i think he's mostly right. but.

1) the whole dictators-for-israel thing goes back decades. egypt is a particular example. the peace treaty has always been unpopular in egypt and would probably not survive real democracy. so, the americans send them billions a year to prop up the military to prevent democracy. israel isn't the only factor (there was a suez crisis, but it's sort of ancient history), but it is a really important one.

2) 'stabilize' is basically an orwellian term that really means 'destabilize'.

3) american hegemony is weakened but still in tact. they simply can't remove assad due to threats from other players (most importantly russia). but that shouldn't lead to an exaggeration of iran's soft power. if you look at the agreement, it was basically the united states enforcing it's terms in exchange for an almost trivial reversal of sanctions. the greater context is iran turning to other countries. consider the banking embargo, which was supposed to make it impossible for iran to sell oil. instead, india and china and others started buying iranian oil with GOLD. turkey has been unhappy with the sanctions, and they're a really key us ally. the proper term for that is blowback: blowback on a financial level. it would be catastrophic to us interests if the embargo stimulated the rest of the world to ditch the dollar as a reserve currency rather than iran being isolated - it's both a failure of the sanctions and a weakening of american financial power. oops? absolutely. so, is that iranian soft power? sort of, but not really. it's more of a strategic error by the americans, followed by a sort of compensation for it. but, even with the error and it's possible consequences, the americans still maintain enough hegemony to assert themselves and possibly reverse the effects of the errors. so, what the americans are trying to do is weaken the effects of that blowback by pulling them in with honey rather than vinegar, but it's a sort of acidic honey if you see what i'm saying. it's transparemtly cynical. very tough terms. i think the fundamental realization that the americans have come to is that their hegemony is fragile, but that's a big step away from abandoning it. what that means is the iranians are still powerless to reject american demands, even as the americans are being forced to adjust to a failed policy. in the long run, the strategy hasn't fundamentally changed. the americans are still actively pursuing regime change. but they need to be more subtle, because if they aren't then things might unravel very badly. that's maybe a triumph of realism over neo-conservatism? two sides of the same coin, though. another bad move and the iranians could escape their grasp - but the thing is they realize that would mean becoming a protectorate of china, and they're obviously not going to see that as their first choice, so they largely remain optionless. in the larger picture, then, that's not really iranian soft power. it's more of a satellite being stuck between two powers and trying to find a way to make the best of it.

4) he's really exaggerating the opposition to assad. syrians seem to have temporarily aligned with the government as a lesser evil. ironically, the best way to actually remove assad would be to pull the foreign islamist fighters out and let the people rise against him. but, that moment may now be lost for many years, as the state effectively mobilizes it's citizens against the terrorist groups.

whatever assad's crimes, it's hard to blame syrians for choosing secular stability over religious fundamentalism. i mean, it's the old "would you rather saddam husseein was still in power?" canard. the reality is that a huge number of iraqis would say "yes". i think commentators really need to work that out more strenuously in understanding the depth of the opposition to these islamist groups.

there's this desire to project this third option that it seems like syrians realize isn't realistic in the short term. in the short term, the focus seems to be on saving the country from the fascists, rather than aligning with them to topple the government.

it's a constant problem. even in a simple occupy context, there were nazis popping up all over the place. we decided it was more important to kick the nazis out. so, for me, reproducing that line of thinking is very easy. if i'm choosing between upholding parliament and shooting nazis? it's not even a choice, give me a gun. the only good fascist is a dead one.

so, the revolution in syria is not likely to carry on.

but it doesn't fall under the category of "blunder" the same way that the screwed up sanctions do because the crux of the operation was to *prevent* democracy in syria (assad was building a constitution at the time).

it's not the preferred outcome, but it's an acceptable result in the short run.

to an extent, i'm reminded of the spanish or russian revolutions. there were far deeper anarchist movements there than in contemporary syria, and there was a lot of debate, but in the end they had to align with statist interests to fight a far greater threat - franco and the bolsheviks, respectively. they lost in both cases. but they picked the right side of the fight.

it's interesting today, fwiw, that nobody talks about the slaughter that the republican forces were no doubt responsible for. i'm deducing this, i can't cite anything.

i should probably get a good book on the topic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror_%28Spain%29

it's maybe perilous to draw an exact analogy, but you get the point.

war's a shitty deal all around.

i mean, we see what's happened in libya, and that is far less organized. just total racist and sectarian slaughter. i shudder to think at would what happen if these groups actually succeed, and i think "the average syrian" is well aware of what the stakes are in supporting assad to defeat them.

if anything, support seems to have strengthened. there was supposedly a huge pro-assad rally yesterday.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-support-assad-western-propaganda

presstv should be read critically, rather than dismissed. they may be exaggerating. i can't possibly know, i can just read the reports skeptically.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/02/16/350993/syrians-hold-progovernment-rallies/