Iranian embassy stormed in Damascus
Iranian embassy stormed in Damascus
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I should have seen that coming. It makes sense considering Iran was supporting the Assad regime.
Interesting too considering Iran is a fundamentalist Islamic state and Assad's Ba'ath party is secular. Blatantly so.
I guess religion is less important than playing games with political near neighbors.
Authoritarians support authoritarians.
The roots of the relationship goes back several decades.
By the late 1970s, the state apparatus of the Baath regime under Assad had consolidated into an anti-Sunni orientation. Official propaganda incited Alawite farmers against rich Sunni landowners and regularly disseminated stereotypes of Sunni merchants and industrialists, casting them as enemies of nationalisation and socialist revolution. Bitterness towards the Assadist regime and the Alawite elite in the Baath and armed forces became widespread amongst the Sunni majority, laying the beginnings of an Islamic resistance. Prominent leaders of Muslim Brotherhood like Issam al-Attar were imprisoned and exiled. A coalition of the traditional Syrian Sunni ulema, Muslim Brotherhood revolutionaries and Islamist activists formed the Syrian Islamic Front in 1980 with objective of overthrowing Assad through Jihad and establishing an Islamic state. In the same year, Hafez officially supported Iran in its war with Iraq and controversially began importing Iranian fighters and terror groups into Lebanon and Syria. This led to rising social tensions within the country which eventually became a full-fledged rebellion in 1982; led by the Islamic Front. The regime responded by slaughtering the Sunni inhabitants in Hama and Aleppo and bombarding numerous mosques, killing around 20,000–40,000 civilians. The uprising was brutally crushed and Assad regarded the Muslim Brethren as demolished.
You'd expect party unity between Syrian Ba'ath and Iraqi Ba'ath, but Saadam was labeled a fascist and the Syrian regional branch recognized Khomeni rather early on. Survival and having regional friends were more important than playing games.
Religion isn't religion isn't religion. Iran is Shia, "moderate rebels" are by and large Sunni.
Again, the Ba'ath party is 100% secular. Secularism is a cornerstone of their party. It has nothing to do with Sunni and Shi'a here, it has to do with a theocratic regime in a partnership with exactly the opposite.
...Yes, the Ba'ath party is 100% secular, and Tehran would rather deal with secularists than with heretics.
Secularists are heretics to theocrats. I have no idea what you think a heretic is.
No, secularists are nonbelievers, possibly apostates. A heretic believes in the same religion as you do, just the wrong kind of it.
Watch out squid squid is a mod here and he loves banning people who argue with him too much
I'm aware.
Haha he removed it lmao
Also I don't think it's uncivil to point out how you like to argue with people and then remove their comments and ban people
Look at the modlogs
On the contrary, from Wikipedia:
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization.[1][2] A heretic is a proponent of heresy.[1]
...
Heresy is distinct from apostasy, which is the explicit renunciation of one's religion, principles, or cause;
Atheism is not heresy. A heretic is a type of believer. You can argue you meant the colloquial usage as "divergent thought", but that's not the usage I used.
Either way, the point stands: not all Islam is the same thing, and the Tehran regime quite clearly has an easier time stomaching cooperation with secularists than with Sunnis.
oh, rarely really seen somebody contradict themselves so blatantly with their source. how come?
Stop.
Stop what... breathing? I will in four years. And you and all the other people who hate me can get together and throw a big party.
