According to a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army: “The Syrian army is slowly disintegrating as troop morale plummets and more soldiers defect to join rebels fighting a regime crackdown against dissent.” Facts or wishful thinking.

It is reported that there is growing discontent among many officers and the rank and file against army commanders, who are largely drawn from President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite community, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam. Most of the conscripts in the military are from Syria’s majority Sunni Muslim community.

In a newspaper interview In Turkey, General Mustafa al-Sheikh, who has defected from the Syrian military, gave a dim view of the state of the regime – despite its attempt to reassert control this past weekend.

Gen. Sheikh said only a third of the army was at combat readiness due to defections or absenteeism, while remaining troops were demoralized, most of its Sunni officers had fled, been arrested, or sidelined, and the military equipment is degraded.

An estimated 6,000 people have died in the bloodshed according to civil rights groups.

Syrians and Turks in Istanbul are protesting the Syrian bloodshed with major demonstration of support for the rebels.

A United Nations Security Council effort to end the violence in Syria, supported by the West and most Arab countries, failed with a double veto by Russia and China on Saturday. This came only hours after the Syrian military attacked the city of Homs in what opposition leaders described as the deadliest government assault in the nearly 11-month uprising.

The veto and the mounting violence are making what is proving to be the Arab world’s bloodiest revolt. Diplomatic stalemate in Syria leave what many are already calling a civil war? Arab and Western diplomats have little options in pressuring the Syrian government, and even some Syrian dissidents worry about what the growing confrontation will lead to – more violence.

It is becoming more and more probable that the Assad regime cannot win, but it certainly can continue the bloodshed and prolong the conflict.

Unfortunately, it’s certainly wishful thinking if anyone thinks the U.S. and/or NATO can help the rebels.

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The unrest in Egypt, with its population of 80 million, has made people around the world sit up and watch the events unfold. Egypt was the most important U. S. ally in the region, and now has some of the most ultra-radical Islamic groups holding 70% of the seats in the new Egyptian parliament.

By the current constitution, the legislative branch of the Egyptian government, the Parliament, enacts laws, approves the general policy of the State, the general plan for economic and social development and the general budget of the State, supervises the work of the government, and has the power to vote to impeach the President of the Republic, or replace the government and its Prime Minister by a vote of no-confidence. The new parliament will most certainly keep some of this but re-write the constitution to fit Islamic law.

The events in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya have led Al Qaeda’s ideologues and strategists to avoid going public. Apart from issuing a few statements, they don’t plan any immediate involvement. They trust that the upheavals will lead to further chaos across the region and at this point there is no popular political force capable of providing alternative leadership.

Accordingly, Al Qaeda will wait and see in the hope that the chaos will sufficiently dilute the Islamic state apparatuses to allow their organization
to establish a firm footing, as it has done in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda will not publicly have any role in these circumstances and at the moment, these Islamic movements are spreading all across the Arab world.

Unfortunately, there is no secular leadership to direct those developments.

Al Qaeda will let the ultra Islamic movements go on without specifying its role at this stage. Al Qaeda’s role will begin after the elections, when the
radicals reach a climax and the system of government may collapses in chaos in these countries.

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Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spent a five day visit to Latin America where he showed that Iran still has allies south of our border.  Unfortunately, very little was covered in the U.S. news media. BBC and The Economist magazine can always be counted on to print or broadcast what some chose to ignore.

Mahmoud called on Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez where he got the red carpet treatment. Then he joined Hugo in the presidential inauguration of Nicaragua’s Danny Ortega for Ortega constitutionally dubious third presidential term.

He then flew on to Cuba and Ecuador.

This was his fifth trip to the LatAm region.

The US has down played all these visit as if they never happened and says there is no concern on terrorist activity from Iran.

Funny, I wonder why the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Quds Force, the foreign terrorist arm of the IRGF, has forces in Venezuela.

Many analyst claims that HizbAllah, a close IRGF surrogate, is involved in cocaine trafficking from LatAm.

HizbAllah has been reported to have access to the Mexican Los Zetas people and drug smuggling routes to smuggle people into the U.S. As things heat up with Iran… guess what might be in store for the U.S.

For Mahmoud and his LatAm host there is surely more than political theater here.

