Sleepwalking.

Editor,

Looks like because Syria is the conduit for Iranian arms to Hezbollah (who are Shiites), Israel and Israel's allies have an interest in pumping this conflict and backing Assad's enemies (who are increasingly being infiltrated by our Osama/Qaeda/9-11 pals the Sunnis).

Russia is right about not wanting Sunnis to own territory in Syria. Look at the debacle that ensued in Libya, not to mention Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

As Andrew Bacevich is arguing these days, this entire can of worms goes back to 1914, when the West carved up the Ottoman Empire, created countries out of whole cloth, and installed despots friendly to the West and the West's interests in oil, transit (the Suez canal), and strategic bases.

One blunder piled on another until here we are, introducing yet more lethal machinery into a hopelessly conflicted region, backing we-know-not-whom for reasons we-know-not-why.

Israel is certainly a linchpin in the complexities of this conflict, as are Hezbollah-Assad-Iran; but the big powers are sleepwalking into escalating the conflict between Israel and Iran much as they have sleepwalked into the the total marginalization of Palestinian aspirations for a Palestinian state.

Will this end with nuclear war? Who knows? There are certainly plenty of nukes out there, and state and non-state extremists of every stripe are doing everything they can to make this situation worse.

Re: "Assad Warns Israel, Claiming a Stockpile of Russian Weapons" (5/31/2013)