[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ufpj-activist] Syrian Nun Seen as Threat to War Resistance; What a Sorry State of Affairs by William Bowles; Iran can be made a force for Middle Eastern peace; Hizbollah tightens grip on Syria conflict

Fri Nov 22 22:27:49 UTC 2013

Those who, like me,  have long admired Jeremy Scahill's work now have pause to wonder, as this long thread about Mother Agnes-Miriam elucidates.

--mkb

Begin forwarded message:

From: "m_eisenscher at uslaboragainstwar.org<mailto:m_eisenscher at uslaboragainstwar.org>" <m_eisenscher at uslaboragainstwar.org<mailto:m_eisenscher at uslaboragainstwar.org>>
Date: November 22, 2013 12:17:41 PM CST
To: <ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org<mailto:ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org>>
Subject: [ufpj-activist] Syrian Nun Seen as Threat to War Resistance; What a Sorry State of Affairs by William Bowles; Iran can be made a force for Middle Eastern peace; Hizbollah tightens grip on Syria conflict

Here are some questions that I would like to see answered regarding Mother Agnes-Mariam and the controversy surrounding the Stop the War conference by those who are her critics and supporters of the opponents seeking the armed overthrow of the Assad government (and, yes, I realize that everyone who is a critic of MAM is not a supporter of the armed opposition):

To those who assert that MAM is a front for or stooge of the Assad government, what evidence do you have to support those claims?  To those who believe the Islamic fundamentalists who lead many of the opposition militias are preferable to the Assad government, where is the evidence that religious and ethnic minorities will not suffer a horrific fate should they ever come to power?  To those who see in the Free Syrian Army a force for liberation and democracy, on what basis do you hold that belief?  Is there any evidence in the zones they now control that is the likely outcome if Assad is removed and is replaced by a government of their making? If you do not believe they are a force for liberation and democracy, why do you support them?
Who within the armed opposition is rallying support for a secular democratic alternative to Assad?  What leads you to believe they will prevail in the internal jockeying for power among the contesting war lords and militia leaders?  Who among them had the courage to personally intercede to protect Christians, Alewites, Kurds or other religious or ethnic minorities as MAM has done in negotiating safe passage for thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire between the opposition and government forces?  If she is indeed an agent of the Assad government, why do some rebel militias provide protection for her and her convent (which is located in a "liberated" zone)?

What evidence is there that those who owe their existence and survival to the Saudis, Qataris, Turks, French, Americans, British, Israelis and Jordanians won't allow those foreign governments to establish Syria as a bridgehead for subversion and military action against Iran should they be victorious?  What leads you to believe that the outcome of a successful overthrow of the Assad government won't look like the outcome of the Libyan overthrow of Qaddafy or the overthrow of Saddam Hussein?  Do you prefer those outcomes to continued rule by Assad?

Here are two rebuttals to charges made against Mother Agnes-Mariam you might want to read before composing a response.

[go to original article] <http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/289-134/20551-syrian-nun-seen-as-threat-to-war-resistance>
Syrian Nun Seen as Threat to War Resistance
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/289-134/20551-syrian-nun-seen-as-threat-to-war-resistance
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News

21 November 13

[[]] ere's what it looks like when a respected reporter talks about his blackmail note to an established anti-war organization regarding the organization's upcoming conference in a tweet on November 15<https://twitter.com/jeremyscahill/status/401373828107874304>:

jeremy scahill @jeremyscahill I've informed organizers of @STWuk<https://twitter.com/STWuk> that I will not participate in their conference if Mother Agnes is on the platform.

The reporter is Jeremy Scahill<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Scahill>, who was booked as the keynote speaker and to show his film "Dirty Wars" (based on his book by the same name) at the November 30 International Anti-War Conference in London, put on by Stop the War Coalition<http://www.stopwar.org.uk/> (STWuk), which was first organized in 2001 in opposition to an American attack on Iraq. More than 12 years later, the coalition notes dryly on its web page for the conference, "We need more effective anti war resistance internationally. This conference is a chance to analyse, build links and lay plans."

Scahill's threat to boycott the conference became moot the following day, when the dreaded Mother Agnes withdrew from participation. Her letter read, in part<http://stopwar.org.uk/mother_agnes.pdf>:

"It has come to my attention that my participation in your conference has become a matter of serious contention, even prompting some other speakers to consider withdrawing. This is apparently due to a campaign of cruel and unsubstantiated accusations which seek to work against my efforts and those of the Musalaha (Reconciliation) Initiative in Syria.

