An "Islamic Civil War"

Chaos by Design

By M. SHAHID ALAM
CounterPunch

"The war that Western powers--primarily US, Israel and Britain--began against the Islamic world after September 11, 2001, is about to enter a new more dangerous phase as their early plans for 'changing the map of the Middle East' have begun to unravel with unintended consequences.

Codenamed 'the war against terror,' the imperialist war against the Middle East was fueled primarily by US and Israeli ambitions. Britain's participation is mostly a sideshow. US and Israel have convergent aims in the region. The US seeks to deepen its control over the region's oil. Israel wants to create regional conditions that will allow it to complete the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians......

....The Iraq Study Group has described the situation in Iraq "grave and deteriorating," and recommended a quick drawdown of US forces. It is unlikely that the President will take that advice. Instead, the US, Israel and Britain have for some time been working on an alternative plan when it appeared that their initial plans were being derailed. The US, Israel and Britain are now working to incite a civil war between Sunnis and Shias across the Middle East. As Jonathan Cook puts it, taking a leaf from Israeli experience in the West Bank and Gaza, they expect to create "controlled chaos" in the entire Islamic world.

The battle lines in this civil war have been drawn. The principal American-Israeli surrogates in this 'Islamic civil war' showed their colors last July when Israel launched devastating air attacks against Lebanese civilian targets in response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah. Almost instantly, Cairo, Riyadh and Amman condemned the Hizbullah action. On the opposite side there is the crescent of resurgent Shia power stretching from Lebanon, through Syria and Iraq, into Iran.....

The determining factor in this war will be the Sunni populations under the thumbs of the Arab potentates. It is doubtful if the anti-Persian and anti-Shia rhetoric of the Arab potentates will succeed in swinging them around to support governments they have long hated, especially now as their alliance with Israel becomes overt......."