As the West woos Syria, Assad aligns himself with Iran
Hamas and Hezbollah's presence at recent Damascus meet shows greater deterrence to Israel and West.
By Avi Issacharoff and Haaretz Correspondent Tags: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Hassan Nasrallah Syria Israel newsThere is something provocative in Syria's behavior over the last few weeks. Compared with Iran, the messages coming out of Damascus are still moderate. But the Syrians certainly seem attracted by the Iranian strategy of baiting the West.
Precisely as the United States strives to buy good will by returning an ambassador, Robert Ford, to Damascus; and just after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned to Syria with a request to curb arms smuggling to Hezbollah - Syria has responded by convening an 'Axis of Evil' summit at the presidential palace in Damascus.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, and Khaled Meshal, head of the Hamas politburo, were the star guests at the meeting last week. The message was clear. Efforts by the Americans and Europeans to cozy up to Damascus are all very well; but in Syrian eyes, the real strategic partnership remains in the east. To emphasize the solidity of ties between them, Iran and Syria announced at the summit that their citizens would no longer need visas to visit each other.
And in terms of intimacy with Hezbollah, Syrian President Bashar Assad is outdoing even his father. Hafez Assad always remained wary of the Lebanese group and in the 1990s even dispatched forces to Lebanon to fight it. Bashar, in contrast, has supplied Hezbollah with weapons more deadly than any it had in the past - weapons which threaten to ignite the entire region.
It is true that overtures from the West could keep Syria from giving itself wholly to Iran. And persuading Syria to negotiate with Israel could even significantly weaken its axis with Tehran and might neutralize the threat of regional war. But with the Damascus summit, Assad is signaling unease over American and French attempts to woo him and, moreover, that he has no interest in reopening talks with Israel. Ahmadinejad has been to Damascus before, of course, and Bashar has visited Tehran. But the presence this time of Hamas and Hezbollah hints at more than the usual show of deterrence to Israel and the West.
America appears to understand this: in the last 24 hours there have been reports Washington has urged both Israel and Syria to calm tensions between them, as well as stepping up pressure on Syria over the transfer of sensitive weapons to Hezbollah.
Hamas becoming more extreme
On Saturday, two days after the Damascus summit, a conference on 'Islamic and National Solidarity with the Palestinian People' opened in Iran. All the confident predictions of the Zionist entity's demise aired in Damascus were repeated, largely by the same cast of characters (Nasrallah excepted). Meshal, a guest of honor, denounced Israel from the podium.
While the rhetoric is not new, Hamas' growing loyalty to Iran is worrying. Until just a few years ago, before the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Palestinians were on the whole suspicious of the Iranians and the group tried to keep its links with Tehran inconspicuous.
But power in Hamas has since shifted from the West Bank and Gaza to the organization's political leadership in Damascus. The now dominant Syrian branch has crept gradually closer to Iran and Hamas policy has hardened accordingly. Its leaders, especially in Damascus, show no sign of softening their stance and have time and again scorned attempts to reconcile them with Fatah. Relations between Meshal and Gaza are increasingly febrile, to the point where one of the group's Gaza chiefs, Mahmoud Zahar, resigned last week from a team negotiating the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Zahar's departure is unprecedented and it can only be wondered just how deeply the the Hamas elite is split - and how far the moderate faction in Gaza has been swept aside to leave control in the hands of Ahmadinejad.
Posted by Avi Issacharoff on March 1, 2010
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No. 3 & 10: When you think about the goals of Islam being the total domination of the world and the Wahabist being the most extreme; yes # 10 you are right. But take that one step further and you will conclude that all of Islam is involved with every aspect of what is going on. It?s just to convenient to say there are no state sponsors of terrorism, but that?s just nonsense when you realize that their seems to be an endless supply of individuals and money to keep it going. I usually find the most obvious explanations to be right, allowing PC to creep into the equation just muddies the water.
No one can say that there are not state players involved in terrorism. The weapons trail tells the story. Iran is terror central and Syria is Iran?s little cousin. But the scope of terrorism being used as a foreign policy tool has paid of for Iran and Syria because the scope of terrorism is getting larger because of vacillating US foreign policy; not offending anyone seems to be the new US policy. Sending an ambassador to Syria is useless; because it is viewed as a sign of growing American weakness. The end game for the Islamic revolution is the destruction of Israel. Anything the West does at this juncture is useless and a waste of time.
helps Iran its shia cousins destabilize the ME and mocks the US government.Syria was better outside and ignored.Obama is rewarding this horrible dictator who should not be ruling Syria. The syrians need to overthrow their govt and get a decent leader.Assad is a pig
The big picture of the Middle East affairs. When president Assad of Syria using his cunning and tactful ways deceives many nations with the evil things whispered in his ear by the head opposer, many will die; probably hundreds of thousands to millions. Obviously he wants the Golan Heights for the water rights and one only has to look at what else is there. The large mounds where the giants are buried. The Rephaim, the mixed seed, of the sons of god with the daughters of men; from the fallen ones. They shall return to earth and the head opposer is the one who directs the ways of president Assad, whose family name used to be Wahash. When the head opposer along with his other fallen ones are evicted from the heavenlies by Michael onto the earth, men shall die from fear at what they see. In the near future Damascus will cease to exist as a city, never to be inhabited again. Assad will then go to Jerusalem. The Golan Heights are all but negotiated away. Just, look up Assad & Wahash.
america and israel know the divide and conquer rule is not working anymore, the more syria aligns itself with iran, the more israel is threatened with real retaliation and eventual destruction, syria only has to look at americas so called support of lebanon while it allowed israel to decimate it's land and people, even harriri has switched sides after that, america is NOT to be trusted as well as israel, agree?.
try PNAC, america is trying to control the world, the second nazi invasion is happening right under our noses, america and israel is the new germany and italy, tell me, has syria and iran attacked another country without being provoked? no. tell me, who has killed more people over the past 40 years under the guise of terrorism? not syria, not lebanon, not iran and not hezbollah, yet they are supposed to be the "axis of evil", go figure.
