IRAN AND SYRIA EXPECT SUMMER U.S. STRIKE
By Mike Evans
On a recent fact-finding trip to Israel researching a new book, I met with senior members of the Israeli intelligence community and several former prime ministers, and became convinced that Iran and Syria are preparing for an attack by the United States this summer.
It is because Iran is approaching the point of no return in its nuclear development that it apparently believes the US is preparing to strike soon. Once Teheran’s plutonium production is on-line, a preemptive strike would risk a great number of civilian casualties and possible long-lasting damage from radioactive fallout.
Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, chief of Intelligence for the Israel Defense Forces, said that Iran and its Syria client state are beefing up their defenses in anticipation of an imminent military showdown with the United States.
"Their preparation is defensive ahead of war … They fear a war initiated by the Americans, because they understand that there might be an attack against Iran over the summer, but not by Israel," Yadlin told the Israeli cabinet in a briefing on April 1.
The US and Israel have been closely monitoring the ongoing fortification of Teheran’s nuclear facilities and surrounding military positions, as Iran races to develop atomic warheads for its existing array of ballistic missiles.
Both Iran and Syria apparently do not think America will act without Israel’s involvement. Given Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s constant threats “to wipe Israel off the map,” this is not an unreasonable assumption.
Iran’s ballistic missiles are a threat that Israel cannot ignore. Their destructive capability is immense even without atomic warheads, since they can already be armed with chemical or biological weapons.
Brig.-Gen. Yosef Baidatz, head of the IDF's intelligence research branch, recently told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of Israel’s Knesset (Parliament) that the Syrian Army has been placed on high alert for an attack by Israel. He said Syrian President Bashar Assad has stepped up the production of long-range missiles capable of striking Israel’s population centers.
Assad has made numerous declarations on his state-run media on preparing for war, which would be inevitable if the US does attack Iran, since Syria and Iran are linked by a number of military agreements. In an eerie echo of the past, the state-run Syrian media have been constantly broadcasting bellicose statements of the type heard leading up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
"The tone [in Syria] is one of preparing the public for a war," a senior security official told me. He said Syria is also concerned Israel might exploit an attack by the US to strike against Hizbullah in southern Lebanon, in order to eliminate the new arms it is smuggling in from Iran.
Another reason for a US strike against Iran and Syria is the support both renegade countries provide worldwide terrorism. Iran funds Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, in addition to smuggling arms through Syria to Hizbullah in Lebanon. In Iraq, however, Teheran is infiltrating and arming thousands of terrorists who are daily killing American soldiers, as well as Iraqi civilians struggling to establish a democracy.
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