481–490 of 530 posts
That was a lot of suffering and chaos of what's actually a fairly trifling dynasty in the grand scheme of things.
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They're spilling a lot of blood right now because they felt the Ukraine was intolerable. You can accuse them of a lot of things (war crimes and disastrous stupidity among them) but "all talk and no do" is bizarre. On the military front they are responsible for something close to the most doing in Europe since WWII and their pain tolerance in doing has been demonstrated to be remarkably high.
The ukraine.. the ukraine..
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For me, Taleb is the Levante expert, I simply don't know anyone else. His view that the interference of all possible powers has only brought disaster seems plausible to me. He has criticized the export of fanaticism from Saudi Arabia in particular for a while. The downfall of a regime is perhaps simply difficult to predict. I experienced this in the case of the GDR. Suddenly it was gone, everyone was astonished.
What makes him an expert, other than being Levantine?
Strangely enough, there is good Middle East reporting in Germany by academically educated journalists.
Kristin Helberg is great, she reminds me of Peter Scholl Latour in his good times.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristin_Helberg
Thomas Avenarius from "Süddeutsche Zeitung" is nice as well. Though I think he is usually crippled by his neocon boss.
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I am aware of the history. But your assertion that only Iran wishes to attack Israel is untrue. Al-Qaedas very foundational idea was to hurt the Saudi government for allying with the US (and by extension Israel). And these rebels are all former Al-Qaeda or worse. You think they will be pro-Western before they will be anti-Israel? It's a very risky gamble to make.
They don‘t have to be pro anything. Al Julani’s family themselves had to flee the Golan heights due to Israel’s occupation, so I doubt they‘ll become best friends. All I‘m saying is it weakens Iran and that‘s a good thing. Few in the area are enthusiastic about Israel, but most of them are at a point where they just want to move on and the biggest hindrance has been Iran and its proxies.
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Honestly, my Sunni relatives from Tartus, Homs and Dimashq are elated. My alawite and druz relatives from Tartus and Latakia are almost distraught. There is a massive disparity between the treatment of Alawites/Shiites/Druz and Sunnis in Syria (Re: employment opportunities, etc) I've always heard horror stories about starvation and torture from my father (Sunni) who served over a decade in Hafiz Assads military, as w…
How common is intermarriage between the various sects?
For example we have Sunni/Shia, Sunni/Druz, Sunni/Christian and most recently Sunni/Alawite in our extended family, all from Tartus.
Our relatives from Homs/Dimashq are almost exclusively Sunni, religious, and tend to marry from their own sect and even city.
There are irreconcilable differences between (for example) Sunnis and Shiites that would usually prevent marriage if the husband is 'stricter' in faith, not to mention the rift caused during family gatherings by the politics behind each sect (ie: Alawites are generally pro-Assad, Shiites are usually pro Hezbollah, Sunnis are usually against both)
Edit: This is obviously a gross oversimplification, basically less religeous more intermixing.