity and any new regime could severely destabilize the effective balance-of-power between two uneasy neighbors’</b>….. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Read entire article at:</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/syria-feasts-and-rites-of-confusion.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/syria-feasts-and-rites-of-confusion.html</a></span></b><br /><br /><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>THE ALAWITES AND ISRAEL</b></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">IT IS GENERALLY BELIEVED THAT AMONG THE ARAB REGIMES SYRIA IS THE MOST IMPLACABLE ENEMY OF ISRAEL. <span style="font-size: small;">Read entire article at: </span></span></span></span><br /><br /> <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/the-alawites-and-israel.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/the-alawites-and-israel.html</a></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Read related topics under:</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ISRAEL COPING WITH A FULL SCALE CIVIL WAR IN SYRIA at</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/syria-israel-iran-and-usa.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/syria-israel-iran-and-usa.html</a></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">REGIME CHANGE IN SYRIA, FULL SCORE FOR ISRAEL?</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/01/strait-of-hormuz-and-syria.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/01/strait-of-hormuz-and-syria.html </a></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/01/syrias-destiny-sealed.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/01/syrias-destiny-sealed.html</a></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/12/syria-cause-and-effect.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/12/syria-cause-and-effect.html</a></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ISRAEL DID NOTHING TO STRIKE AT SYRIAN MILITARY UNITS CONDUCTING THEIR CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE JIHADIST INSURGENTS</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The ISRAELI strikes in early May 2013 against SYRIAN targets were all very carefully delineated to ensure a message as well as a military outcome. Firstly, ISRAEL did nothing to strike at SYRIAN military units conducting their campaign against the jihadist insurgents. It targeted units conveying IRANIAN weapons being routed to Hezbollah units for use against ISRAEL, particularly Fattah 110 missiles.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The strikes can be seen as parallels to the ISRAELI Air Force strikes in late October 2012 against the Yarmouk factory and the SUDAN Technical Center, near Khartoum, SUDAN because these facilities were providing similar IRANIAN-developed weapons to Hezbollah and Gaza-based HAMAS.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ISRAEL ANXIOUS THAT ASSAD NOT BE OVERTHROWN BECAUSE ISRAEL BELIEVES A SUNNI-DOMINATED OUTCOME WOULD BE FAR WORSE FOR ISRAEL AND THE REGION.  </span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The US Associated Press noted on May 5, 2013: “ISRAEL says the Iron Dome [anti-missile defense system] shot down hundreds of incoming short-range rockets during eight days of fighting against  Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip last November [2012]. Hezbollah fired some 4,000 rockets into ISRAEL during the 2006 war, and ISRAEL believes the group now possesses tens of thousands of rockets and missiles.” The logic of the May 2013 strikes was, for ISRAEL, clear: IRAN had attempted to test how far ISRAEL’S restraint would go, knowing that, for the time being, ISRAEL was anxious that Pres. Assad not be overthrown, largely because the Government of ISRAEL believed a Sunni-dominated outcome would be far worse for ISRAEL and the region.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Background Information</span></u></b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">US INTELLIGENCE: ASSAD FIRMLY IN CHARGE IN SYRIA. At: </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/03/syria.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/03/syria.html</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A SUNNI-DOMINATED SYRIA WOULD END, FOR THE TIME BEING, ANY PROSPECT OF IRAN’S STRATEGIC REACH TO THE MEDITERRANEAN</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As well, from an IRANIAN standpoint, Tehran was conscious of the reality that it might have to move strenuously to safeguard its investment in SYRIA. A Sunni-dominated SYRIA would end, for the time being, any prospect of IRAN’S strategic reach to the Mediterranean. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">IRAN MENDING FENCES WITH ISRAEL: REPEATING HISTORY?</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">IRAN’S only other option would be to mend fences with ISRAEL, and start to restore the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">millennia-old IRAN-ISRAEL partnership, as the late Shah of IRAN had done. </b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Background Information</span></u></b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">IRAN: AN OLD FRIEND OF THE JEWS? At: </span></b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.communitym.com/article.asp?article_id=101438">http://www.communitym.com/article.asp?article_id=101438</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">IRAN AND ISRAEL: IMPROVEMENT IN “RELATIONSHIP”? </span></span></span> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">IRAN softens tune on ISRAEL. At: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/05/iran-and-israel-improvement-in.