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Any idea of a positive outcome from the so-called “Arab Spring” is all but gone. News reports confirm most that the Islamists will be the wielders of power in Egypt, Tunisia and possibly Libya and their agendas are what I warned it would be – radical Islam.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Salaf Nour Party are the big winners in Egypt. Guided by the Saudi-inspired school of thought, Salafist, Islamic hard lineer will not be friendly to the U.S. or Israel. Salafi groups in Egypt speak openly about their plans in Egypt where personal freedoms, free speech and women rights will be subject to sharia law.

Robert Haddick, writing in the Small Wars Journal, 13 Jan 2012, “This week at War: Playing Risks,” markes the most important fall out:

“… the Arab Spring has created collateral damage to U.S. relations with key Gulf countries. Leaders in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere were not pleased with the Obama administration’s abandonment of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. U.S. policymakers seem to make a clear distinction between external threats to the Sunni Arab countries, to which the United States has pledged to respond, and internal threats, which the United States sees as each country’s responsibility. The Sunni monarchies, fearing Iran’s covert and irregular-warfare capabilities, do not so neatly see the distinction between Iranian-sponsored external and internal threats. …having lost some confidence in U.S. reliability, are now looking east to India and China to diversify their security relationships.”

The Administration inexperience in international relations and military affairs are hurting U.S. positions around the world. The Arab Spring has sprung a trap on U.S. forein policy.

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Many news media and political pundits are providing their top challenges for 2012. So, I thought I would add my top five.

1. The economy which includes the debt and the massive Administration spending. Economic power come before political and military power. The US is very week in this area right now.
2. Divisive politics at all levels and a disorganized National Military Strategy. The recent Strategy document seems to provide lots of challenges but little prognosis for realist answers. The world powers must be confused.
3. Iran and it’s lunatic leadership. Iran is probably the most dangerous nation any where at this time. There seems to be no rational answer for their belligerency except a falling government that needs to galvanize its people to follow the leaders.
5. Venezuela is going to continue to use its vast oil revenue to run opposition to any thing the US tries to do or not do in Latin America.
I do not see Korea as a problem because it has too many internal problems and much weaker military than it has been in the past.
Iraq is over and Afghanistan is at a level acceptable to the American people. China will try to hold back any misadventures.
Additionally, I believe it is not in China’s interest to confront the US because it has a lot to lose over any conflict – economic, political or military.
There are many hot spots in the world but we have more problems at home than abroad

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Some say the Iranian threat to close the Straights of Hormuz is over. Actually there never was a threat.

Trying to close the Straights would bring a full military response against Iran from U.S. forces in the Gulf, possibly other Arab states, and turn Tehran¹s few remaining international allies against Iran.

The Straights would seem to be an easy target, a bottleneck only about 30 miles across at its narrowest point between Iran and Oman.

Oil tankers carrying one-sixth of the world¹s oil supply pass through the Straights, exiting the
Persian Gulf into the Arabian Sea and on to market. The tankers move through two two-mile-wide shipping lanes, one entering the Gulf, one exiting.

Also, it is well known that closing the Straights would be a heavier blow to Iran stopping the approximately 2.5 billion barrels a day of oil it exports, which provide some 80 percent of its revenue.

Additionally, Iran has very little refining capability. Most of the country’s refining needs come from other Gulf states.

I don¹t think Iran willing to close the Straights because the consequences would cost them too much.

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China has a history of shooting itself in the foot whenever it has internal problems.  Recall The Great Leap Forward in the 1950s, a plan by Mao Tse Tung to move China from peasant farmers into a modern society through industrialization and agriculture. It failed miserably with famine that caused over a reported million people in China to perish.  Then, for a lengthy 10 year period from 1966 to 1976 they underwent their Cultural Revolution in which the Communist leadership killed all intellectuals. 

Their population is 1.3 billion and in comparison to ours which is 0.3 billion (point three billion) it seems they can overwhelm us in anything.  In total land mass the U.S. is just a tad larger than China; U.S. arable land mass is 18.01% and China is less with 14.86%.  Water shortages and contamination are a serious problem in China.  The gap between the haves and have nots is growing and there is a serious imbalance between the numbers of marriageable young women versus men.

It was reported that thousands of villagers in Guangdong province’s Wukan village staged protests following the death of a local leader in detention. Roughly 6,000 farmers gathered in the village shouting slogans such as “save Wukan” and “return our farmland.” Wukan is currently surrounded by thousands of paramilitary police officers.

The Chinese Communist Party is acutely concerned that the country is on the verge of major social upheavals as the economy begins to slow. Zhou Yong Kang, the Party Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of state security, has called on all levels of government to prepare to deal with the possible eruption of social unrest.

