The destruction of ISIS has given Iran the one thing they have always dreamed of - the Shia Crescent becoming a political fact. Maybe more.



The Arab world is confronted not just by a Shia Crescent, “but by a Shia full moon”, says one confidant of the prince.

Of course this political reality that the neocons created with their incompetence, is totally unacceptable to Israel and Saudi Arabia.

A direct road from Tehran to Damascus is exactly what the neocons had promised to prevent.



Recent events in Syria indicate that the Assad "regime and its allies [are] racing to establish an east-west 'Shiite axis' from Iran to Lebanon and the United States [is] seemingly looking to cement a north-south 'Sunni axis' from the Gulf states and Jordan to Turkey," Fabrice Balanche, a French expert on Syria and a visiting fellow at The Washington institute for Near East Policy, wrote recently.

"What's left of Islamic State territory is the key part of Iran's plan to connect Iran to Lebanon," Firas Abi-Ali, senior Middle East analyst at IHS Country Risk in London, told Bloomberg.

Kataib Imam Ali Forces (Iraqi militia in Syria) announced that they are preparing for Al #Tanf battle. See https://t.co/iyhjOPHsAY pic.twitter.com/ZLo5elflN5 — Balanche (@FabriceBalanche) May 30, 2017

Hundreds of Iranian-backed Iraqi militiamen have massed near a U.S.-training base located near the country’s border with Iraq. Clashes have already occurred.



Supposedly our forces feel threatened, but our jihadist allies tell a different story.



Syrian rebels say the United States and its allies are sending them more arms to try to fend off a new push into the southeast by Iran-backed militias aiming to open an overland supply route between Iraq and Syria.

The stakes are high as Iran seeks to secure its influence from Tehran to Beirut in a "Shi'ite crescent" of Iranian influence through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, where Sunni Arab states have lost out in power struggles with Iran.

This is nothing more than bare-knuckles, military politics.

Last week President Trump who told America’s regional Sunni allies that he’ll help roll back Iranian power, which is a very bold promise.

And just in case you weren't seeing a pattern, the Democratic Party mouthpiece, Washington Post, says it's time for a proxy war against Iran.

However, if Trump think he can just bomb those Iranian-backed forces in Syria without risk, he has forgotten who they are and where they come from.



“Iran-backed” is popular parlance for the rebels, and for the US at times, as a way to say they are Shi’ite militias. The Shi’ite militias are backing the Alawite-dominated Assad government in Syria, and the Shi’ite-dominated Abadi government in neighboring Iraq.

But by and large, they’re the same militias, or at least affiliated ones. The US view of them changes dramatically at the border, however, as inside Iraq they’re treasured allies helping to fight against ISIS and other Sunni Islamists to save the government, and in Syria they’re bitter enemies, trying to fight ISIS and other Sunni Islamists, also to save the government.

"Treasured allies" or "bitter enemies" depends on which side of the border, to Americans.

But not to Iraqis.



“The Americans will not be allowed to control the border,” Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of a pro-Assad Iraqi militia that recently moved into the area, said in an interview with Lebanese news station al-Mayadeen TV on May 30.

It's ridiculously naive to think that this fight won't spill over the border into Iraq.