WarSclerotic

‘Iran set up terrorist networks in Latin America’ | JPost | Israel News.

Argentine prosecutor probing 1994 AMIA bombing publishes 500-page indictment; plans to send findings to int’l courts.

U.S.: We Support Israel’s Ability to Defend Itself – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

The United States reiterates that Israel has the right to defend itself, even if Russia sells advanced missiles to Syria.

Syria border

Israel news photo: Flash 90

The United States reiterated on Wednesday that Israel has the right to defend itself, even if Russia goes ahead with the sale of advanced missiles to Syria.

“We support Israel’s ability to defend themselves, certainly, but we remain hopeful and remain committed to working towards a political transition,” State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday, when asked about comments made a day earlier by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon.

Yaalon said that Israeli “will know what to do” if Russia delivers highly advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Syria.

“The deliveries have not taken place – I can attest to this – and I hope they do not. But if, by some misfortune, they arrive in Syria, we will know what to do,” he said.

Psaki said on Wednesday that Secretary of State John Kerry “has raised this issue with [Russia’s] Foreign Minister Lavrov in the past and has raised it publicly. The Russians have said this is delivering on past contracts.”

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met Russian leader Vladimir Putin two weeks ago, in an effort to forestall the transfer of the missiles to Syria. He reportedly told Putin that the missiles could be used to threaten Israeli civilian air traffic, among other things.

In recent days, there have been reports that the transfer of the advanced systems would not be carried out, but Russia denied those reports. Moscow said on Monday its plans to deliver to Damascus the S-300 missiles – designed to intercept aircraft or other missiles like Patriots NATO has already deployed on Turkey’s border with Syria — were part of existing contracts.

Psaki also demanded the immediate withdrawal of Lebanese Hizbullah terrorists from Syria, saying their active role in combat there is an “extremely dangerous escalation.”

“This is an unacceptable and extremely dangerous escalation. We demand that Hezbollah withdraw its fighters from Syria immediately,” she said.

She condemned the “outrageous attack” on a Lebanese army checkpoint near the border on Tuesday that killed three soldiers.

“These and other incidents are stark reminders that the conflict in Syria poses an incredibly dangerous threat to Lebanon’s stability, the people of Lebanon and security,” said Psaki.

“We call on all parties to do their part to act with restraint and respect Lebanon’s stability and security.”

Sensing West’s weakness – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Russians will be the only ones to decide when and how Assad will step down

Alex Fishman

Today it is clear more than ever: The main factor affecting President Assad‘s survival is Russia. Neither Iran and Hezbollah on the one hand, nor the rebels and their supporters on the other hand. Russia will decide when and how Assad will step down.

The arrogant, blatant and uncompromising Russian policy on the Syrian issue is a mirror image of the insignificance and weakness of the European and American policy on this issue.

On Tuesday, the Russians broke another record. Sergei Rybakov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, did not just settle for the declaration that Russia would sell S-300 missiles to Syria despite the international pressure, but also explained that the deal was aimed at “restraining some hotheads.” He isn’t concealing the identity of those he is referring to either: Those countries in the European Union that are inclined to transfer weapons to the rebels, and of course the traditional rival – the Americans. He hasn’t mentioned Israel, but he’s referring to Israel too.

And if that were not enough, he is also threatening: If the EU countries lift the embargo on supplying arms to the rebels, they will be undermining efforts to convene an international peace conference on Syria.

It’s hard to believe that up to a year ago, Russia was shocked by the hostility of the Sunni world. The Russians suddenly found themselves supporting the Shiites, being pushed away from the Arab world by an America-European axis, and failing to find their place the Arab turmoil. Since then they have picked up the pieces, set a clear strategy and they are pursuing it persistently.

The Russian policy is simple and brutal. The Russians have managed to isolate Assad from the outer world and provide him with a cover shield against Western and Israeli military and diplomatic pressures – starting with standing firmly behind Syria at the Security Council to making clear threats of a military Russian intervention if the Americans or any other element act on the threats of a direct military intervention in Syria, including an attempt to create a no-fly zone in its skies.

The American plan to deploy three Patriot missile batteries in Jordan is also seen by the Russians as a threat to the Syrian air force’s freedom of the air. Their response, among other things, is executing the antiaircraft missile deal threatening the freedom of the air of Israel and any other Western aircraft at a 200-kilometer (125-mile) radius. The strikes attributed to Israel were the only cracks in the isolation wall the Russians built around Assad.