China may be about due for another fall and if they have any public communications at all, the world fever from the so called “Arab Spring” to our “Occupy” movements will go endemic and soon spread into China and even possibly North Korea.

China is at a crossroads to see if it can move smoothly into the 21st Century or fall as previous great Chinese empires have done.

Cy Kammeier, USMC (Ret) contributed to this column

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After almost nine years with the second longest war in U.S. History (Moro War in The Philippines: 1902-1913) we leave a precarious situation in Iraq.

Doyle McManus writing for the Los Angeles Times, December 18, 2011, “An Elusive Victory In Iraq,” said it best: “With the final headlong withdrawal this month of U.S. troops from Iraq, President Obama fulfilled a campaign promise to end the war. But was the nearly nine-year mission a success?

“Iraq is still struggling even to ensure its own security. Its air force has no jet fighters, and U.S. officials say it would be unable to detect incoming aircraft in time to stop them. The Iraqi army is improving, but its ability to mount complex operations remains weak. The Iraqis still have a long way to go on intelligence, training and logistics.

“On the political side of things, the democratic system the U.S. fought to establish is becoming increasingly authoritarian and remains divided along tribal and sectarian lines. Its ruling coalition includes parties allied with Iran. Its minority Sunni Muslims and Kurds are worried about their futures.”

News reports are starting to filter out of Iraq that indicates that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has already started to round up his opposition and throw them in jail. Additionally he has made trips to Tehran, Iran, to “discuss” items of mutual interest with the Iranians.

At an estimated cost of $1 trillion, and nearly 4,500 Americans dead, the Iraq war may stand as proof of a long know axiom:  Victory is elusive, and a nation rarely exits a war with the same objectives it had on the way in.

The question is not did the U.S. accomplish anything in Iraq. The question is will Iraq survive as we know it

.

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According to the Miami Herald, 10 Dec 2011, Jose Azel: “Iran is an increasingly important politico-economic player in Latin America. Its influence transcends geography, language, culture and religion. At the heart of this growing Iranian influence is a peculiar trilateral political configuration with Cuba and Venezuela. The basis of this eccentric alignment is not East-West political philosophy, or a coalition based on congruent economic models, or North-South ideological affinity.”

According to Azel: “Even more perplexing, it is a strategic alliance that transcends profound theological differences. What, then, brings together Fidel Castro, a Marxist-Leninist atheist; Hugo Chávez, a putative socialist Christian; and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a product of Islamic fundamentalism? What allows the Iranian theocracy, so removed from Latin America by ethnicity, customs and values, to play an increasingly influential role in this hemisphere?”

It would be a mistake to scrutinize Iran’s influence in country-by-country terms rather than in terms of the interest of the Tehran-Havana-Caracas alliance. It should be obvious that Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, has the unifying point of virulent hostility toward the United States.

While the Administration is focused on European financial crisis and the Middle East it seems like no one in the Administration is aware of the shenanigans in our back yard.

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The Egyptian Islamic parties who seem to have an insurmountable lead in the Egyptian elections have said that they plan to push for a stricter Islamic religious code. This means Shariah law and the end to democracy, women’s rights, minority issues and much more.

The Egyptian Coptic Christian minority and all secular political parties will be persecuted or banished to the wilderness. There will be no thought of social or political freedoms that were the rallying cry of the street demonstrations only weeks ago.

Preliminary vote count indicates that 62% of those eligible voted. The preliminary results give the Muslim Brotherhood 40% and the ultraconservative Islamic Nour Party, who preach jihad, gets 30% of the vote. This has given impetus to a movement whose ideology is far removed from Western constitutionalism.

The Islamic Nour Party are ultraconservative Islamists, called Salafis, many of whom see most popular entertainment as sinful and reject women’s participation in public life.

Something like this was predictable and predicted by many of us who knew that the Muslim Brotherhood was the most organized and rich with finance to get out their vote.

With the recent pronouncements coming out of the Administration it would seem to indicate that they did not have a clue as to the potential ramifications of a radical Islamic state evolving along the lines of Iran and the future of an Islamic caliphate form Morocco to Iran.Islamists have formed governments in Tunisia and Morocco. 

It would seem that Islamists are positioned for a major role in post-Qaddafi Libya as well. But it is the victory in Egypt — the largest and once the most influential Arab state that has the potential to upend the established order across the Middle East.

The future of Egypt would seem to be far from the former  traditions of personal freedom, private enterprise, and the separation of civic and religious authority.

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