{"id":33596,"date":"2018-04-20T17:28:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T22:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=33596"},"modified":"2018-04-20T17:28:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T22:28:57","slug":"syria-iran-and-chaos-in-international-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=33596","title":{"rendered":"Syria, Iran and \u2018chaos in international relations\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Syria, Iran and \u2018chaos in international relations\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n

Any meaningful political resolution to the turmoil in the Middle East now seems more elusive than ever<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Syrian<\/p>\n
Syrian boys walk along a destroyed street in Douma on the outskirts of Damascus on April 16. Photo: AFP\/Louai Beshara<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Even in the context of a post-truth geopolitical environment run amok, Russian President Vladimir Putin telling his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani over the phone that <\/span>any further Western strikes against Syria may \u201clead to chaos in international relations\u201d should at least be seen for what it is; a massive understatement. <\/span><\/p>\n

According to the Kremlin, <\/span>Putin and Rouhani agreed that what cynics are calling the F.U.K.U.S. \u2013 or France, UK, US \u2013 strikes have damaged the chances of achieving any meaningful political resolution in Syria. <\/span><\/p>\n

That translates into Putin and Rouhani acknowledging that Washington, London and Paris are pulling no punches to be back in the game, directly clashing with the painstaking Astana peace process led by Russia, Iran and Turkey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Significantly, <\/span>Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari reminded<\/span><\/a>acting US Secretary of State John Sullivan, also over the phone, about \u201cthe necessity to prioritize finding a political solution and that the Syrian people alone should determine their\u00a0own fate.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

This means essentially that the \u201c4+1\u201d \u2013 Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, plus Hezbollah \u2013 which were at the vanguard of destroying ISIS, or Islamic State, and other crypto-jihadi outfits in Syria, remain in synch. The counter-terror HQ of the \u201c4+1\u201d was in Baghdad. As much as Baghdad may harbor ideological divergences with Damascus, their common strategy is built upon the fight against Salafi-jihadis of all stripes.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

United front<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iraq, alongside Lebanon, was one of the very few nations across the Middle East that condemned the US-UK-France strikes. The GCC petrodollar club \u2013 led by the House of Saud \u2013 predictably supported it, as their agenda never strayed away from regime change. <\/span><\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Syria, Iran and \u2018chaos in international relations\u2019 Any meaningful political resolution to the turmoil in the Middle East now seems more elusive than ever Syrian boys walk along a destroyed street in Douma on the outskirts of Damascus on April 16. Photo: AFP\/Louai Beshara Even in the context of a post-truth geopolitical environment run amok, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15907,4075,19867,441,4076,776],"class_list":["post-33596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-asia-times","tag-chaos","tag-international-relations","tag-iran","tag-pepe-escobar","tag-syria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33597,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33596\/revisions\/33597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}