Paris Attacks - What happens now?

Completely sad and heart-wrenching – that’s the only way one could describe the emotions felt after hearing and seeing the news of massacre in France – which had the echoes of 9/11 World Trade Center and 26/11 Mumbai massacre.  So many innocent lives wasted so wantonly for the sake of some demented ideology, it is just mind boggling.

While the world mourns the loss, a big question comes to mind: What happens now?

Here is what we know so far: seven hardcore ISIS terrorist carried out the heinous massacre of innocent civilians in the name of fighting Jihad. It was a highly coordinated attack which involved a lot of planning. One of the terrorists was known to French authorities and had made a trip to Syria. Among the blown up pieces of the terrorist, an intact Syrian passport was found thus making a Syria connection proof positive – notwithstanding the fact that the forged passports are also available across the border. It is also becoming clear from the report that the terrorists made their gateway to Europe by disguising as refugees.

Now let’s start by analyzing the situation from the perspective of various players involved in the Middle East crisis and how it would impact them.

For Syrian President Assad, it is nothing but a vindication of his warnings to the world that ISIS – and other “motley” crowd of “jihadis” against whom he is waging a war – is the biggest threat to the global community. (I don’t want to go into the word-play of “moderate rebels” and “hardcore rebels” so “intellectually” discussed by the western “strategists”. As Lavrov correctly stated there is no distinction between moderate and hardcore terrorist, a fact conveniently lost in the demented minds of western governments).

For the last 4 years, Assad has been battling these cut-throats – financed and released by Saudis and their side-kick Qataris, on the once peaceful nation of Syria – who are interested in seeing Assad’s removal from power to achieve three big geopolitical gains: One, It would take the Qatari gas pipeline to Europe through Turkey – which is also interested in seeing Assad’s removal from power and it is also the territory used by wannabe jihadis from all over the world to infiltrate Syria – in order to break Gazprom’s hold on European gas market.

Two, removal of Assad would also nullify the emerging Shia crescent from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and would cement Saudi Arabia’s position as the undisputed regional power in the Gulf. It is a power struggle between Shias and Sunnis for regional supremacy.

And, third, weakening Gazprom’s hold on Europe by way of pipeline would also deliver a blow to Russian economy which is already under fruitless sanctions.

But the Russian intervention has upset the entire apple cart causing severe angst among the backwards – the 7^th century Sheikhdoms of the Middle East.  As legendary boxer Mike Tyson said it so eloquently: “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.” The West and its allies in the Gulf certainly have got punched not in the mouth but have got a kick on their alter-ego. The smarting Middle East Sheikhdoms would give anything to see the back of Assad even if it means involving western military powers by hook or crook.

So Assad is now not only vindicated in his fight against the ISIS but is now in a stronger position thanks to Russian support which has achieved a lot more in 45 days than the western coalition (“wink, wink”) against ISIS could achieve. Russia has also proven to the world why it is necessary to fight the scourge of ISIS when it recently suffered its own tragedy when ISIS militants downed its passenger aircraft over Sinai resulting in the loss of all those on board.

How the west and, in particular, France would react to this tragedy remains to be seen.  And that is the big question. Just like with 9/11, the parallels are strikingly similar: 9/11 traced to Al-Qaeda which was traced to Afghanistan and Taliban which resulted in a US campaign which is still ongoing.

The massacre of 11/13 has now been traced to ISIS and to Syria due to the discovery of the Syrian passport and Syria is ruled by Assad – a “bad boy” in western eyes.

Would France take the same steps that US took, now that the connection to Syria has been made clear? If France decides to act against ISIS, then it remains to be seen whether it would go on bombing spree against ISIS territory or would it target Assad?

If France decides to launch air attacks on the ISIS targets, would it coordinate them with Russians who have effectively established a no-fly zone in Syria?

Also, would it coordinate air strikes with the Syrian government since it involves bombing a sovereign territory – though suffering due to the evil machinations of the Gulf States and their allies in the West?

Third, since France is a member of NATO, would NATO get involved as the territory of one of its members is attacked by a “state” – Islamic state? It would give NATO an opening it is itching for to attack Syria and topple Assad.

And, If NATO gets involved, then would Russia sit on the sidelines and see its ally get toppled by NATO under the guise of fighting ISIS?

And, lastly, from the view point of European Union itself: would it remain intact or would it dissolve with each nation going back to its national borders? Many nations like Slovenia, Hungary, Austria etc. have already erected fences to prevent the unprecedented influx of the “refugees” from Africa and Middle East which is changing the face of European civilization. The terror attacks are now going to reinforce the position of political leaders – Marine Le Pen in France, Victor Orban in Hungary and Dutch leader Geert Wilders to name a few – who are advocating complete stoppage of the refugees to prevent rapid Islamization of Europe.

What happens now is crucial. If those lives perished due to actions of evil permeating from the Middle East Petri dish, then let us act to remove that scourge from the face of the earth as Kerry said so forcefully. But, if they lost their lives due to “some machination” hell-bent on achieving some diabolical result in the Middle East, then I don’t even want to  contemplate about it as the whole thing is fraught with utter catastrophe.

For now, let us all pray for those departed souls – including the passengers on the downed Russian aircraft – who lost the opportunity to live the life to the fullest due to actions of some true evil and hellish people not even fit to be called human beings.