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/05/iran-and-israel-improvement-in.html</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">TURKISH - IRANIAN EQUATION </span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the meantime, IRAN has made it clear to the TURKISH Government that Tehran would absolutely not allow SYRIA to go without a fight which could — and almost certainly would — ultimately entail “strategic actions” against TURKEY on a number of fronts. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">TURKISH Prime Minister Reçep Tayyip Erdogan is already confronted by several major challenges: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(a) the fact that the TURKISH Armed Forces are largely impotent, because he decapitated their leadership out of fear of a new military coup d’etat to restore the General Staff’s supremacy in government; </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(b) the continuing demands for KURDISH rights; and — among many other challenges — an economy which is delicate and dependent on RUSSIAN goodwill to a far greater degree than he would readily wish to acknowledge.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Prime Minister Erdogan attempted to mitigate the growing KURDISH situation by striking what he felt was a deal with the imprisoned leader of the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan: the KURDISH Workers’ Party), Abdullah Ocalan, who still languishes in a TURKISH prison under sentence of death. On March 20, 2013 (KURDISH New Year), he announced an “historic call” to end the fighting between the PKK and the TURKISH Government. The ceasefire would require all the PKK’s armed fighters inside the country to leave, a process which began in early May 2013.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">KURDISH AS WELL AS ISRAEL NORMALIZATION DEAL WITH TURKEY, BROKERED BY THE USA, IS ILLUSORY</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This — like the triumphal “deal” to normalize Turkish-Israeli relations brokered by US Pres. Barack Obama on March 22, 2013 — was, however, illusory. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">PKK sources, even as they began moving to safe- havens in IRAQ in the first week of May 2013, acknowledged that Ocalan had made his “call” as one more step to stave off the hangman, and his followers understood that. But the fight was not, in reality, paused or shelved, and IRAN and SYRIA have, in fact, stepped up their active support for the PKK and other KURDISH movements fighting the TURKISH Government, mostly from safe-havens in IRAQ.  </b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">IRAN has the capacity to mobilize the PKK and other KURDISH movements against TURKEY, and this may be a challenge which the Erdogan Government cannot ultimately meet. In all of this, as well, the issue of the ARMENIAN community’s potential role in all of this cannot be under-estimated, and ARMENIA — with a strong lobby in the US — is an ally of IRAN, GREECE, and TURKEY. Moreover, the GREEK and CYPRIOT governments have a stake in seeing an initiative to break up TURKEY succeed, given the threats which TURKEY has continued to make against GREEK ÆGEAN territorial waters and islands, and to continue its military occupation of more than one third of CYPRUS (with attendant and ongoing blackmail of CYPRUS to delay or confound the development of offshore CYPRIOT natural gas reserves). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Background Information</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/12/energy-adventures-in-eastern.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/12/energy-adventures-in-eastern.html</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/02/new-mediterranean-oil-and-gas-bonanza.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/02/new-mediterranean-oil-and-gas-bonanza.html</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/12/energy-games-in-eastern-mediterranean.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/12/energy-games-in-eastern-mediterranean.html</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/09/turkeys-middle-east-chess-game.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/09/turkeys-middle-east-chess-game.html</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/02/eastern-mediterranean-sea.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/02/eastern-mediterranean-sea.html</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/02/geo-strategic-dynamics-in-eastern.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/02/geo-strategic-dynamics-in-eastern.html</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/04/complexity-of-eastern-med-energy-games.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/04/complexity-of-eastern-med-energy-games.html</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For now, and despite growing closeness between Mr  Erdogan and US Pres. Obama, TURKEY’S chances of joining the EU are slipping further away; indeed, the EU itself is fighting for cohesion.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Background Information</span></u></b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: </span></span></span></div><h3><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">TURKEY'S INTEREST IN EU MEMBERSHIP PLUNGES </span></span></span></h3><h3><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue; font-weight: normal;">The question is does TURKEY need EU membership???