"The basis of our work toward peace is reconciliation and forgiveness. This means extending an olive branch to some who may initially refuse it, and accepting an olive branch from others who are despised, even by our friends....

"Some may feel that an injustice will be done if I speak at your conference. Others may think that injustice will be done if I do not. Because my participation in your conference may be used by some to distract from your valuable efforts towards peace, non-violence and reconciliation, I believe it best to withdraw from participation."

Why did the invitation from Stop the War to a nun working to stop war raise objections?

Push comes to shove, and Mother Agnes is an apparent pushover. She's also not flogging a movie. And the abuse she's suffered online was as real as the pressure on Scahill and others to have nothing to do with her. It's hard to find any evidence that Mother Agnes has committed anything worse than what others consider thought-crimes and politically incorrect observations, some of which are actually correct.

Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross is a Carmelite nun and mother superior of the Monastery of James the Mutilated in Qara, Syria, which has a community of three monks and twelve nuns. Born in Lebanon in a refugee camp 61 years ago, she is Palestinian on her father's side and has worked in Syria for about 20 years. She is the spokesperson for the Catholic Information Center in Beirut, where the Musalaha Initiative also has its office. Mother Agnes became a nun at 19, after several years in the late 1960s as a self-styled "hippie," traveling to Europe, India and Tibet. Unlike others with an equally public profile, Mother Agnes has no Wikipedia page.

In June 2012, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire<http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/267-33/12167-no-to-war-in-syria%22%20%5Cl%20%22identifier_0_45021> praised Mother Agnes as a peacemaker:

"In her community her voice has been clear, pure and loud. And it should be so in the West. Like many people in Syria she has been placed in life threatening situations, but for the sake of peace she has chosen to risk her own existence for the safety and security of others. She has spoken out against the lack of truth in our media regarding Syria and about the terror and chaos which a 'third force' seems to be spreading across the country. Her words confront and challenge us because they do not mirror the picture of events in Syria we have built up in our minds over many months of reading our newspapers and watching the news on our televisions. Much of the terror has been imported, we learn from her. She can tell us about the thousands of Christian refugees, forced to flee their homes by an imported Islamist extreme."

What makes her controversial to people around Stop the War Coalition is their perception of her as a supporter of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. Clear reasoning behind this perception is hard to come by. The reality for Christians<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/world/middleeast/assault-on-christian-town-complicates-crisis-in-syria.html?_r=0> in Syria is that their choice of friends is limited: the government represses them along with everyone else, but some rebel groups have taken to massacring Christians<http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/08/world/meast/syria-civil-war/>. With rebel groups numbering 1,000 or more, none are likely to be a reliable protectors.

Mother Agnes's heretical view of the Damascus chemical attack

In August 2013, when the world learned of the still murky chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb, Mother Agnes questioned the prevailing Western view that the Assad government carried out the attack. She prepared a 50-page report<http://www.scribd.com/doc/169025372/Study-the-Videos-That-Speaks-About-Chemicals-Beta-Version> questioning the authenticity of videos of the aftermath and submitted her findings to the United Nations Human Rights Council. As The New York Times<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/world/middleeast/seeking-credible-denial-on-poison-gas-russia-and-syria-turn-to-nun.html> of September 21 reported:

"When Russia's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, wanted to bolster his argument that rebels had carried out the poison gas attacks<http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/russias-foreign-minister-cites-questions-raised-by-nun-in-syria-on-chemical-attacks/> near Damascus on Aug. 21, he pointed to the work of a 61-year-old Lebanese-born nun who had concluded that the horrifying videos showing hundreds of dead and choking victims, including many children, had been fabricated ahead of time to provide a pretext for foreign intervention.

"'Mr. Lavrov is an intelligent person,' said the nun, Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross, with a wide smile in a recent interview in this Lebanese mountain town. 'He will never stick his name to someone who is saying stupidities.'"

Taking a position on the chemical attacks that is supportive of the Assad government has led to intensified criticism of Mother Agnes as an Assad pawn. French reporters have written a book accusing her of conspiring with the government to kill another French reporter<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Jacquier> in 2012. She has sued the authors for libel.

