Incredibly Obvious Middle East

Suddenly, a few days after the new year, the U.S. government noted that the situation in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon is “somewhat uneasy.”*

The U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made this statement unexpectedly. The statement sounds, of course, rather sharp, but it immediately attracts attention and may even provoke such objections as, for example, “What do you mean by 'somewhat uneasy?' There is war there.” Or “What is happening in Lebanon now?” It is impossible to disagree with the first objection, and there is something to be said about the second one. In short, a civil war is starting in Lebanon again. In late December in Beirut a former minister, one of the leading opposition figures, was killed in a bomb explosion. The explosion was so massive that it injured another 80 people. Gun, artillery and missile shootings in various areas that border with Syria have become so common that they cannot be looked at as separate and unrelated cases.

Now that we have briefly outlined the current situation in Lebanon, we can go back to Iraq and Syria. Let's start with Iraq, where, as noted earlier, it is “somewhat uneasy.” The problem with evaluation of judgments is subjectivity and its ties to such concepts as what is “good and bad” for the one who presents those judgments. As in the famous joke, “It is horrible, but not horrible horrible horrible.” So, “uneasy” for Iraq means almost daily attacks on civilians. In 2013 alone, more than 8,000 people were killed.

Of course, this is only one point of view, and 8,000 victims in Iraq compares to the situation in Syria like a runny nose or a poke in the eye compares to the plague. In Syria, everything is so “uneasy” that, not surprisingly, the U.N. officially ceased to track the number of fatalities, having declared that the most recent data that they have is 100,000 victims as of June 2013. And even that figure they got by some unclear manipulations with “six different numbers from different sources.”* Since then, as Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the Commissioner for Human Rights, declared, the U.N. has no access to Syria and has no sources of information about the victims that it can trust. Therefore, the U.N. will no longer continue to track the number of victims in Syria. 120,000? 150,000? 200,000? What is the difference? It is uneasy there …

Here I would like to make a digression. We can discuss for a long time that Russian media loves power and respects ranks, which is a reasonable statement that usually gets contrasted with the dreamy situation in the West! There, the Fourth Estate has no mercy for anyone and every mistake gets published right away. However, when the secretary of state, John Kerry, suddenly declares worldwide the very valuable observation that the situation in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon is “somewhat uneasy,” no one answers him with sarcastic remarks and no one asks whether dear Mr. Kerry has noticed that water is wet? “This is a fight that is bigger than just Iraq,” Kerry declared. “The rise of these terrorists in the region, and particularly in Syria and through the fighting in Syria, is part of what is unleashing this instability in the rest of the region.”

If you do not have the memory of a goldfish or mental capabilities of a fetus, this phrase should surprise you. Let me remind you that no one was as eager to intervene in Syria as President Obama, who was not satisfied with the option of sending the Syrian rebels weapons and other forms of assistance, but wanted to send into this hell troops who have practically just returned from Iraq.

In Iraq, recall, the U.S. also intervened “just for a moment,” to help overthrow the regime. Six months ago, the president of the United States was preparing a draft resolution on sending troops there to help whom? Do you remember?

Those who today “unleash the instability in the rest of the region” and are armed by American taxpayers.

In this regard, I would like to know what the next revelations from the secretary of the state, or other representatives of the U.S. administration, would be? Because the “smart diplomacy” that Barack Obama is so proud of earlier helped Libyan Islamists to turn the country into a black hole — and out of that black hole, contrary to physics' laws, spilled out weapons, ammunition and a large amount of cash accumulated by Moammar Gadhafi — and led Islamists to gain power in Egypt (whom Egyptians are trying to get rid of at the moment). Could it be that soon it will become clear that, for example, “The rise of these terrorists in northern and central Africa, particularly in Lebanon and Egypt, is part of what is unleashing this instability in the rest of the region?”

You may ask why this topic should worry anyone, when we are talking about regions so distant from Russia. On Jan. 8, 2014, Syrian Minister of Information Umran al-Ahid Zabi declared that he had information that the recent terrorist attacks in Iraq, Syria and Russia are similar in a number of signs and were clearly “plotted and directed from a single center.” He also added that in his opinion, all three countries “have the legal right to take all necessary measures to protect their national security” and “If a party has billions of dollars at its disposal, it does not mean that it can stage terrorist attacks here or there scot-free.”

*Editor's Note: This quote could not be sourced.