India-Israel Co-operation and Challenges

[Guest]

Interesting discussion in Hardball. If you have time read rest of transcript from link.
link<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>BOB BAER, FMR CIA OPERATIVE:</b>  The threat is right now ideological. 

BAER:  Well, you‘re going to get a lot of people that are angry and out to take revenge.  It may take 10 years for them to do it.  It may 20 years.  It happened with bin Laden.  <b>Secondly Hezbollah could turn to terrorism</b>.  We don‘t see that right now because it would take an order from Iran to do it.  Hezbollah is a very disciplined organization and it looks to the spiritual leadership in Tehran before it does anything
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BAER:  Absolutely.  And this is—you know, what happened <b>when we invaded Iraq was we essentially turned the country over to radical Shia, and the leadership in Baghdad is radical Shia.</b>  I know most of these guys.  In the ‘90s, they took refuge in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with Hezbollah.  There‘s a close connection between the government in Baghdad and Hezbollah. 

And <span style='color:red'>what we‘re seeing now is the development of a radical Shia arc, which goes from Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut now, which is what has the Sunni—and that‘s Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf and Egypt and Jordan—so worried, and this is why they‘ve come out against Hezbollah</span>
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BAER:  Chris, this is a catastrophe, Iraq, and this is going to go on for years. <b> Iraq is going to change us.  We‘re not going to change Iraq</b>.  I got calls from Damascus just before I got on the phone with you, and the <b>Sunni are worried.  They‘re leaving Damascus, afraid that this war in Lebanon is going to spread to Syria, and they‘re going to pay the Sunni</b>.  You know, they‘re going to flee to the Gulf, wherever they can. 

The division between the Shia and the Sunni in the Middle East is our greatest threat to the United States.  <b>When people talk about World War III, it‘s not a traditional war against us from nuclear bombs or anything, it‘s from the split that will lead to a regional war which will ultimately and I repeat—will affect oil supplies. </b>

MATTHEWS:  <b>God help us if we get involved in Syria</b>.  Anyway, thank you, Bob Baer.  Your book is called “Blow the House Down.”
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