The Syrian uprising started with peaceful protests in March 2011, but soon turned violent. Mother Agnes accuses the West of fomenting the violence to create a pretext for military intervention and re-ordering of Syria. In November 2011, she wrote an open letter to President Assad, challenging the government over its treatment of hospital patients and prisoners, as reported in Vatican Insider<http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/world-news/detail/articolo/siria-syria-agnes-chiesa-church-iglesia-10112/> in November 2011:

"Dear Mr. President, I have lived and worked in Syria since 1994, and I have learned to esteem the unique position Syria holds in the world of culture and of religions. But I am shocked to learn from Amnesty International that in the hospitals run by the government the wounded suffer discrimination and maltreatment because of their ideology. And I am saddened to find that, in the prisons, there are people there who have never been tried in court, or even accused of anything.... I ask for a serious inquiry into the hospitals and prisons, under the supervision of the International Red Cross, together with the creation of a committee to accelerate the exercise of justice."

In late October, Mother Agnes, through the Musalaha Initiative, was involved in establishing a cease-fire and evacuating some 5,400 civilians<http://www.syriasolidaritymovement.org/2013/11/07/1881/> from Moadamiya, a rebel-held city near Damascus.

Mother Agnes is currently on a six-week speaking tour<http://www.syriasolidaritymovement.org/mother-agnes-tour/mother-agnes-mariam/> in North America, largely ignored by most media. In Cleveland on November 14, she received a special peace award<http://www.syriasolidaritymovement.org/2013/11/18/cleveland-city-senator-congressman-give-mother-agnes-mariam-peace-awards/> from the mayor, a congressman, and a senator. The tour ends December 4.

Jeremy Scahill has yet to explain his own behavior, but columnist Neil Clark, writing for Russia Today, blames "liberal hawks and neo-cons" for silencing the nun because:

"Mother Agnes' testimony reveals that the so-called 'War on Terror' is a sham - that in Syria, the Western countries and their regional allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, are on the same side as the extremist Islamic terror groups that we are told are our greatest enemies."

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
________________________________
What a Sorry State of Affairs by William Bowles
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/what-a-sorry-state-of-affairs-by-william-bowles/
Posted on November 20, 2013 by dandelionsalad

by William Bowles<http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/tag/william-bowles/>
Writer, Dandelion Salad<http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/what-a-sorry-state-of-affairs-by-william-bowles/>
williambowles.info<http://williambowles.info/2013/11/19/what-a-sorry-state-of-affairs-by-william-bowles/>
19 November 2013

I have been involved with left-wing politics in one guise or another pretty much my entire life and I have to admit to getting an awful lot of stuff wrong, largely because rather than thinking things through properly for myself, I listened to the ‘authority’, to those who allegedly know best.

Contrary to popular belief, I’ve gotten more radical as I’ve gotten older and as just as willing to consider new ideas, new approaches, perhaps due to my 19th century ‘liberal’ arts education that encouraged us to explore wherever our fancy took us, (though it has to be said that much depended on the quality/interest/encouragement of the lecturers we had and a pretty motley but interesting crew it was).

All of this by way of a run-in to this Mother Agnes Mariam affair that once again reveals the bankrupt nature of left political activity in this country (and elsewhere in the ‘developed’ world).

If I remember correctly, Mother Agnes came to our attention back in September when she  blew the lid on the chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, incurring the wrath of the Western media as she contradicted the story then being peddled, that it was Assad wot did it.

The International Institute for Peace, Justice and Human Rights (ISTEAMS) has just published a comprehensive report<http://docviewer.yandex.ru/?url=ya-disk-public%3A%2F%2F5Fv5zOHkNlswm8oNnyebXf9eSBEVjeisENQIJtfW73w%3D&name=STUDY%20THE%20VIDEOS%20THAT%20SPEAKS%20ABOUT%20CHEMICALS%20BETA%20VERSION.pdf&c=52445fbf2863> on the chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta. The document is called The Chemical Attacks on East Ghouta to Justify Military Right to Protect Intervention in Syria. With video clips and the evidence provided by witnesses to support the conclusions, the report has been submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council and spread among foreign diplomats.