The Russians are sensing weakness. They realize that the Americans are not interested in reaching a military intervention in Syria and are enjoying the fact that Secretary of State Kerry is wooing them. Kerry is basically asking Russia to create a diplomatic solution for the Syrian issue.

The Russians, on their part, aren’t even bothering to set a date for an international conference. The moment Assad received the diplomatic and military Russian umbrella, and managed, at the same time, to keep the Syrian army by his side – he basically guaranteed the continued existence of his regime, as shaky as it may be. This will last as long as the Russians decide that the time is right for a solution that will protect their interests in Syria – without him.

‘Israel has more moral authority to strike Iran’ | JPost | Israel News.

( Forgive me, if Israel relies on the “international community” it will get as much help as the Jews of Europe got in the 40s.  We’ll be dead and gone.  I pray every night that we have the capability and the will to put an end to the Iranian nightmare.  God bless and save the Jewish people. – JW )

US, Israeli defense experts examine aspects of potential attack.

Fighting in Syria, Hezbollah charts risky course | The Times of Israel.

Supporters of the Shiite group ambivalent about involvement in ongoing civil war, would rather fight Israel

A Hezbollah supporter holds a portrait of her son, Ibrahim Kanso, 24, who was killed 40 days before, at Sayida Zeinab shrine during a battle in Syria against the Syrian rebels, May 24 (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

KAFR KILA, Lebanon (AP) — The giant posters of Hezbollah fighters killed in Lebanon’s wars with Israel still dot the picturesque landscape of southern Lebanon, the few remaining reminders of some of the epic battles that once made the Shiite guerrilla group and its leader Hassan Nasrallah heroes in the Arab world.

Nowadays, they are overshadowed by fresh portraits of Hezbollah fighters who have died fighting fellow Muslims in the civil war in neighboring Syria.

It’s a striking transformation and a strategic shift for the fiercely anti-Israel group, one that some of its most loyal supporters in the Shiite community may be reluctant to embrace.

Hezbollah’s very public and bloody foray fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s regime against rebels in Syria’s 2-year-old civil war has a steep price. It has emboldened the group’s critics in the Arab world and its Western-backed political opponents in Lebanon. It also risks wrecking the group’s already eroding image among many Lebanese as their champion and protector against Israel, which it drove out of southern Lebanon in 2000 and fought to a standstill in 2006.

Also, by linking its fate to the Assad regime’s survival and declaring war on Syria’s mainly Sunni rebels, Hezbollah also could bring the war directly into Lebanon. Its stance threatens to spark retaliation from Lebanese Sunnis supporting their Syrian brethren or from the rebels themselves carrying out attacks against the Shiite group on its home turf in Lebanon. Recent rocket fire against a pro-Hezbollah neighborhood of Beirut underlined the threat of violence spreading.

Hezbollah, which was founded in 1982 with Iranian support to fight Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, has not carried out a single known rocket attack into Israel since the 2006 war. Many among the group’s Shiite constituency — about a third of the population — are tired of wars and even the most ideologically committed to Hezbollah’s anti-Israel rhetoric are reluctant to see their villages destroyed again.

Now, as more of their men return home in coffins from Syria, the group faces an uphill battle in trying to convince their countrymen that the war in Syria is part of their wider battle against Israel and its US backers.

“If Israel comes back to Lebanon, I will be the first volunteer to go on the battlefield,” said Ahmad Taleb, a 37-year-old Shiite from the Aaita border village, where Hezbollah’s killing of Israeli soldiers triggered the 2006 war. Taleb spent 11 years in an Israeli jail during the country’s 18-year occupation of south Lebanon, which ended in 2000.

As for heeding the call to fight in Syria, Taleb was reluctant. “I will not volunteer, but I will go if the party tells me to,” he said.

In a weekend speech marking the anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, Nasrallah sought to portray the fight in Syria alongside Assad’s army as an existential war aimed at protecting Lebanon.

He said Hezbollah’s mission is to defeat an Israel-led axis of the group’s enemies, including the United States and its Gulf Arab allies, who have backed the Sunni opposition in Syria. He sought to convince Shiites that their existence is threatened by Sunni radicals among the rebels operating near Lebanon’s border in Syria.

