To many independent Iranian observers and political
analyst, a big mistake of President Obama and leaders of some major European
powers is to take as serious threats coming from the Islamic Republic that any
military action in Syria would turn the whole of the Middle East into a
cemetery for the United States and the extermination of Israel etc.
Whether this
assessment is correct or not, but all latest developments in London and Washington
have, at least on the surface, pointed to that direction, strengthening the
hands and position of the Islamic Republic and boosted the moral of Bashar
Assad of Syria.
First, the vote of
the British Parliament killing Mr. David Cameron’s proposal to intervene in
Syria alongside Washington and Paris to stop Assad’s regime to use chemical
weapons against its armed opponents and civilians and then President Barak
Obama’s ambiguous statement on Saturday 31 August saying in the one hand that
Damascus had crossed his red line by using deadly chemical arms and on the
other that he does not know when he would start military operations, “maybe
tomorrow, or in one week or one month”.
“It
is true that the souvenir of British intervention in Iraq on President George
Bush lies a decade ago has poisoned the British MPs, as the Prime Minister said
explaining the negative vote of the Parliament, but the question is that why he
did not wait the final report of the UN inspectors checking the source of
chemical arms used in Syria, unless he did it purposedly to disengage Britain
from another disaster”, asked a young Iranian human rights activist speaking to
this blog.
“The region (of Middle East) is like a barrel of
gunpowder, a spark and it would explode with unknown dimensions”, Mr.
Khameneh’i warned during an audience with the new President, Mr. Hassan Rohani
and members of his cabinet, adding: “Any intervention in Syria by America would
become a disaster for the region and the main looser would be America itself,
as they lost in Iraq and in Afghanistan, increasing the hate of the people for
America”.
Dr.
Abbas Milani, a professor of the Center for Iranian Studies at the Stanford
University and author of two captivating biographies of Mr. Amir Abbas Hoveyda,
the Shah’s Prime Minister for 13 years and lately of the deposed Iranian
Monarch himself said Mr. Zarif’s remarks to Mr. Feltman is a “typical example
of hypocrisy in which the Islamic Republic excels”.
“He (Mr. Zarif) warns the UN diplomat against any
foreign interference in Syria, but he does not say what the Islamic Republic is
doing there, why the Revolutionary Guard is fighting alongside Syrian troops,
why the Lebanese Hezbollah, which so far has lost more than 400 fighters is
doing there, why Tehran has provided more the 7 billion dollars in financial
assistance to keep Assad on his feet at a time the great majority of Iranian
are suffering from hunger and lack of medicines”, Mr. Milani told the Persian
service of Voice of America’s program named Ofoq (Horizon) on Friday 30 August
3013.
Mr.
Hassan Hashemian, a respected analyst of the Arab world rejects Syrian government’s
allegations that chemical weapons have been supplied by Saudi Arabia to Assad’s
opponents and ridicules state television’s images of plastic cans containing
such arms.
“The
chemicals which were used needs special and sophisticated equipments available
to special units, not in ordinary plastic bags. This is a childish lie. At the
same time, it is very important to know who gave order of using these arms,
for, if the decision was taken by Assad or the commander of the armed forces,
the world must intervene without hesitation, but it is also possible that it
was the special chemical weapons unit that ordered the use and in this case, it
is imperative to identify the person or persons who gave the order”, Mr.
Hashemian told the same program, speaking from Istanbul, in Turkey.
While General Mohammad Ali Ja’fari, the Commander of
the Revolutionary Guards warns that “the cost of American military intervention
in Syria would be the total destruction of Israel and Syria would become
America’s new Vietnam”, Field Marshal Hassan Firouzabadi, the deputy Supreme Commander
of all armed forces of the Islamic Republic assures that Syria “would become
America’s cemetery”.
“These
are pure rhetoric, plain lies, empty of substance, intended to boost the morale
of Assad, who is afraid that the new Iranian government might not stand by him
as did the previous one. In case of a military action by the westerners in
Syria, one can be sure that the Islamic Republic would not move one centimeter,
returning immediately its forces from Syria”, assured Mr. Mansour Farhang, the
Islamic Republic’s first envoy to the United Nations.
“Did not Mr. Hoseyne Taeb, a cleric close to Ali Khamenehi’s
influential second son Mojtaba and the commander of the Basij force infuriated
Iranians some time ago when he stated that abandoning the oil rich province of
Khouzestan is less important than loosing Syria, for the lost of Damascus would
meand the lost of Teheran”? Mr. Da’i told the Los Angeles-based Pars Television
on 30 August 2013. ENDS
SAFA HAERI
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