Iran is an ancient, yet very ambitious neo-colonial, imperialist power that seeks regional and eventually global hegemony. Teheran’s strategic fixation on enmity towards the external Dhimmis of the United States and Israel, a certain predisposition which it inherited politically from the Soviet Union, can hardly be overstated since this determined and consistent hostility is at the very center of Iranian regional strategies. The conventional, stereotypical, Anti-American depiction of US Near Eastern foreign policy has long been that the US has really only two concerns in the region, “oil and Israel.” Therefore, Iranian policy is highly focused on these two areas for which Shia Islamist identity politics is strategically mobilized in the Levant region and the Gulf region respectively. Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, Alexander Haig famously remarked that “Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.” This is indeed parallel to how Teheran has since come to perceive Grand Liban, as an emerging Iranian military mega-base in the making.

Teheran thus seeks Israel’s destruction as well as complete control over all Gulf energy resources, after which energy importing countries in regime Islamist thinking subsequently can be increasingly, effectively reduced to Islamist colonies subservient to Persian and Muslim imperialism. While the Iranian polity borders the misnamed “Persian Gulf” as most of its shores on both sides are inhabited by non-Persian speakers of Amian, Teheran’s political gambit in the Levant is to gradually turn Grand Liban into an Iranian military base where eventually hundreds of thousands of Iranian troops can be gradually amassed and permanently stationed, waiting and preparing to invade Israel at a strategically convenient opportunity as on Yom Kippur, October 6, 1973.

Iran’s colonialist and imperialist activities in its efforts to take over Grand Liban and turn it into a colony of Iran have in recent years hardly received the serious international diplomatic attention these unacceptable ambitions indeed deserve. Teheran views its strategic takeover of formerly majority-Christian Grand Liban as a model for its intended future colonial relations with predominantly Christian countries in the Americas and Europe. For Teheran, there is little strategic difference between terrorism, oil and weapons of mass destruction; all can be deployed for political extortion to enforce colonial subservience. Iran’s significant and growing activities in Latin America must thus be understood in this strategic context. Yet, as Iran seeks a strategic foothold from which to invade and strategically overwhelm Israel – unlimited military access to any territorial neighbor of Israel would be wholly sufficient for this purpose from the perspective of the tyrants in Teheran. Indeed, Israel’s successful Mediterranean peacekeeping naval mission has so far prevented this from becoming reality in the Gaza region. The extensive efforts by Iranian intelligence in hijacking the revolution in Syria, as Teheran succeeded in doing in Bahrain, must therefore not be underestimated.

The Alawi elite in Syria always knew that their political control over most of Syria would end one day and they of course prepared and planned accordingly. Teheran was thus intended for the role of mandatory-style protector of the seceding Alawi region once the predominance of the Alawi political and military elite in Syria had ended. Hafez al Assad was completely unaware of the true, yet then extremely secretive nationality of his Crypto-Jewish ethnic group, yet he sought to use politically the absurd pretension that Alevis sometimes display as religious dissimulation, by posing as Twelver Shias. The Alawi political elite thus sought to ensure protection by a new mandatory power in the image of colonial France. The Anti-Western stance of Damascus was therefore, aside from its Cold War context, very much due to the experience of having in effect been geopolitically abandoned by France. The Alawi leadership under Hafez al Assad believed that Iranian regional ambitions -unlike those of France- were sustainable over time and that clerical Iran was thus in this sense geostrategically sound and reliable as a post-partition geostrategic patron. Yet, significant economic interests held across Syria effectively prevented the Alawi political elite from using its internationally recognized control over the country’s sovereignty, to partition that French colonial construction that is Syria. Israel was considered strategically weak and politically unsustainable by the Alawi elite and Teheran thus became the strategic partner of choice of the largely Alawi political and military elite in Syria. Of course, the Jewish nationality of Alawis and of Alevis generally is no longer a secret and sovereign Israel is obviously the appropriate political partner for the Crypto-Jewish Alawi community, a relationship which crucially would not be one of domination, but of equality, federalism, incremental civic evolution and gradual, mutually agreed integration.

Jerusalem and Amman should move discreetly to offer legal immunity from prosecution as well as protection of all local economic assets, to those in the Syrian political and military elite who would make every effort to ensure and facilitate the necessary peaceful transition & partition. It would no doubt be preferable if Syria and Grand Liban were to be divided by treaty in an orderly fashion rather than through chaotic disintegration.

The Alawi political and military elite used to believe that it would be in their interest if Iranian intelligence managed to hijack any future, predominantly Sunni Amian revolution against them and they thus for many years effectively facilitated the extensive strategic penetration of Syria by Iranian intelligence and not merely clerical missionary activity to convert Sunni Amians in Syria to Twelver Shia Islam. Syria’s political elite never permitted large-scale deployment of Iranian forces in Syria and also made sure to keep the peace on the Golan, despite Iranian desires to deploy significant military forces in Syria against Israel. Domestic political legitimacy among the 60% Amian majority in Syria and the relationship with Teheran were thus ensured through the increasing, effective Iranian military presence in Grand Liban rather than in Syria.

