We’ve done a lot to cover the Syria conflict, and explain how not black and white the situation is. SOFREP recently wrote a book on the subject, The Syria Report by Kerry Patton.

Syria has historically been a strong ally to Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and also supported the regime during the Iraq invasion that came a few years later from Hussein’s forces.

Syria is a very important piece of Iran’s foreign policy puzzle, and the Iranian position is that it cannot let a pro western regime take power.  They will, and have been, doing everything possible to ensure this doesn’t happen. Their main tool of prevention has been Major General Qassem Suleimani’s Quds Force.

Suleimani is one of the most powerful figures in the Middle East, and well known among the CIA and Mossad circles. Under his leadership Iran orchestrated the current political power structure in Iraq, not the US, and this was an embarrassing blow to US diplomacy. You can read more about that here.

We now know that Iraq was not a success for the US, thousands of US lives, and billions of dollars wasted to essentially hand over the Iraqi house keys to Iran. A country that once feared that they were next on the US hit list, is now quietly chuckling at their fortune, and surely thinking Insha’Allah. 

The Iranians now enjoy the use of Iraqi air space to manage their war logistics in Syria. Under Quds leadership, Iraqi and Hezbollah fight alongside Iranians to prop up the Assad regime, and they believe they are on the righteous side of things (skip to 12:20 of the video for an example of this).

As you will see from this BBC video below, the situation is far more complicated than US Secretary of State John Kerry would have you believe.

Main photo: AFP Photo / STR