Now here's a delicious irony. The New York Times reports that US officials say Iran is supplying Syria with arms through Iraqi airspace, and Washington is quietly putting pressure on Baghdad to shut the air corridor down. We noted last year that the Iraq pull-out (which is largely fictional anyway) could paradoxically lead to war with Iran: the Bush/neocon strategy of playing a Shi'ite card against Iraq's Sunni jihadists and Baathists has resulted in a state as much in Tehran's orbit as Washington's. So holding on to Iraq (with its decisively critical oil reserves) as a US client state could necessitate a severe humbling (at least) of Iran. Now the Syria crisis ups the ante further. We've already noted that the US and UK have established an office block in Istanbul to jointly coordinate aid to the Syrian rebels. Now Reuters reports that France is supplying "aid and money" to rebel-controlled "liberated zones" in the northern provinces of Deir al-Zor, Aleppo and Idlib. (See map.) Just as the US is supposed to be drawing down its military commitments in the Greater Middle East, the Syrian dilemma could be propelling the West towards a virtual reconstitution of the Seleucid Empire, which in the Third Century BCE ruled over Syria, Babylon (Iraq), Parthia (Iran) and Bactria (Afghanistan). Only this time, of course, under US-led multinational rule, not Greek.

This week's media headlines about the Syrian crisis have focused on a walk-out by the Syrian delegation at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran, after Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi called the regime "oppressive"; and a TV interview in which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he needed more time to win the war. But the humanitarian situation of hundreds of thousands of people in need of assistance inside Syria has been—as usual, aid workers would say—largely neglected. As violence spreads to previously unaffected areas, internal displacement has reached unprecedented levels. Three million people are in need of food assistance or agricultural support. Many more have been affected by a crumbling economy and a lack of social services, especially health care. Meanwhile, funding for humanitarian aid has not matched the strong rhetoric on Syria in the international community.

AFP on Aug. 27 cites Vatican Radio as reporting that the Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop of Aleppo, Jean-Clement Jeanbart, has fled to Lebanon after his offices in the war-ravaged city were ransacked by what a source in the local Christian community called "unidentified groups who want to start a religious war and drag the Syrian people into a sectarian conflict." Jeanbart told Vatican Radio that he is concerned about the presence of foreign fighters and "jihadists" in Syria. The Telegraph meanwhile reports that the US State Department's Office of Syrian Opposition Support (OSOS) and the UK Foreign Office have established joint control over an apartment block in Istanbul to coordinate aid to those resisting Bashar Assad's regime. The US has reportedly set aside $25 million to support the Syrian opposition, while Britain is putting up £5 million. 

We've noted before how the oppressive monarchy in Bahrain is intent on blaming all internal protest on external Iranian subversion. Now take a look at how the Bahraini and Iranian official media portray the latest upsurge of unrest (which has gone practically unreported elsewhere). First this, from Bahrain News Agency, Aug. 25:

Terror Attack on Sitra Police Station Foiled
The General Director of Central Governorate Police has announced that the police succeeded in foiling a terror attack on Sitra Police Station on Saturday...

Egypt President Mohammed Morsi issued a new law on Aug. 23 that bans pre-trial detentions of journalists for speaking out against the government. The new law, the first decree Morsi has issued since he granted himself executive and legislative powers last week, ends the Mubarak-era practice of jailing journalists who commit so-called "publication offenses" which include "offending the president of the republic." Morsi announced this new law in the wake of the arrest and detention of opposition newspaper editor Islam Afifi on charges of publishing false information about Morsi. Egyptian security officials confirmed that Afifi has been released from detention. Afifi, the editor of the newspaper El Dustour has been criticized by Islamists for allegedly making inflammatory statements against the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi issued the law just hours after a court in Cairo convicted Afifi, sparking outrage amongst activists calling for freedom of the press.

At least two were killed when three car bombs exploded near interior ministry and security buildings in the Libya's capital Tripoli on Aug. 19—the first lethal attack of its kind since Moammar Qaddafi's fall last year. The first bomb blew up near the interior ministry's administrative offices in Tripoli but caused no casualties.

A few weeks back we examined the anatomy of the Syrian opposition, noting the various factions, how they fit in to the Great Power chess-game now being played over the country—and asking whether there are any independent secular left elements that progressives in the West can support. It was just brought to our attention that on July 28, Solidarity Federation, website of the British section of the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers Association, ran a statement from a  young man identified only by the first name Mazen, who claims to represent a "group of young Syrian anarchists and anti-authoritarians from Aleppo." In plausibly stilted English, he details the eclipse of the civil opposition by armed factions, and the foreign manipulation of the latter—while laying much of the blame for the situation with the Assad regime and its bloody repression. An excerpt:

Syrian forces and their supporting Shabbiha fighters have committed "war crimes and gross violations of international human rights and humanitarian law," according to a report released Aug. 15 by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI). The report found that government and Shabbiha forces are responsible for instances of rape, murder, torture and attacks on civilian populations. The report further concluded that the Syrian government was responsible for the deaths of more than 100 civilians, including women and children, in al-Houla in May. The COI had previously released an inconclusive report suggesting that government forces in Syria played a role in the deaths. The new report confirms that Shabbiha fighters and government forces were responsible for the massacre. The report also notes that anti-government forces have also committed human rights violations, but says that "these violations and abuses were not of the same gravity, frequency and scale as those committed by Government forces and the Shabbiha."