“If Syria falls into the hands of the Americans, Israelis and takfiris, the resistance will be isolated and then Israel will enter,” Nasrallah said, using a term for Sunni militants. “Syria is the backbone of the resistance and we cannot stand with our arms crossed when the backbone is being broken.”

For months, Hezbollah denied its fighters were assisting Assad in the military crackdown against rebels. A steady trickle of dead Hezbollah fighters were buried hastily in covert funerals.

But when dozens of its fighters were killed in the Syrian military’s offensive in Qusair, a strategic town near the border with Lebanon, the extent of Hezbollah’s involvement became difficult to hide. The group was forced to announce officially that it had joined the fight.

Like their fallen comrades in the wars with Israel, the group’s fighters who died in Syria are now paraded publically as “martyrs,” their posters featuring heavily in Shiite towns near the border with Syria and in villages of south Lebanon. But there is a discernible difference.

While those who died fighting Israel are hailed as national heroes, the Syria “martyrs” are featured on posters as the “guardians of Sayida Zeinab shrine,” in reference to a revered Shiite figure whose shrine is located outside the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The poster underlines what critics say is Hezbollah’s shift from being Lebanon’s defense against Israel to a much narrower image as defender of the Shiite sect in the region.

“The support of the Lebanese and the Arabs that Hezbollah had in the war with Israel was its major strength,” said Fawaz A. Gerges, the director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics. “It’s quite the opposite in Syria as Nasrallah struggles to convince the Lebanese Shiite community that provides the group with legitimacy of the necessity to intervene in Syria.”

“The longer Hezbollah’s presence on Syria’s killing fields will be, the more vulnerable Hezbollah will become in any future confrontation with Israel,” he added.

Once lauded in the Arab world as a heroic resistance movement that stood up to Israel, Hezbollah has seen its popularity plummet in the region because of its staunch support for Assad. The blatant intervention in Syria even drew rare criticism from the Lebanese president this week.

“The resistance is more noble than to get bogged down in the sands of dissension, whether in Lebanon or in neighboring countries,” Michel Suleiman said in a statement.

Hezbollah appears to be banking on continued support from Lebanon’s Shiites, for whom it provides an extensive social support system.

For now, Nasrallah can still bask in the cult-like adoration that his Party of God enjoys among many Shiites. Sunni-Shiite tensions run high, and many Shiites are convinced there is a Sunni threat. But there is a noticeable sense of longing for earlier days when the enemy was much more clear-cut.

In the southern town of Kafr Kila, residents recall Hezbollah being synonymous with national pride.

Following the 2000 Israeli withdrawal, the towns near the Fatima Gate border fence separating Lebanon and Israel became a meeting place for the group’s supporters from Lebanon and beyond to stage demonstrations and throw stones into Israel.

Then a year ago, Israel built a wall along the town’s stretch of the border, blocking the view of its territory and ruining the main show in town. That wrecked the family business of the Chetet brothers — the Fatima Gate Restaurant and a Gift Shop, a popular stop for the fence protesters.

“It was good business, but now, nobody comes anymore,” said Mohammed Chetet. “Who wants to sit and stare at the wall?”

He blew dust off Hezbollah souvenirs, remembering old times when the mugs with the Nasrallah’s portrait, T-shirts, key chains and pens with Hezbollah’s insignia would fly off the shelves.

Others are more upbeat.

Smoking a cigar, Khalil Abdullah inspects preparations for a weekend flood of Lebanese tourists to his Wazzani Fortress resort. It’s an ambitious $3 million project that he opened last year, with luxury chalets, a pool and a restaurant along the Wazzani River, which forms the frontier in southeastern corner of Lebanon. On the other side, Israeli soldiers in the Golan Heights often gawk at the guests having lunch and dipping their feet in the river.

The 58-year-old businessman said he does not fear losing his investment in a future war with Israel. Hezbollah is there to protect them.

“It will be a short war, if it comes, because Israel will quickly realize it was a mistake to challenge the resistance.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Between Hezbollah fighters and Russian missiles, Israel’s stakes in Syria war grow ever higher – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Nasrallah’s gamble on Assad’s behalf could tilt Israel to support rebels, but Russian S-300s could be dangerous game-changer, for everyone.