The author is ISTEAMS President and International Coordinator Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross (el-Salib), the Mother Superior of the Monastery of St. James the Mutilated (Syria). A fearless faithful, she has been collecting the evidence related to bloody events in the conflict zone since the very start of Syrian rebellion: the militants running rampant, the staged fakes and instances of one-sided highlighting of the events in Syria by Western media… ‘ East Ghouta: False Flag Chemical Attack<http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/09/28/east-ghouta-false-flag-chemical-attack.html>‘ By  Nikolai MALISHEVSKI | 28.09.2013, Strategic Culture Foundation

So Stop the War have organised (yet another) conference and Mother Agnes got invited (and as it turns out, the only person speaking who had actually experienced Syria first-hand!) and a couple of rogues, Jeremy Scahill activist journalist and Owen Jones of the Independent newspaper, refused to attend if Mother Agnes was on the platform, on the grounds that Mother Agnes was an apologist for ‘mass murderer’ Assad. No proof was offered for this opinion, nor has any emerged since then as far as I know that Mother Agnes is an ‘apologist’ for the Assad regime. In any case, isn’t Owens the pot calling the kettle black?

Owen Jones…is a paid-up member of a UK…[Labour]…party that played a lead role in no less than genocide; in an act of military and economic aggression on Iraq totally against International Law, not to mention morality. He sits beside these politicians and pleads with leftist thinkers to join them and “change them from within”.  ‘ Owen Jones & Mother Agnes. A lesson on conciliatory “leftists”’<http://williambowles.info/2013/11/19/owen-jones-leftists-by-phil-greaves/> By Phil Greaves

In any case Mother Agnes disinvited herself from the affair but the smell left by Scahill and Jones remains. Frankly, I think it’s outrageous that two people and one of them an employee of the corporate press, and the other a US journalist/writer, can dictate who should and should not appear at a public meeting organised by the left in the shape of the Stop the War Coalition!

I mean like what kind of threat is it if these two buffoons didn’t pitch? Who is likely to miss their presence? And shame on STW for caving in on this, once again revealing the bankrupt and utterly dishonest nature of the ‘left’.

I know I keep banging on about this but once more into the breach…when is the left here (and elsewhere) going to jettison its imperialist baggage? What does it take? Why is it that we are always, I mean always telling the rest of the world what to do?

Therein lies the imperialist core at the heart of the left, more commonly known as the ‘White Man’s Burden’. Apparently running the planet and its people is hard to give up even for those who claim to be anti-imperialist.

Mother Agnes’ biggest ‘sin’ was calling the ‘rebels’ murderers and exposing the Ghouta gas attack, and after all it was the ‘rebels’ that torched her monastery<http://wp.me/p107R3-gFm> so perhaps she’s biased. But by the same token and in spite of this she has mediated meetings with all sides in the conflict even those she condemns as murderers. And what if she does support Assad? So what? What if she thinks Assad is preferable to mass murder? She’s not alone in thinking that in Syria.

What these sniveling ‘lefties’ want is everybody, everywhere toeing the Western lefty line. It’s all or nothing apparently. Essentially the Western left is saying, ‘What we need is a real revolutionary running Syria not Assad the phony anti-imperialist and until he comes along, we support bombing you into democracy’.

Now Assad’s credentials may or may not be up to the mark, this is not the point. It’s the idea that we, that is the miniscule Western left decides on the fates of others. It’s outrageous!

So it’s alright to rain bombs on Syria, Libya or wherever, if the pres ain’t Che Guevarra, seems to be the cry of many on the left. More chickenshit opportunism. But this attitude has a pedigree, it didn’t just happen. For as long as other countries have been having revolutions, we have been dismantling them in our critiques and more shamefully, in our actions, like effectively censoring Mother Agnes because two men objected.

Surely the lesson here is for us to keep our noses out of other country’s business and doing something about our own fucked up situation instead. Lost in shuffle are the fate of millions while we debate whether or not to support a country that’s getting hammered by the Empire, whether by proxy or direct intervention. I’m ashamed to be part of a left that even entertains these backward and reactionary views, never mind acting on them. What a sorry state of affairs.
________________________________
November 22, 2013 4:45 pm

Iran can be made a force for Middle Eastern peace
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9830b1da-5368-11e3-9250-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2lOxY3KJR
By David Gardner
Tehran wants to end the sanctions and to be seen as a legitimate Middle Eastern power
[[]]

The one real glimmer of light on the pitch-black horizon of the Middle East – consumed by the fires of Syria raging across the Levant, poisoned by the sectarian struggle<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7c2f5700-d386-11e2-95d4-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=uk> within Islam between Sunni and Shia, and with every other Arab country shaken to its foundations by three years of long-overdue upheaval – is the possibility of rapprochement between the US and Iran.

It is not just that the alternative to a formula to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3214b2e2-535f-11e3-b425-00144feabdc0.html> is a war that could spread across the region. It is that an Iran with a stake in solving the problems of the Middle East, rather than incentives to destabilise it, could be transformative.

