Lagniappe

Iran-Watch: US should back Syria, not Iran

 

President Bush wii soon be attending Jordan's summit on Iraq along with
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. So far, President Bush is the winner
in the battle of the summits, thanks to Syria's president Bashar al-Assad.

President Assad's abrupt decision to boycott Tehran, followed by the Iraqi
government's denial that a Tehran summit had ever been comtemplated, proved
a rare humliation for Iran.

The most vexing issue facing the Jordan summit is what to do about Syria and
Assad, given the ongoing tragedy in Lebanon. My view is, choose Syria over
Iran.

Syria advances the forces for stability in the Middle East, while Iran is
bent on Shia supremacy and Persian imperialism, forces that will lead to
large scale regional instability, beginning in Iraq. As to reasons why
Syria can be a force for good, compared to Iran, the case for Syria is best
summed up by a prominent Israeli (Secretary Rice, are you following this?).

First, Syria's alliance with Hezbollah serves Assad in the short run but is
no more than "a passing tactical need." This alliance with Hezbollah is
useful because it provides Assad as an irreplacable point of leverage over
Israel.

Second, Syria has no long term interest in a victory for Iran and Hezbollah.
A big victory for Shia Iran and its regional Shia allies in fact would
work against Syria's interests, as a majority Sunni state.

Third, Syria backs the extreme wing of Hamas, headed by Khaled Meshal, for
the same reason Syria backs Hezbollah. Hamas provides leverage Israel.
Plus, Meshal would exist with or without Assad, and without Assad, Hamas
would entirely be in Iran's hands. Assad will not hesitate to drop Meshal
when the time is right, as he dropped the PKK.

Fourth, Syria has a top priority the defense of Iraq from an Iranian
annexation. A growing Iranian presence in Iraq leading to partition would
have catastrophic consequences for Syria and the entire region. For this
reason, Assad is now speaking out against Iranian ambitions in Iraq and is
calling for a United Front against Iran on the part of Sunnis, Iraqi Shia,
and leftists.

Fifth, unlike Iran, which wants to wipe Israel from the map, Syria's Assad
wants negotiations with Israel and a peace agreement on mutually acceptable
terms.

The above assessment comes from Avi Primor, formerly Israel's ambassador to
the European Union and Germany, and now head of the Center for European
studies at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center (see "Syria is the Key, "
Haaretz, 22 November 06).

Why, then, does the Bush Administration favor Iran over Syria?

I would add one additional point. In the run up to WW II, Hitler was
obsessed with the threat from Czechoslovakia. He knew that without the
demise of Czechoslovakia, Germany would not dominate Europe.
"Czechoslovakia is a dagger pointed at the heart of Germany," Hitler said in
Mein Kampf.

In exactly the same way, Syria stands between Iran and its conquest of the
Middle East. Will the West betray Syria, as it once betrayed
Czechoslovakia? Will the West, like the US, support Iran over Syria? In WW
II, the democracies, above all pushed by Winston Churchill, chose to support
Stalin against Hitler. Is Assad worse than Stalin? Impossible. Many
Western critics of the UK-USSR coalition at that time said it was
unthinkable to back Stalin because Stalin had just waged (in 1940) a
predatory war against Finland, the Lebanon of Europe in those days (never
mind Germany's predatory war against all of Europe). Were they right, and
was Churchill wrong?

 

Iran-Watch is a web site (Iran-Watch.com) that keeps track of the U.S. involvement in Iran. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

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Petroleumworld News 11/23/06

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