Mid-east war - Red Arabs part of the Soviet club

[dilbert firestorm]

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news...rs-arab-spring

interesting take on the mid east war.

looks like the Soviets had a "grand" plan for controlling the mid-east only to have it blown up in their face, first in 1978 with Iran when it lost 40 soviet agents and later when the soviet union collapsed in the 1990s and today. it claims the wars today are a result of soviet manipulations in the 1980s & 1990s to deny American access to the region.

the plan is now in tatters. the only Red Arabs Russia has influence is Syria.

it makes sense that there was a 'putsch' to remove Qaddafi, Mubarak & Assad via the so called Arab Spring.

[I B Hankering]

KGB archivist, Vasili Mitrokhin, says Soviet involvement in the Arab world was more haphazard than one might imagine and operated on the premise of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" when working with the different Islamic states and militant groups. The Kremlin willingly provided weapons and money with few strings attached; hence, the Soviet Union basically unleashed a force that it did not control ... as was exemplified in Afghanistan.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

KGB archivist, Vasili Mitrokhin, says Soviet involvement in the Arab world was more haphazard than one might imagine and operated on the premise of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" when working with the different Islamic states and militant groups. The Kremlin willingly provided weapons and money with few strings attached; hence, the Soviet Union basically unleashed a force that it did not control ... as was exemplified in Afghanistan.

it looks like hubris on the part of the soviet leadership that they could manipulate, control muslims outside their borders. they had muslims in their country whom they had under control.

I guess thinking behind that was they thought they were "experts" in controlling muslims.

i don't think they understood what they were dealing with particularly with this game "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

it looks like hubris on the part of the soviet leadership that they could manipulate, control muslims outside their borders. they had muslims in their country whom they had under control.

I guess thinking behind that was they thought they were "experts" in controlling muslims.

i don't think they understood what they were dealing with particularly with this game "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

The way Mitrokhin explained it was that the Soviet Union only tried to foment anti-Western sentiments without any real attempt to direct those sentiments in a truly coordinated manner. The Kremlin funded the likes of the anti-nuclear demonstrations in Europe during the Reagan administration. Soviet money also found its way to Cuba, the PLO, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Germany's the Red Army Faction/Baader-Meinhof Gang, Carlos the Jackal via Saddam Hussein as an intermediary agent working with the KGB, and into the pockets of communist insurgent movements operating in Central and South America.