Night Watch: DAMASCUS – Just one day after the new President of Iran is sworn in, Tehran will show off its support of a nation and government the West has been attempting to isolate ever since Saddam Hussein’s removal, Syria.
The Kuwait news service has just announced that Iran will receive Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on Sunday for a two day official visit to work on fostering bilateral ties and discussion of issues of common interest.
Iranian TV stated that Assad will not only meet Iran’s new President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad but will confer with Iranian officials on the latest developments in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon.
The meeting with Iran’s President is merely a formality since he will be confined to domestic issues. I suspect that the real purpose to the visit will be to finalize the plans that will show off the military cooperation between the two capitals and that the officials President Bashar Al-Assad will have his most serious meetings with will all be with Iran’s Defense Ministry and officials directly connected to the Foreign Ministry.
Kamal Kharrazi, the Foreign Minister may also take part in the planning sessions, the coordination of events that will show the world, primarily the West, the new military cooperation between Damascus and Tehran against Israel as both capitals increas their obvious support for Iraq’s resistance against the occupation.
This is a direct follow up to the four nation visit last year made by Iran’s then President Mohammad Khatami. When he visited Damascus he praised Syria for its long opposition to Israel and publicly stated that what Iran and Syria should do is form a military axis as opposed to the U. S. – Israel in order to remove pressures which have always been there.
Today at a joing news conference Iran’s new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted by Reuters and IRNA, “The existence of common threats requires more cooperation between Tehran and Damascus. There is no limit for Iran and Syria’s cooperation – Boosting ties can protect the Middle East region from possible aggressions.”
Next on the agenda is to continue to encourage Israel to launch a massive attack against groups Damascus-Tehran have long supported: Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and now al-Qaeda, which news reports have recently stated now has a presence in Gaza. As this site has stated repeatedly Tehran wants to portray Israel as the aggressor, even if Iran is also attacked. That way Iran can put on a show of support for Palestinian people by deploying its brigade size Rapid Depoloyment Force into southern Lebanon.
With Israel being virtually surrounded by these groups it is not likely Israel will have time to include Iran in its initial attacks this month, delaying the pullout, something that I never took seriously. Tehran is a government that lives off crisis, that is the only way the Islamic revolution has survived this long, its first crisis being the invasion from Iraq in September 1980, what Grand Ayatollah Khomeini called the “blessing from Allah,” knowing that his government would have collasped without it.
Though the Council of Guardians know that Israel is not the real threat and with there being no world market for the salt in the Dead Sea, the Council realizes that war against Israel will be popular all over the Islamic world even to the point of undermining the authority of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, the only national leader in the Islamic world not doing anything at all to support the Jihad. He is not even making excuses for it, perhaps because he isn’t leading it. Consequences concerning Egypt have been outlined in other articles and will be in future but in the meantime the next phase is war with Israel by forcing them to attack first as they did in 1967.
Even though Iran’s participation is largely symbolic, the missiles being reserved for targets beyond the Middle East, India-Vienna, Iran’s presence symbolizes support from Islamic countries that may also wish to be seen doing something knowing how popular that will be. Syria this time is better prepared than in 1967 which may force Israel to use some of her nuclear weapons.
What to watch for now is the action intensifying, not just against Israel when President Bashar leaves Tehran but the war against the occupation in Iraq could also be increased. The lost alliance, US/UK will probably accelerate plans for their departure when Israel launches its attack inflaming the situation far beyond what the lost alliance was prepared to face. Tehran will make certain, with the new weapons they are sending to Iraq and with Muqtada al-Sadr rearming his militia, that the withdrawal of occupation forces will be hotly contested.
Iran wants the occupation to continue despite their deceptive statements to the contrary. They know Iraq is an obvious trap that reduces the US/UK presence on other fronts.
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