A strange series of events regarding the Syrian civil war this past weekend:

• Late weekend United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon gives a presser and invites Iran to attend the Geneva talks on Syria, surprising some of the “Friends of the Syrian Opposition”.
  
• The Obama Administration professes surprise and sort of objects strongly, only sort of.
  
• Saudi princes and other potentates object strongly but not openly.
  
• Their proxy Mr. Al Jarba objects (he calls himself, I think rather presumptuously, @PresidentJarba on Twitter). Opposition groups and militias and gangs and kidnappers threaten to boycott the meeting and keep Assad in power for five more years.
  
• Mufti Shaikh Al Al objects, or he should if he knows what is good for him. But he declines to issue a fatwa.
  
• The Israelis probably object on the principle that whatever helps Iran is bad for them, and vice versa. Or maybe I just think so, my knee-jerk reaction.
  
• Al Qaeda and its Syrian fronts also object, or so I assume. 
  
• Francois Hollande of France probably also objects, as does his current main squeeze, his former main squeeze, and his future main squeezes (the French can be more polygamous than we can be, and often they are, but they don’t admit it).
  
• My suspicious mind is almost certain that the prime minister of Bahrain (44 or so years in office and going) also objects strongly through his corpulent foreign minister who is also his nephew or cousin. I still can’t figure out WTF he has got to do with all this.
•  
  
• So, guess what happens next? Bingo! Ban Ki-Moon suddenly implodes: he discovers overnight that maybe Iran should not attend Geneva. He withdraws his invitation for Iran to the Geneva meeting on Syria. A dis-invitation under pressure.
  
• The Iranians, who would love to attend, act as if they are not interested in attending. They go further: after being dis-invited they claim that that they would not attend a meeting
  that imposes conditions and prerequisites on them.
  
• Saudi semi-official Alarabiya headlines that now the Syrian ‘opposition’ groups will attend Geneva, some of them for the talks, others to buy good Swiss chocolate at duty-free prices. Actually they would attend or not if and when their Saudi bosses tell them to.
  
• End of the story for now, until the next Syria meeting later this year. Or maybe sometime next year, or the year after.
  

Cheers
mhg