The looming threat of political takeover in Amian areas of Syria by the Iranian-influenced Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is thus particularly serious considering that it would inevitably lead to outbreak of major regional warfare since Israel would have no other reasonable strategic option than proactively preempt an Iranian invasion from Amian parts of Syria. Indeed, Syria and Grand Liban need to be partitioned in an orderly and peaceful fashion that will ensure national unity, self-determination, federalism and civic evolution for all. It would better for all peoples of the region if this was indeed to happen peacefully and by agreement without a regional confrontation between Iran and Israel in the Levant. Make no mistake, Israel is militarily prepared for this confrontation, Iran is not yet so as their intended military presence is not yet fully in place. Although Teheran effectively occupies much of Grand Liban with its local Shia mercenary forces, Iran has not yet reached the level of political intimidation against the Sunni Amians and Crypto-Jewish ethnicities of Grand Liban that would permit large-scale build-up of non-Lebanese Iranian military forces inside Grand Liban in preparation for a large-scale military invasion of sovereign Israel.

Islamist movements do not only pose a menace due to their ambition to introduce metaphysically justified Muslim clerical rule everywhere on this planet, but also because they are essentially intelligence assets and political proxies of Riyadh and Teheran. The relationship between Riyadh and Teheran exists at multiple levels between different intelligence agencies and clerical elites of both countries. The Saudi polity has thus long maintained a particularly peculiar policy which has allowed Riyadh’s proxies to partially align with Teheran as well. Teheran has in contrast not exhibited similar “generousness” towards Riyadh regarding Teheran’s own proxies abroad. This Saudi policy ensures a wider range of diplomatic, political, operational, military and terrorist options while maintaining sufficient plausible deniability for the ruling criminal clan in Riyadh.

Yet, at different political levels, these two powerful Islamist imperialist powers are mortal enemies and bitter rivals that seek regional and global domination, including crucially at each other’s expensive. The Iranian polity is since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini trisected into three depths of power, (1) the official regime, (2) the Iranian revolutionary guards with their SS-style parallel military forces and (3) Iran’s secretive clerical deep state. The Saudi ruling criminal clan shares political power with a powerful state hierarchy of Wahhabi clerics whose political clout and influence over Saudi regional and global strategies tend to be severely underestimated. It is precisely the elaborate political division of power inside these two Islamist imperialist regimes that has allowed them to be simultaneously allies, rivals and foes. Indeed, a different, yet still elaborate structure of power-sharing was instituted for post-Hafez Syria on Iranian suggestion. Yet, it is this complex, elaborate structure of multilateral balances of power within Syria between different sects and between different state institutions, which were instituted precisely to prevent any kind of internal coup from within the regime against the presidential successor, which indeed has resulted in a political situation where effectively no one is fully in charge and the coordinating president’s public decisions are blatantly disobeyed by other Syrian governmental centers of power.

The political situation in Syria is thus particularly complex and it is easy to understand that the Islamist regimes of Ankara, Riyadh and Teheran would want to reintegrate secular Syria once more into their regional Islamist nexus of power. Washington in this and the prior administration has in effect remained rather passive towards the incremental Islamist takeover in the Gaza region, Grand Liban and Turkey. It is hence crucial that Jerusalem, Amman, Brussels and Washington provide credible ironclad, legally binding guarantees that Syrian leaders who play constructive roles in peaceful transition & partition will not be prosecuted and that their properties across Syria will indeed be fully protected post-partition.

This is especially true with regard to influential and prosperous members of Syria’s indigenous Christian community who indeed need to be assured that a state of Aram will be simultaneously established to a partition of Syria and to which they will hold automatic immigration rights while completely protecting all present private and church properties of indigenous Christians in Syria. It is certainly entirely understandable that influential and prosperous Syrian leaders from its Crypto-Jewish Christian communities would indeed be particularly concerned about their future, yet simultaneous partition in both Syria and Grand Liban is ultimately the only way to effectively alleviate these very real concerns. Yet, such important leaders are unlikely to fully cooperate with a peaceful transition & partition in Syria unless they are indeed assured that Grand Liban will be simultaneously partitioned and that a state of Aram is established in which they would be entitled to citizenship by default. Agreed transition in Syria will not work unless prominent leaders from its Christian communities are assured that partition in the two countries will indeed be simultaneous and orderly, that Christians in Syria will not have to face the terrible destiny of their ethnic kin in Iraq and that all property owned by indigenous Christians inside Syria will be fully and completely, legally and physically protected.

Yet, it is precisely the scenarios of disorderly transition that pose a strategic and existential threat to Syria’s Judeo-Christian Aramean indigenous community. The international community needs to understand that this is a matter of personal survival for Syria’s indigenous Arameans and that the policies of America and Europe so far with regard to safeguarding the interests of Christians in the region as well as with regard to the effective European and American tolerance of Islamist takeover throughout West Asia, does not particularly inspire confidence in the stateless people of Aram which is increasingly persecuted and dispersed across the world. Yet, considering that Syria under the present president is a place where Iraqi Christian refugees seek refuge, why would political and military Christian leaders of Syria commit to an orderly transition unless the self-determination of Aram is assured and Christian property in Syria is properly protected? Considering the full political and economic context and the tremendous political and economic risks involved for the predominantly Christian Aramean community in Syria; why would anyone expect influential and affluent indigenous Arameans to consent to once more serve the role of the region’s perpetual political suckers who tend to be forced to pay the political price for strategic blunders committed by powers from within and outside the region?