Netanyahu and Putin attend a news conference in Sochi, May 14, 2013. Photo by Reuters

As far as Israel is concerned, the news from Syria in the past few days can be divided into the good, the bad and the potentially very ugly. Taken together, the developments mark a convergence of potential game-changers that may set the stage for long, hot and possibly very dangerous summer.

The good news, if it can be called that, is Hezbollah’s increasingly direct intervention in the Syrian civil war on behalf of beleaguered president Bashar Assad. A New York Times headline on Monday described the Lebanese terror group’s involvement as a “dramatic gamble”, which Israelis, of course, are hoping it will lose.

The Times article describes Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s decision to send his forces to fight alongside the Syrian army in the ongoing battle over the city of Qusayr as a move that could prove critical for the future of the organization: a victory would enhance the organization’s reputation and status as a coveted member of the tripartite axis with Syria and Iran, while a defeat would weaken the group militarily, dilute its deterrent power and undermine its position of influence in Lebanese society and politics.

These theoretically high stakes of Hezbollah’s uncharacteristic foray cannot but influence Israel’s views on the conflict in Syria. Jerusalem has hitherto wavered between two conflicting interests: stability of the Syrian state and its regime as a guarantor of chemical weapons and of Israel’s northern border vs. the value of disrupting Tehran’s regional hegemony and its supply lines to Beirut.

This equation changes, however, if Hezbollah gets sucked into the Syrian imbroglio to the degree that Assad’s defeat could also spell the death knell for Nasrallah. Israel will be sorely tempted to do whatever it can to contribute to such a potentially fatal blow to an organization that, it many ways, has been Israel’s fiercest and most implacable enemy for over 30 years.

Instead of opposing the arming of Syrian rebels, or at least cautioning Western powers against hasty moves, Israel may now view an immediate strengthening of anti-Assad forces as a strategic imperative aimed at averting a decisive Assad-Hezbollah victory. Rather than having to choose between the plague and cholera, as the saying goes, Israel could come to appreciate the advantages of having the two scourges fight it out, one against the other.

From that point of view, the European Union’s decision to refrain from extending its arms embargo against the Syrian rebels could not have come at a better time. With the active and physical help of Iran and Syria, Assad has recently appeared to be not only holding on but actually gaining ground; the arming of Syrian rebels, even if they include Jihadist extremists, would serve as a potent game-changer and morale-booster for the beleaguered anti-Assad forces.

Similarly, the growing evidence of the Syrian army’s tactical use of chemical weapons, as supplied by eyewitness accounts of Le Monde reporters, may add to the pressure on the U.S. Administration to increase support for the rebels, if not to intervene directly. Senator John McCain’s jaunt into rebel territory over the weekend has refocused attention on an issue that the Administration was probably happy to keep on the sidelines.

Good or bad, all of these developments are overshadowed, of course, by the Russian announcement that it plans to go ahead and arm Assad with advanced S-300 surface to air missiles, described by the International Assessment and Strategy Center as “one of the most lethal, if not the most lethal, all altitude area defense SAM (Surface to Air Missile) systems in service.”

Moscow’s decision, if final, is a diplomatic setback for Israel, which has tried to dissuade Russia from going ahead with the deal, most recently in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s meeting with Vladimir Putin two weeks ago. More importantly, however, the deployment of the S-300s could change the military balance of air power on Israel’s northern front, with the new missiles threatening Israel’s freedom of action not only over Syria but over Lebanon and Israel’s northern areas as well.

Any Israeli decision to attack Syrian targets before, during, or after the deployment of the new missile systems could put it into a dangerous collision course with Moscow and its regional ambitions.

Given this new convergence of regional and international forces on the Syrian battlefield, there may be renewed impetus to reach a negotiated settlement at the upcoming Geneva II conference, scheduled for mid-June. But it is no less far fetched to sketch plausible scenarios by which the internal civil war develops into a regional confrontation and escalates from there into an all-out international crisis that pits Syria, Iran, Russia and possibly China on one side and Europe, the U.S., Israel and Sunni countries on the other.

