John Kerry meets with UN Special Envoy for Syria, Austrian and Iranian Foreign Ministers ahead of the Vienna summit, October 29. Demotix Live News. All rights reserved,On Friday, October 30, it became clear that the war in Syria is not a civil war: it is now a global proxy war, a war initiated by Saudi Arabia and Qatar to eliminate Arab governments that do not reliably support the Saudi (or Arab League) position.
When the international community was threatened by the spread of violence outside the Syrian border, the US and other European countries intervened to force their regional allies to scale back their belligerence. Russia also intervened in support of its traditional allies in the region. These interventions transformed what was at first a regional proxy war into a global proxy war. That escalation occurred because of several historical and geopolitical factors.
Russia, with a long-standing strategic alliance with Syria that goes as far back as the USSR, supported the Syrian government and found itself on the same side as Iran. Iran has had an alliance with Syria since the Iraq-Iran war, during which the Gulf States supported Saddam Hussein, who initiated an eight-year old war that killed nearly one million people.