……. most likely not. At: </span><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/11/turkeys-interest-in-eu-membership.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/11/turkeys-interest-in-eu-membership.html</a></span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ISRAEL PERSUADED TO FOSTER TIES WITH TURKEY BECAUSE OF STRATEGIC INTERESTS</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Several critical strategic questions remain for Mr Erdogan, such as whether he can, through the grudging re-establishment of the restoration of “normal” diplomatic relations with Jerusalem, stave off ISRAEL’S active participation in covert acts hostile to TURKEY’S survival. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">UNTIL THE BEGINNING OF 1979, ISRAEL FOUGHT HARD TO HELP SUSTAIN THE UNITY AND STRENGTH OF IRAN</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At present, ISRAEL has been persuaded that the preservation of TURKEY would be in ISRAEL’S strategic interests, but it is worth remembering that until the beginning of 1979, ISRAEL fought hard to help sustain the unity and strength of IRAN.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That changed progressively over the subsequent decades to the point where the Binyamin Netanyahu Government of ISRAEL has come to actively participate in steps designed to weaken and even dismember IRAN. <span style="color: blue;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;">(Officially this seems the case, unofficially things appear somewhat different, for one should not forget that ISRAEL fosters unofficial ties with a number of ARAB states as well, so why not with the PERSIANS? <b>Comment by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring</b>)</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">TURKEY’S TRANSFORMATION FROM SECULAR AND ANTI - ISLAMIST BASTION TO ISLAMIST AND ANTI - ISRAELI ACTIVIST STATE</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> may not have been hallmarked by a visible “revolution”, but its change is as profound as was the 1979 change in IRAN.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Washington may not have noticed it (although the White House has embraced it), but ISRAEL can hardly much longer ignore it.  </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">TURKEY OPENLY OPPOSES RUSSIAN STRATEGIC INTERESTS, INCLUDING RUSSIAN COMMITMENTS TO SYRIA</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd1B8gXReR-3Sj6CmFyshVjep6OPt19VTwrUaTt5PuWerFzpbio26FfXmHxViEAHTQ1eKsBzugAa34NAapOMZ_ue6hciLCzZ9CGYvP3k-Gu4nxLcStzYDn_qOwXVaAP5GJxtguJinD8voq/s1600/Map-of-Turkey--Syria--Iraq--Iran-jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd1B8gXReR-3Sj6CmFyshVjep6OPt19VTwrUaTt5PuWerFzpbio26FfXmHxViEAHTQ1eKsBzugAa34NAapOMZ_ue6hciLCzZ9CGYvP3k-Gu4nxLcStzYDn_qOwXVaAP5GJxtguJinD8voq/s320/Map-of-Turkey--Syria--Iraq--Iran-jpg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In all of this, of course, RUSSIA has a profound influence. When Turkey found itself strategically isolated at the end of 2008 and early 2009, it was forced to kow-tow to Moscow, which had the ability to cut off the flow of much of the transit oil and gas to EUROPE, via TURKEY, from the Caspian. This would have devastated the TURKISH economy, so Ankara made noises of friendship and cooperation with Moscow. Not that there was any improvement in the historical animosity between the two, but the mutual containment situation prevailed briefly. Subsequently, however, Ankara has begun openly opposing RUSSIAN strategic interests, including RUSSIAN commitments to SYRIA. Moscow was not letting this confrontation pass unremarked.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Background Information: </span></u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/libya-syria.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/libya-syria.html</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The US Obama Administration’s call for RUSSIAN help in removing Assad, therefore, should be seen as asking Moscow to act against its own interests, and yet Washington phrases the request as though RUSSIAN Pres. Vladimir Putin was somehow unreasonably supporting a dictator who was bound to fail. US Secretary of State John Kerry called on Pres. Putin in Moscow on May 7, 2013 (while also meeting RUSSIAN Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov) in the knowledge that both sides did not wish to appear at odds over the SYRIA issue. But it should be seen as extremely unlikely that RUSSIA could be persuaded to act against its own vital strategic interests merely because Obama and Kerry want to support a situation which would ultimately be inimical to RUSSIAN interests in the area.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">FORTHCOMING IRANIAN ELECTIONS </span></b></span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO54IfHLXK-UeNRVYJhuMEo07VZn4pOd9KdoJfN2_neliOifVRD3F5c4FMYVmUEu8r3fXZ-UIggj-INQ7u_apMxmradthyphenhyphenAXcD9vNjpQIixq-3d3kEllmi4F7WUivcdaqpImOinz-Sz67H/s1600/Farsh1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO54IfHLXK-UeNRVYJhuMEo07VZn4pOd9KdoJfN2_neliOifVRD3F5c4FMYVmUEu8r3fXZ-UIggj-INQ7u_apMxmradthyphenhyphenAXcD9vNjpQIixq-3d3kEllmi4F7WUivcdaqpImOinz-Sz67H/s400/Farsh1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">From another perspective, the actions of IRAN in the area need also to be seen through the prism of the forthcoming (June 14, 2013) IRANIAN Presidential elections, in which outgoing Pres. Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad was hoping to see a continuation of his policies through the election of his key protégé, Esfandiar Rahim Masha’i. This seems unlikely.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Read upcoming article: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">IRANIAN ELECTIONS</b>: </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">WOULD A RAFSANJANI PRESIDENCY UNDERMINE A DEAL WITH IRAN? At: </span></b></span><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/05/iranian-elections.html"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2013/05/iranian-elections.html</span></span></a><br /><span style="color: blue;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Finding a way in which Ahmadi-Nejad can be removed from office [by the Supreme Leader] without further damaging the image of clerical governance, and finding a suitable replacement who has the authority of a Bonapartist, yet still subservient to the ‘Revolution.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“One clear candidate appeals to many clerics: Tehran Mayor Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf. Mayor Qalibaf, who has strong battlefield leadership credentials from his service in the IRANIAN Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC: Pasdaran), is a strong opponent of Ahmadi-Nejad, and yet is seen as strongly nationalistic and supportive of the clerical system of government. Known sources indicated that there was movement toward replacing Ahmadi-Nejad with either an active Pasdaran leader, or a strong civilian such as Qalibaf.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">IRAN TO TAKE OVER SYRIA? - A MOST UNLIKELY SCENARIO </span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That remains the outlook, and the influence of the Pasdaran should not be under-estimated, either in the election of a new leader, or in the strategic actions taken with regard to SYRIA. ISRAELI writer Brig.-Gen. (rtd.) Dr Shimon Shapira, writing in Jerusalem Issue Brief on May 5, 2013, even went so far as to say that IRAN planned to take over SYRIA, citing a mid-April 2013 visit by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to Tehran for meetings with Supreme Leader ‘Ali Khamene’i and Gen. Qasem Suleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Pasdaran. Suleiman reportedly prepared an operational plan named after him and “based upon the establishment of a 150,000-man force in SYRIA, the majority of whom will come from IRAN, IRAQ, and a smaller number from Hezbollah and the GULF states”.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">SHORT-TERM INTERESTS — SUCH AS ELECTIONS — VERSUS LONG- TERM INTERESTS</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shapira went on to note: “Mehdi Taaib, who heads Khamene’i’s think tank ... recently stated that ‘SYRIA is the 35th district of IRAN and it has greater strategic importance for IRAN than Khuzestan [an ARAB- populated district inside IRAN]’. Significantly, Taaib was drawing a comparison between SYRIA and a district that is under full IRANIAN sovereignty.”  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In all of this, in IRAN, ISRAEL, TURKEY, the US, and elsewhere, we see the play of short-term interests — such as elections — versus long- term interests.  </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Caught in the middle of all this, in many respects, is CYPRUS and the development of the EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN gas fields, held hostage by Ankara, which has promised to make investment and exploitation in and of the offshore CYPRIOT gas fields — and therefore the provision of an alternative energy supply for WESTERN EUROPE, independent of TURKISH transit fees — difficult. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #cc0000;">TURKEY IS HOLDING OUT, LOGICALLY, FOR A STAKE IN THE ENERGY RESOURCES. </span> </span></b></div><h3><span style="font-size: x-small;"><u><span style="color: blue;">Background Information: </span></u></span></h3><h3><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small; font-weight: normal;">EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE </span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: .5pt;">Mediterranean Flashpoint?</span></b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: .5pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> At:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/02/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none_14.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/02/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none_14.html</a>and</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/12/energy-games-in-eastern-mediterranean.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/12/energy-games-in-eastern-mediterranean.html</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In all of these developments, too, we see huge gambles being taken as Washington, Ankara, Doha, and Tehran attempt to win “throw-of-the-dice” gains before their situations change irreversibly. </span></div>

SYRIA, ISRAEL, AND TURKEY AND IRAN: A LOVE-HATE QUADRANGLE

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SYRIA, ISRAEL, AND TURKEY AND IRAN: A LOVE-HATE QUADRANGLE

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