If this happens during the next few months, be sure that the “Guns of August” precedent will be mentioned often. If the situation deteriorates even further, you may rest assured that scaremongers will rejoice, doomsayers will exult and Google will be awash in searches for the Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation, the Devil and the Beast, Gog and Magog and a little known place in the northern Israel, right next to Lebanon and Syria, called Megiddo – or Armageddon.

Israel can stand to gain from Syria’s civil war, as long as it avoids interfering – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Recent developments in the war-torn country suggest that the events in Syria may not be so bleak from an Israeli perspective.

A picture taken on April 26, 2013 shows smoke rising after shelling in Houla in Syria’s Homs province. Photo by AFP

Despite the series of dramatic announcements this past week, it seems that recent developments in Syria actually point to the continuation of the civil war more that its end. The European Union‘s announcement – after debating the issue for two years – that it was lifting the embargo on supplying arms to the rebels was met by an immediate Russian response that it was committed to its arms deals with the Assad regime, and that it will go ahead with deliveries of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to the Syrian army. The Russian deputy foreign minister stressed that the missiles would be supplied to deter foreign interference.

The more Assad loyalists are successful in halting the rebels’ progress, the more his supporters expose themselves and the degree of their involvement in the fighting. This was evident in the latest declarations from Moscow, but also in last week’s speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. According to an organization monitoring the conflict, some 141 Hezbollah fighters were killed in the last month alone, 79 of them in the last 10 days, during the battle for the strategic stronghold of Qusayr, near the Lebanese border. In other words: Hezbollah lost more than one percent of its operational combat power within a month due to its support of Assad – quite a significant number of casualties for a relatively small guerrilla movement.

The early evaluations as to the imminent fall of the Syrian tyrant made way, since the beginning of the year, to the idea that both sides have reached a standstill. President  Assad no longer rules at least half of Syria, but lack of coordination and the military weakness of the various opposition groups prevent them from replacing the central government, barring an assassination of Assad.

The war’s damage is becoming ever clearer: more than 80,000 dead (with some placing the figure at over 100,000 ), a million and a half refugees, as well as some three million Syrians who are inner refugees. At the same time, foreign correspondents covering the events point at the repercussions of the civil war beyond Syria’s borders. Jordan and Turkey are horrified by its results; Iraq, and to a lesser extent, Lebanon, are experiencing civil war between Shi’tes and Sunnis.

In contrast to common impressions, Israel fulfills only a secondary role in the Syrian tragedy. Following the series of often conflicting threats sounded by senior Israeli officials in the past week, it seems the Israeli leadership is trying to return to a more quiet and sane approach. Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon, who was asked on Tuesday as to the S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, refused to say more than the non-binding “we’ll already know what to do.”

The war in Syria can damage Israel, but it seems that, all things considered, Israel can stand to gain from the war.

The obvious weakening of the Syrian army, exhausted by the constant killing, one must now add to the erosion of Hezbollah’s forces. Nasrallah is facing unprecedented inner criticism in Lebanon due to his intervention in Syria. This week Britain and France promoted an initiative to have the European Union declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization – a move that could profit Israel, since it might limit Hezbollah’s operations abroad.

One should not ignore Syria and Hezbollah’s threats to open a new “resistance front” against Israel on the Golan Heights. Last week, a rocket was fired from Lebanon into the Upper Galilee, even though its remains have yet to be found. Still, if Israel manages not to interfere, it seems that at least for the short term it could contain the situation on its borders and prevent a violent escalation. Without ignoring the risks involved in such an unstable situation, at this stage the events in Syria are not that bleak from an Israeli point of view.

The empire of Hezbollah – Alarabiya.net English | Front Page.

When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, I was a teenager, growing up in a peaceful household that was neither political nor sectarian. Although Hezbollah was born then as a resistance movement to Israel’s presence in Lebanon, the group never interested me until much later when, as a young journalist in 1990, in my attempt to “reach out to the other side” I was granted an exclusive interview by the group’s spiritual leader, Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.

I remember spending long hours at one of the few research centers available pouring over documents, articles and books about the man and the group. The number one topic that caught my attention was the group’s underlying Islamic agenda. I got to ask Fadlallah about that directly. It was perhaps the toughest of my questions as it was direct and required a direct answer. He looked me in the eye and said, “even if our agenda is that of Islamization, I can assure you and others that our rule will be inclusive to all Lebanese and will respect everybody’s freedoms.” Another important observation from those days was how much clout Fadlallah had as the spiritual leader of the group in comparison to its secretary general; and the enormous number of people he influenced, including a large Iranian delegation that was waiting to see him after we concluded our interview. What remains with me from that interview is a sense of what Hezbollah could be, that is very different from what Hezbollah truly was and what it has become over the years.

