Sense out of Chaos

The Middle East has devolved into a tangle of alliances and factions so ridiculous it seems only a drunk man could make sense of anything.   A year ago the United States was calling for bombing raids on Bashar Assad, the new Hitler of Syria who had used WMDs on his own people; a year later, after no raids on Assad, America likely informs him (and Iran) of bombing raids on his enemies via Iraqi emissaries and he assists by not shooting at them. 

Over the same year Obama teetered on aligning with AQ factions, Syrian Islamic Freedom fighters, Iran, Iraqi Shiites, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, Russia, and Hizballah.  Not to mention the craziness still taking place in Libya, which is being completely ignored by the US mainstreamers.

One of the goofier conundrums has been the Khorasan gang.  The leadership of this AQ-faction operating out of Syria formerly operated in Iran with the Mullah's blessings.  This is the same Iran that Obama and the West are negotiating with over a nuclear weapons program.  What in the world?!   We were told Iran's Shiites hate Sunni extremists.  And they do--but in this case the relationship might be a microcosm of how the game is played in the desert sands of Arabia, Persia and South Asia.

Iranian president Rouhani seems to have cleared it up in his UN speech:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday sought to leverage the crisis in the Middle East to ease sanctions on his country as part of nuclear talks, suggesting during a United Nations address that security cooperation between Iran and other nations could only occur if they struck a favorable nuclear deal.

Iran has a long history of holding AQ figures under 'house arrest', ie, outright supporting our sworn enemy. The Treasury Department long ago weighed in on this and only recently identified another supported group.

So we have a country holding Core AQ figures under their protection, allowing them to plot and plan free from Western drones, bombers and Special Forces, now telling Western nations if they want help get rid of a threat (Iran helped create) they best treat them right in the nuclear negotiations.  They are basically trying to hold us hostage, which should bring into question a lot of other things from the past.  

Hopefully the Hacker-in-Chief has a nifty poker hand to play on this one.  Give him credit so far--going after the Khorasans in the ISIS bombing raids was probably designed to remove one of Rouhani's poker chips, although word is the Khorasans have been "dark" since mid summer suggesting some had been tipped.  Eh, where is the booze...