Foreign policy columnist Jim Hoagland writes for The Washington Post. Like Tom Friedman, he has spent a lot of time thinking about the Middle East. Here, he has a different view of the conflict in Syria.
Hoagland sees Syria as an arena in which various proxies are carrying on the underlying Shia-Sunni conflict. To clarify, Assad is allied with Iran which is Shia, and is also allied with the Hezbollah Shia in Lebanon. Assad's opponents are Sunni and have as allies the Saudis, Egyptians, and many other Sunni Arab countries.
