World exclusive: Iran will send 4,000 troops to aid Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria
Source: The Independent
Washington’s decision to arm Syria’s Sunni Muslim rebels has plunged America into the great Sunni-Shia conflict of the Islamic Middle East, entering a struggle that now dwarfs the Arab revolutions which overthrew dictatorships across the region.
For the first time, all of America’s ‘friends’ in the region are Sunni Muslims and all of its enemies are Shiites. Breaking all President Barack Obama’s rules of disengagement, the US is now fully engaged on the side of armed groups which include the most extreme Sunni Islamist movements in the Middle East.
The Independent on Sunday has learned that a military decision has been taken in Iran – even before last week’s presidential election – to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against the largely Sunni rebellion that has cost almost 100,000 lives in just over two years. Iran is now fully committed to preserving Assad’s regime, according to pro-Iranian sources which have been deeply involved in the Islamic Republic’s security, even to the extent of proposing to open up a new ‘Syrian’ front on the Golan Heights against Israel.
In years to come, historians will ask how America – after its defeat in Iraq and its humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan scheduled for 2014 – could have so blithely aligned itself with one side in a titanic Islamic struggle stretching back to the seventh century death of the Prophet Mohamed. The profound effects of this great schism, between Sunnis who believe that the father of Mohamed’s wife was the new caliph of the Muslim world and Shias who regard his son in law Ali as his rightful successor – a seventh century battle swamped in blood around the present-day Iraqi cities of Najaf and Kerbala – continue across the region to this day. A 17th century Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbott, compared this Muslim conflict to that between “Papists and Protestants”.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/world-exclusive-iran-will-send-4000-troops-to-aid-bashar-alassads-forces-in-syria-8660358.html
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Reuters just confirmed it, I think. This is a HUGE step forward, so thanks, Dipsydoodle. 
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Of course, thanks to Ollie North (R) and his Republican cabal mates, Iran has our US Hawk missiles to shoot at our American sons and daughters in uniform.
Why did Republicans designate Iran as "evil" and then give them weapons to shoot at us? How twisted is that? The missiles are old by now, but then again a antique blunderbuss will kill someone just as dead as an modern-day assault rifle will.
Response to Lugal Zaggesi (Reply #25)
Fuck it!
Let's end this bullshit proxy war once and for all.
Whoopie, we're all gonna die!
I would rather we get this over with now, once and for all than continuing to play this economically and life destroying cold war game of brinksminship.
I'm in. Anyone else?
Let's play armageddon! 
Second or third comment of yours I have just read and you write clearly and with much sanity, thanks.
This isn't our fight. 
think Iran is getting arms to Hezbullah? Do you even know what is going on in Iraq? I see the BBC let the Syrian news media back online and CNN was reporting from Damascus today. I have to wonder whose side the Kurds are helping out? I just saw in the Syrian Media, the Kurds reported the first shipment of American weapons to the rebels through the Turkish border and what types they were. You sure that you know which side the Kurds are on and who they allow in their territory? I'm pretty sure the Kurds can use some of those shipments too.
Iraq, that has troubles of its own, has a shia majority, but they also have a strong sunni minority and a slew of Kurds, who aren't shia. Lebanon has their share, thanks to Hizb'ullah (but there's plenty of the other flavor there as well, along with those pesky Christians that make the region less monolithic than people think; also Lebanon plays host to a load of Palestinian refugees, who are most decidedly NOT shia and won't back any causes that have religious overtones that are antithetical to the sunnis; Kuwait, where they're guest workers and lack any clout, Bahrain, where the shias are the poor majority under the gun because the leadership there is not afraid of cracking down; The Yemen has a large minority that will probably overtake soon--but they also have a strong tribal structure that can complicate any unity efforts; and of course, there are a crew in Syria, which has an offshoot of the shia mentality in the Alawite sect, along with slews of others, Christian, Sunni, Kurds with their own Sunni flavor, etc.
Then, there's Iran, which hosts the bulk of shi'a in the "Middle Eastern-SW Asian" region, seventy million or so--and as I am sure you are aware, Iran, like Turkey, is not part of the Arab world. Iranians are Indo-Europeans, their language is Farsi, not Arabic (though they do use the same alphabet), and they are not regarded as Arabs, and the Arabs view them as "others" -- not part of the Pan Arab experience, somewhat annoying and condescending at times, and other times, right pains in the asses. The Saudis look askance at them and likely will forever (July 31 87 had a role to play in that--that resonates to this day) and so do many others. They aren't part of any Arab unity movements because they aren't Arabs and they don't speak the language or share the culture--and that distinction and difference cannot be underestimated. Lumping is the sort of mistake the Bush administration made, and that would be a serious mistake, indeed. Not all shia are created equal--some sects hate other sects, because they think they're cults.
More on shia, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_Islam
It is variously estimated that 10–20%[51][52][53][54] of the world's Muslims are Shia. They may number up to 200 million as of 2009.[53] The Shia majority countries are Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain.[55] They also constitute 36.3% of entire local population and 38.6% of the local Muslim population of the Middle East.[56]
Shia Muslims constitute 27% of the population in Lebanon,[57] over 45% of the population in Yemen,[58] 30% of the population in Kuwait,[59] over 20% in Turkey,[53][60] 10–20% of the population in Pakistan,[53] and 10-19% of Afghanistan's population.[61][62]
Saudi Arabia hosts a number of distinct Shia communities, including the Twelver Baharna in the Eastern Province and Nakhawila of Medina, and the Ismaili Sulaymani and Zaidiyyah of Najran. Estimations put the number of Shiite citizens at 2-4 million, accounting for roughly 15% of the local population.[63]
This visual drives the point home nicely:
The shi'a don't "own the road" in the Arab world, and it looks like the Arab world isn't about to let them try to overtake, either. The Arabs ARE the top dogs in the region--the Saudis haven't been sitting on their thumbs for the last seventy years, they've worked very hard, with plenty of carrots in the form of extremely generous aid to their poorer brethren, to keep them on the "A" team. The Egyptians understand the need for a status quo ante bellum situation, at least as concerns their relations with their neighbors--they get money from the Saudis, and money from us, and they need it. They'd have trouble making it on their own, and Putin would jump on that. It's happened before, after all.
The idea that, if we just stroll off into the sunset, that other actors aren't going to jump in and take advantage and shape the region to their liking, is naive. I would prefer that we do it without a single boot on the ground, and I'm hopeful that can be accomplished.