Re-socialising Iran into mainstream geopolitics would be every bit as historic for President Barack Obama as American rapprochement with China was under President Richard Nixon. It might even enable his administration, diplomatically consumed by the Middle East, to pay a bit more attention to China as part of its vaunted pivot to Asia.

Sceptics will rightly want proof that Iran is becoming, as one European diplomat puts it, “a player for peace”. Given Tehran’s record, it could hardly be otherwise. Memories are still vivid of how after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, radicals seized the US embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage; or how Iran’s Lebanese proxies, Hizbollah, blew up the American embassy in Beirut in 1983, driving western forces out of Lebanon after that October’s vast truck-bombings, which killed 241 US servicemen and 58 French paratroopers.

More recently, Iran has outmanoeuvred the US and its allies across the Middle East. For a while after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, it looked as though Iran was behaving like a frantic gambler arriving at the races and placing bets on every horse. Ten years on, and it is clear how well Tehran, particularly through the elite al-Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, played a long game; the US and Britain have departed and Iran can push the Shia Islamist government of Nouri al-Maliki – their erstwhile protégé – into backing one of his most loathed adversaries, Bashar al-Assad. In Syria itself, the intervention<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/508b6192-19fa-11e3-93e8-00144feab7de.html> of the IRGC and Hizbollah, with funding from Tehran estimated by one Arab securocrat at $9bn, has been decisive in enabling the Assad regime to cling on, while the Party of God has secured its fief in Lebanon by tightening its grip on the levers of power.

Why would Iran want to end this ostensibly winning streak? Three reasons are paramount.

First, the Iranian economy is haemorrhaging because of sanctions which, unlike the blunt instrument that prostrated Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, are sharp and smart. Pressing ahead with a nuclear programme seen as a menace by world and regional powers, moreover, will ultimately lead to war. Meanwhile, Iran has a similar socioeconomic profile to the Arab spring countries, and knows the demands of its overwhelmingly young people are permanent and must be addressed.

Second, Iran, a Shia power in a region dominated by Sunni Arabs and Turkey, is alarmed by the tide of sectarianism roaring across the region – immeasurably harder to harness than the perennial jostle for primacy in the Gulf between the Iranians and the Saudis. That goes back to the time of the Shah. Now, the two theocracies, the Islamic Republic and the Wahhabi kingdom, have uncaged sectarian demons – above all in Syria – that are not going to confine their butchery to the Levant. Iraq suffers the carnage of al-Qaeda-style Sunni extremism every day, and it is now blowing back into Lebanon, as this week’s twin suicide-bombing of the Iranian embassy in Beirut attests. Iran’s foreign minister told the BBC this month that, “we need to come to understand that a sectarian divide on the Islamic world is a threat to all of us”.

The third and linked reason Iran is contemplating a change in behaviour is that it wants to be recognised as a legitimate regional power, cashing in its winnings while it is still ahead.

All this is hypothesis, however, until the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, in their third day of a second round of talks this month in Geneva, strike a deal with Iran. Even an interim accord will need a clear destination: a robust inspections regime for a curtailed nuclear programme in exchange for recognition of Iran’s right to enrich uranium – a badge of its status as a regional power.

After three decades of visceral mistrust, says one Iranian intellectual with deep experience of the west, “both sides have to get inside each other’s psychology”. Iran carries a long history of bruising encounters with the outside world. The country’snew president, Hassan Rouhani, and allies such as Mohammad Javad Zarif, his foreign minister, need to emerge from these talks able to hold their heads high at home. Tone and gestures count.

President Obama is going to have to stand up for any deal, or be bushwhacked in the US Congress, where Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, is mobilising his allies to scuttle any agreement. Mr Obama baulked at the last fence over Syria in the summer. But that was about getting into another war. This is about keeping America out of what could become the mother of all regional wars. The president’s job will be to ensure voters’ antipathy towards that outweighs their reflex hostility towards Iran.

In the no-holds-barred wrestle with Mr Netanyahu that will follow any Iran deal, Mr Obama should suggest the Israeli premier spends less time drawing red lines for America’s position on Iran and more time drawing green lines to delineate a viable Palestinian state. Its absence is a more present threat to Israel’s future than an Iran that does not have an atomic bomb – whereas Israel has a full nuclear arsenal.

david.gardner at ft.com<mailto:david.gardner at ft.com>

Copyright<http://www.ft.com/servicestools/help/copyright> The Financial Times Limited 2013.
________________________________

November 22, 2013 4:26 pm

Hizbollah tightens grip on Syria conflict
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f0194ad6-537e-11e3-b425-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2lOxY3KJR
By Abigail Fielding-Smith in Damascus

The Iranian chicken is no longer available in the freezers of the government-subsidised shops in Damascus, but the memory of it lingers.

