I didn’t spend all week writing about the gigantic tremors occurring in the Middle East because I thought it was fun. If I’m even remotely correct in my analysis, the entire world will be affected and shaped for decades to come by what’s about to go down in the region. Rather than rehash what I already wrote, I suggest you take a read of the following if you missed them the first time around.
There’s been a major update since those posts were published. Namely, it appears the government of Lebanon has seen enough and is coming out with its side of the story. As I reported in Part 1, the Saudis immediately claimed Lebanon declared war on it following the obviously staged and forced resignation of Hariri via Saudi Arabia over the weekend.
Lebanon believes Saad al-Hariri is held in Saudi Arabia, from where he resigned as prime minister, two top Lebanese government officials said, amid a deepening crisis pushing Lebanon onto the frontlines of a power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
A third source, a senior politician close to Saudi-allied Hariri, said Saudi Arabia had ordered him to resign and put him under house arrest. A fourth source familiar with the situation said Saudi Arabia was controlling and limiting his movement.
Hariri’s exit fueled wide speculation that the Sunni Muslim politician, long an ally of Riyadh, was coerced into stepping down by Saudi Arabia as it seeks to hit back against Iran and its Lebanese Shi‘ite ally Hezbollah.
“Keeping Hariri with restricted freedom in Riyadh is an attack on Lebanese sovereignty. Our dignity is his dignity. We will work with (foreign) states to return him to Beirut,” said the senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the government had yet to declare this position.
It seems some sort of escalation is coming given that both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have called for their citizens to evacuate Lebanon. From Haaretz:
Saudi Arabia has warned its citizens against travelling to Lebanon and asked those who in the country to leave as soon as possible, the kingdom’s official news agency quoted an official source in the Foreign Ministry as saying.
“Due to the circumstances in the Lebanese Republic, the kingdom asks its citizens who are visiting or residing” in the country to leave it as soon as possible, the source added.
Switching gears, while things continue to bubble in an extremely dangerous direction overseas, the corporate media and U.S government have been busy at work here at home in a desperate attempt to regain control of the narrative and silence patriotic whistleblowers. Let’s start with the corporate media’s recent shameless and degenerate attempt to smear William Binney.
And just to underscore that Iran is now the new ISIS, Netanyahu tweeted on Sunday that "As Isis [IS] moves out, Iran moves in."
"Iran wants to establish itself militarily in Syria, right next to Israel. Israel will not let that happen," he added.
In an interview on the BBC's Andrew Marr show on the same day he said Iran wanted to bring its air force and submarines as well as military divisions right next to Israel.
Israel has raised further concerns of Iran seeking to use Syrian ports and bases for its submarines.
When asked whether Israel would use military force to stop such developments, Mr Netanyahu told the BBC: "You know, the more we're prepared to stop it, the less likely we'll have to resort to much greater things. There is a principle I very much adhere to, which is to nip bad things in the bud."
However, international pressure is likely to be the first avenue pursued by Israel. Other countries have also raised concerns over potential long-term Iranian presence in the region.
It's not just Israel whose opinion matters, however.
The issue of potential Iranian military bases is likely to have been raised by Israeli officials with Syria's ally Russia. In October, Russia's defence minister was in Jerusalem and was told by Netanyahu that Israel would not allow the Iranian military "to gain a foothold in Syria", according to reports at the time.
While it is not clear how that conversation ended, last week Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Iran and Russian media suggested Syria - including Iran's influence in the country - would be on the agenda.
Finally, closing the loop on the recent escalation in tensions between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, over the past year, the Israeli air force has struck targets in Syria a number of times which it has linked to Hezbollah.
And with that one base - which may or may not belong to Iran - the media now has the narrative "alibi" it will need to push for popular support for the Israel-Saudi axis in the upcoming military conflict against Iran and Lebanon.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, Reuters reported that Iran's president Hassan Rouhani said Saudi Arabia had made a “strategic mistake” by considering the United States and Israel as friends and Iran as an enemy. The next few weeks should confirm if he is correct.
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