Which is the axis of evil depends on your perspective. There definitely seems be a trend among world states to realign their political allegiance with the new world order - led by Russia and China, perhaps in response to the arrogant and dictatorial attitude of the US and its surrogate state Israel.
I don't know what they know... Except if they simply are afraid of them. Rabin was (of their rockets)... but Barak? After all, Syria is an enemy is an enemy is an enemy...
Evil fist of all is subjective - axis is just plain complicated - can we call it the wheel of destruction?
Don't Jews also believe that the world is divided into two parts? Jew and Gentile?
Your list of criteria would seem to put Saudi Arabia at the head of the Axis of Evil. Strange that it always gets to be included among the "moderate" states...
Far from "flexing muscles" the Syrians are struggling to figure out how to secure their regime into the future. Survival of the elites is all that matters. Val suggests that if only Israel would "throw a bone" in the form of the Golan, things would change. The Golan will always be on the table but as people who have participated in past peace talks will attest, its the Syrians who are uncomfortable with what real peace with Israel would mean for the regime. They want the Golan but none of the normalization that would change the minds of future generation and prevent future wars. When Syria wants the Golan, it only needs to deal honestly about what peace would mean. They don't want to deal, and risk an openness that would lead to, heaven forbid, democracy. So Israel sits pretty on the heights and grows wine and waits for a reasonable peace deal.
Both Syria and Iran have trouble with the PKK. Both are constantly threatened by Israel. They have some serious common security interests and anyone who thinks Syria is going to abandon it's only strategic ally in the region without security agreements with Israel is nuts.
There are shades between black and white. There are even other colors. The Bush/Cheney Sharon policy that drove Hamas into the arms of the Ayatollahs can possible be reversed. But it would be difficult to do given the Israeli Preference for the Hamas alignment with Iran. Then again some fear that all Islamic thought is centered in the 7th Century. That is akin to keeping all Jewish thought in the 5th Century BCE. There are Muslim men who don't keep their harems in Beekeeper suits. And there are Israeli men who don't sell their children into sex slavery (even when the rules clearly set out allow it). Some countries in the West are exploring the gray areas, even if the forces of the extremists don't like it.
Syria has just demonstrated that it will not be intimidated or coerced into a partnership with the u.s and israel. Syria will need more than a u.s embassy and demands from the secretary of state to stop arming hezbollah. So far the u.s has offered absolutely nothing for syria, Assad would be a fool to accept these terms. In order to woo assad, israel needs to return the golan, chebba farms to lebanon, and return to the 67 borders with palestine. If those things are not on the table, there is no point for syria to sit down. If Israel was to "throw a bone" eg. give up only the golan back to syria, that alone would pressure syria to become less belligerent towards israel. But we all know where israel stands with regards to the golan. oh well, the war must go on...
Iran has probably pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Syria in one way or another. That's some sort of real commitment. The West and the US are only really interested in Syria to try to lure it away from Iran. It's fairly likely that if they ever managed that, the West would then readily abandon Syria, because the West and the US still want to cosy up with Israel. Clinton's a perfect example of that. She can't evem wait to have her ambassafor there before lecturing Assad on the need to stop arming Hezbollah.
"the West woos Syria, Assad aligns...." Avi Bashar, like his father before him, have always been a friend to Iran. Even Israel benefitted from a parasitical relationship with the Shah before he was thrown out. Does the Iran-Contra affair ring a bell? Find a new story Avi. Anti Iran hasbara is so old. Salaam/Shalom
I'll give you just three out of a very great number of reasons why "axis of evil" is the proper term. Neither of these reasons have any bearing on relations with the US or Israel. 1) The inferior status of women in these societies. 2) "Honor" killings. 3) The belief that the world is divided into two parts: a) Dar el-Islam - "The House of Islam", that part of the world ruled by, or once ruled by, Islamic regimes. This includes Spain, Greece and most of the Balkans. These lands, according to Islamic belief, must be reconquered. b) Dar el-Harb - "The House of War" - all the rest of the world, that must be taken by the Sword of Allah. Enough? Or would you like some more reasons?
Yea Syria is wanted to break with iran , then iran is neutralized.Syria is wanted to break with Hizbollah, then Hizbbollah is neutralized. Same with HAMAS.After this 3 enemys of israel are neutralized next is Syria to be neutralized. Question: Why should syria/assad the second be that stupid ? He has every leverage he wants oder the US/Israel with supporting Iran,Hamas,Hizbullah and nothing to gain but depend later on zionist/american gratitude to stay in power. Of course Hizballah is provided with Manpads and modern ATGM/RPG so they can defeat every zionist aggression.you have unlimited support of the usa and other western zionist occupied western countries.You have Merkava Tanks,F-16,F15,AH-64 and state of the art Submarines(provided by the german taxpayer) and corvettes. What is the aim of this article ? That with all that modern equipment israel only wages war against ppl armed with sticks and stones.Yes the world is quite unfair. If you have the balls attack -stop whining.
Why its evil?