“The [rebels] will tell you it wasn’t tasty,” says one customer. “But it was delicious.”

  *   Roula Khalaf US woos Russian support at Syrian talks<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e0fbac80-52cd-11e3-8586-00144feabdc0.html>
  *   Top Syrian rebel commander killed<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/88296bb2-5032-11e3-befe-00144feabdc0.html>
  *   Israel treats Syrian war victims<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/97d3ee40-451d-11e3-b98b-00144feabdc0.html>
  *   Syria opposition sets conditions for talks<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a5e03c96-4af9-11e3-ac3d-00144feabdc0.html>

Iran, an increasingly supportive ally of the Bashar al-Assad regime, shipped the cheap chicken over to Syria<http://www.ft.com/indepth/syria-crisis>after the widespread violence interrupted local supplies. Tehran is also said to have provided medical supplies and fuel, but perhaps most importantly it has enabled the Lebanese militant group Hizbollah to help Syria’s beleaguered government forces, bolstering the regime to the point where it believes victory over the rebels is just around the corner.

Although Iran denies sending fighters to Syria, the role of Hizbollah, which is sponsored by Tehran, is overt in the areas where it is operating.

“Iran is helping Syrians and Lebanese and they are making progress,” says Abu Abdullah, a middle-aged man living near the Shia shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, just south of Damascus when asked about why there might be hostility towards Tehran. Hizbollah fighters help to guard the golden-domed shrine – a place where the duelling sectarian forces in the region converge – from attacks by Sunni militants. Photographs of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, are on sale in the nearby shops.

Not far away, at the entrance to the wreck that was once the town of Hajira, the yellow-and-green standard of Hizbollah flies underneath the Syrian flag. Government forces have been trying to force rebels out of the town for more than a year, in fighting that has reduced most of it to cinders and rubble.

About a week ago they succeeded, and residents are in no doubt about what made the difference. “Without Hizbollah, we wouldn’t be here,” said one resident who had fled but who was back to try and salvage her possessions.

It is not clear how much Iran gets in return for backing Mr Assad<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9c4af37e-422f-11e3-bb85-00144feabdc0.html>. In a prisoner swap at the beginning of the year, several hundred people were released from Syrian jails in exchange for 48 Iranians seized by rebel forces – but no Syrian soldiers.

Although this makes it look like Tehran is dictating events more than the Assad regime, Mr Assad’s supporters in Damascus insist he is in charge of the relationship. Calling for Iran’s help, they say, was a natural response to the rebel onslaught backed by Sunni Gulf states.

>From this point of view, even the supply of chicken is a battlefront in a regionalised conflict. One pro-government businessman says that chicken farms have been deliberately destroyed by takfiris, a word denoting Gulf-backed Sunni extremist rebels but often used to describe the opposition in general. “As Iran was sending [goods], the takfiris were destroying all the areas where we make it,” he says.

Though the Alawite sect to which Mr Assad belongs is an offshoot of Shia Islam, the Iranian-Syrian axis, which dates back to the 1980s, is one of a theocracy acting in alliance with a secular Ba’athist government. This has been characterised as a marriage of convenience between two pariah states with very different outlooks and ideologies, and it has often come under strain.

The Syria crisis has tested the relationship, too, but so far a realpolitik view has prevailed in Tehran by which Mr Assad is seen as indispensable. Indeed, western diplomats say one of the biggest mistakes of the Syrian opposition and its allies was to underestimate how far Iran would go to support their man in Damascus.

Some in Syria view this week’s suicide bomb attack on the Iranian embassy in Lebanon as a revenge attack for this support. A well-connected Damascus doctor suggested it might be linked to Saudi Arabia, which has been angered by proposed peace talks in Geneva<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e0fbac80-52cd-11e3-8586-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk> as well as signs of improved ties between the west and Iran. “The Saudis are extremely worried about rapprochement betwen Iran and the west,” said the doctor. “[They] are hysterical.”

Additional reporting by Roula Khalaf

Copyright<http://www.ft.com/servicestools/help/copyright> The Financial Times Limited 2013

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