Military rule

Slowly but surely, the leadership became more and more about the individual leader instead of the various councils the group has originally devised. The spiritual leadership disappeared makinh way to a more fundamental military rule. Under the pretext of resisting Israel’s occupation, Hezbollah was the only armed militia that was allowed to operate after the end of civil war was declared in 1990. This has given the group an unprecedented legitimacy that it used later to turn its arms against the very people it was supposed to protect. The leadership of Hezbollah changed the group’s bylaws to allow for the secretary general to be re-elected without limits. Thus, Sayyed Hassan Nassrallah has been at the helm of the militia for at least seven consecutive terms since 1992.

Hezbollah has chosen the narrow, clandestine and oppressive alleys of Iran and Syria to operate out of.

Octavia Nasr

During this time, he managed to alienate himself from the rest of the world, earning the group a terrorist label in the west and a badge of honor among the most extreme and fundamental groups in the region. Under his leadership, Hezbollah’s agenda got more transparent by the day: A virtual blurred line separating it from Iran and Syria’s extremism. He started a war with Israel in 2006 which he later declared a “Godly” victory disregarding the heavy toll Lebanon has paid and continues to pay as a result of his unilateral decisions and actions during 2006 and since. Although its main reason to exist, namely resisting Israel’s occupation, should have faded away after Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, the group morphed into an independent militarized entity within Lebanon with a sizeable representation in parliament and cabinet. Instead of making Hezbollah a serious partner in building the nation, this turned the group into a self-styled empire.

Although in hiding of fear of assassination, Sayyed Nassrallah today acts and speaks like an emperor from yesteryears. He has mistaken the applause many have given him for resisting Israel’s occupation as a green light to do whatever he pleases. He has also managed to stifle most opposition at the threat of turning his weapons against any critical opinion and/or personality. Without any voices within the militia but his, Sayyed Nassrallah feels unbreakable, unstoppable, unmistakable, unshakeable and untouchable. As a result, Hezbollah’s role as a resistance is no longer valid. The group is now more of an instigator, an agitator, and a distractor serving the Iranian agenda of regional supremacy as it goes on. Sayyed Nassrallah knows he’s an extension of that agenda and he is betting on a leading role if it succeeds.

As Arab tyrants have fallen and will continue to fall like autumn leaves and as Arab societies are changing across the region towards more modernization, openness and dialogue, Hezbollah has chosen the narrow, clandestine and oppressive alleys of Iran and Syria to operate out of. Perhaps because after all these are the only places where the empire of Hezbollah can exist and thrive!

This article was first published in Lebanon-based Annahar on May 28, 2013.
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Multi-award-winning journalist Octavia Nasr served as CNN’s senior editor of Middle Eastern affairs, and is regarded as one of the pioneers of the use of social media in traditional media. She moved to CNN in 1990, but was dismissed in 2010 after tweeting her sorrow at the death of Hezbollah’s Mohammed Fadlallah. Nasr now runs her own firm, Bridges Media Consulting, whose main aim is to help companies better leverage the use of social networks.

If Iran wins in Syria, danger threatens the Gulf – Alarabiya.net English | Front Page.

After regional and international stances became clear, the struggle in Syria and over Syria has become clear. This is a war that will alter the region’s map. If Bashar al-Assad’s regime survives, Hezbollah and Iran win as well. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that this is crucial war for the Gulf countries, Jordan, Lebanon and primarily for Syria itself.

A victory of the Assad’s regime will lead to Iran’s domination over Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and consequentially over the Gulf as well as posing a threat to Jordan’s and Lebanon’s existence. Iran sees that a victory in Syria will grant it Western concessions to widen its influence and develop its nuclear program. This is what Britain and France told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who sold the Syrian people to Russia in exchange for going to the Geneva conference. John Kerry granted Assad more than the latter ever dreamt of. Kerry offered that Assad keep all ministries under his control in addition to remaining his post as president for another year. For Kerry a Syrian transitional government is nothing more than a formality.

