Iran's Real Enemy in Syria
Distilled to its essence, Tehran’s steadfast support for Assad is not driven by the geopolitical or financial interests of the Iranian nation, nor the religious convictions of the Islamic Republic, but by a visceral and seemingly inextinguishable hatred for the state of Israel. As senior Iranian officials like Ali Akbar Velayati, a close adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have commonly said , “The chain of Resistance against Israel by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, the new Iraqi government and Hamas passes through the Syrian highway. … Syria is the golden ring of the chain of resistance against Israel.” So long as the 78-year-old Khamenei remains in power, this hatred will justify Tehran’s continued commitment of blood and treasure to support Assad’s use of all means necessary—including chemical weapons—to preserve his rule.
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Iranians, opposition to the Jewish state has been the most enduring pillar of Iranian revolutionary ideology. Whether Khamenei is giving a speech about agriculture or education, he invariably returns to the evils of Zionism. “The Zionist regime is a true cancer tumor on this region that should be cut off,” Khamenei said in a 2012 speech. “We will support and help any nations, any groups fighting against the Zionist regime across the world.” Given Israel’s military superiority, Khamenei’s stated strategy is not Israel’s short-term annihilation, but its long-term political dissolution. “If Muslims and Palestinians unite and all fight,” he commonly says, “the Zionist regime will not be in existence in 25 years.”
In ostensibly trying to avenge what he portrays as one injustice, however, Tehran has helped Assad perpetrate a far greater one. The number of Syrian deaths since 2011 (an estimated 500,000, though the UN has stopped counting) is more than five times greater than the approximately 90,000 Palestinians killed in the last 70 years of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, while more than twice as many Syrians (12 million) as Palestinians have been displaced. Indeed since 2011 far more Palestinians have been killed by Assad (nearly 3,700) than by Israel, including by chemical weapons. “If their way to return Palestinians back home is displacing millions of Syrians,” said my friend Kassem Eid, one of around half a million Palestinian refugees who grew up in Syria, and a victim of one of Assad’s chemical weapons attack, “I don't want to go back to Palestine.”
The original article is here.
As I read the article, with all of its wealth of details about how very, very bad Iran is... I kept wondering... why?
Karim Sadjadpour goes to great length to prove that Iran's support for Assad is very expensive... a serious drain on an already weak economy. So... why?
Pouring money into the Black Hole that is Syria is a very, very inefficient way to attack Israel. Hamas or Hezbollah would be cheaper and more direct. So... why?
Sadjadpouris almost mocking when he says that Iran remembers being the target of chemical warfare. during the long war against Iraq that cost hundreds of thousands of deaths. Sadjadpouris is wrong to mock. The Iranian people do indeed remember that war... including the fact that Iraq - Saddam Hussein - received satellite imagery from the United States.
So I insist... Why is Iran supporting Assad? As a surrogate for Israel? Really?? That just doesn't make any sense. So then I must wonder... why is Sadjadpouris building this hatchet job?
It's just false propaganda to try to drum up support for US involvement in Syria. The truth is the Syrian war is more Sunnis Vs. Shiite than anything else and both sides hate Israel so it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. Of course the traditional Neocon (both D & R) likes Sunnis better because they allow Big Oil to run their Oil Fields while the Big Bad Shiites tend to Nationalize their Oil Industries. Every "Ally" we have who has substantial Oil reserves contracts with Big Oil and every Country that Doesn't is a "Rouge Nation". We don't care about Human Rights or War Crimes, We care about Oil and Money and what Big Oil pays our Politicians to believe. Isn't it funny how Russia has gone out of favor since it became a huge energy exporter without partnering with Big Oil.
Well... at least you have an explanation. Sadjadpour has none... or at least he gives none.