Syria-Iraq border
Iran has indeed been eager to open up the land route from its border through Iraq to Syria. It would prefer to resupply the government of Bashar al-Assad through the much cheaper road that runs across the region than fly in military and civilian supplies. The road is open from Damascus to Syria's border with Iraq and it is open from Iran's border across Iraq. A U.S. base and U.S. proxies along the Iraq-Syria border are keen to create a buffer state to block Iran's access to the road. This border post in south-eastern Syria is crucial and the two sides now face each other in a dangerous standoff.
The White House press secretary said that the U.S. had a "shared interest with Israel to make sure that Iran does not gain a foothold, military base-wise, in southern Syria." Armed action by U.S. proxies, trained in a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-run camp in Jordan, against Syrian government troops backed by Iranian-led militias has been a flashpoint along the edge of southern Syria.
Meanwhile, along Lebanon's border, tensions have risen over a potential Israeli strike against Hezbollah's highly fortified positions. Israel has already been collaborating with various Syrian rebel groups, including Al Qaeda-backed groups, in the region near the occupied Golan Heights. Israeli aircraft have regularly been striking Syrian military targets to prevent any advance by the Syrian Army towards the de facto border with Israel. Israel would also like to expand its Golan Heights holdings and create a large buffer zone with Syria. These maneuvers have been fully backed by the Trump White House.
Dangerous signals come from the new sanctions and from the hot wars between U.S. proxies, including Israel, and the Iranian-backed forces. When Trump was in Saudi Arabia in May, he suggested that the conflict between the U.S. and Iran was a "battle between good and evil." Religious language such as this evokes the words of former President George W. Bush before he launched the illegal war on Iraq in 2003. It is Iran, Trump suggested, that "spreads destruction and chaos" in the region. This came the day after Iran re-elected its moderate President, and along the same time as the U.S. pledged to sell Saudi Arabia, a country spreading destruction and chaos in Yemen, arms worth $110 billion.
There is an appetite for war in the Trump White House and amongst its Israeli and Saudi partners. The war this time will be against Iran. If West Asia is in chaos now, there is no adequate word to describe its fate if that full-scale war actually begins.
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