It’s a mistake to count on international support or U.N. Security Council decisions because these are out of the question, at least for another year. The American president and his government chose to turn a blind eye, and Russia decided to side with Iran and Syria.

High hopes of ‘winning’

But there is high hope that the Syrian people will win, because they know well that their defeat means their slaughter. They have gone so far in their revolution and liberated more than half of their country. They’ve scarified their blood for the sake of breaking free from the worst suppressive security regime in the world.

Gulf countries are the Syrian people’s real supporters. Their stances were brave despite the huge risk and despite their first clear political and military disagreement with the United States.

Abdulrahman al-Rashed

If it hadn’t been for the Syrian groups’ and individuals’ struggle, the war may have not lasted for more than a year, and Assad could have smashed the opposition and avenged from the rest. But leaving the Syrian people alone after all this time and after all these efforts and sacrifices will make their victory against the Assad’s regime difficult. They are currently confronting armies that arrived from Iran, Iraq, Russia and Lebanon (Hezbollah), and it is not fair to expect them to confront all these by themselves. The entry of these armed members from Iraq as well as Hezbollah’s interference in particular had made supporting the Syrian people through this ordeal a collective responsibility. This is the major duty that the international community must have fulfilled to deter this evil regime, like it previously did against Milosevic in Bosnia. However, the international community is in a coma. The Syrian people are now only partially supported by Britain and France. Only few Arab countries support them, particularly Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Qatar. Egypt, Algeria, Sudan and Tunisia side with Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and the rest of the Arab countries are neutral.

Gulf countries are the Syrian people’s real supporters. Their stances were brave despite the huge risk and despite their first clear political and military disagreement with the United States regarding regional conflicts. Although they are almost the only ones supporting the Syrians, they must be aware that the situation has become clearer in the past few weeks with the arrival of thousands of fighters from Iran and Iraq as well as of Hezbollah fighters to Syria to support the Assad regime. These developments indicate that the Syrian revolution has transformed into an arena for a regional war where there is no other choice other than completely standing by the Syrian people in their fight against injustice and against the axis of evil that sided with Assad.

This article was first published in Asharq al-Awsat on May 29, 2013.

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Abdulrahman al-Rashed is the General Manager of Al Arabiya News Channel. A veteran and internationally acclaimed journalist, he is a former editor-in-chief of the London-based leading Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, where he still regularly writes a political column. He has also served as the editor of Asharq al-Awsat’s sister publication, al-Majalla. Throughout his career, Rashed has interviewed several world leaders, with his articles garnering worldwide recognition, and he has successfully led Al Arabiya to the highly regarded, thriving and influential position it is in today.

French prosecutor: ‘Radical Muslim’ suspect admits to stabbing soldier – Alarabiya.net English | Front Page.

Police Officers stand at the site where a man attacked a French soldier patrolling a Metro-station mall on the western edge of Paris. (AFP)

A suspect arrested Wednesday has admitted to the weekend stabbing of a French soldier in Paris and was probably acting based on his “religious ideology,” Paris prosecutor Xavier Molins tells AFP news agency.

Molins said the man, named Alexandre and who turns 22 on Thursday, had converted to Islam and was known to police after undergoing an identity check in 2007 for praying on the street.

“The suspected perpetrator of the attack on a soldier Saturday evening in La Defense (business district) was arrested this morning,” Interior Minister Manuel Valls said in a statement, reported AFP.

Sources close to the investigation said the 22-year-old man has been a follower of a “traditionalist even radical Islam for the last three or four years.”

The French soldier had been patrolling a business neighborhood west of Paris on Saturday when he was stabbed in the neck by a man who quickly fled the scene, President Francois Hollande said.

The soldier was patrolling in uniform with two other men as part of France’s Vigipirate anti-terrorist surveillance plan when he was approached from behind around 1800 p.m. and stabbed in the neck with a knife or a box-cutter.

Pierre-Andre Peyvel, police prefect for the Hauts-de-Seine area, said the soldier had lost a considerable amount of blood but would survive, and was being treated in a nearby military hospital.

“The wound appears to be quite serious, but it’s not life-threatening,” he told iTele news television, according to Reuters News Agency.

The attack came days after a British soldier was killed on a London street by two men who said they were acting out of revenge for violence against Muslims.