{"id":18687,"date":"2013-05-06T19:49:09","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T23:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=18687"},"modified":"2013-05-06T19:49:09","modified_gmt":"2013-05-06T23:49:09","slug":"the-big-picture-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=18687","title":{"rendered":"The Big Picture In Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Ledeen<\/a> is a a \u201cFreedom Scholar\u201d at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies<\/a>. He is a reliable source of information on what is going on in the Middle East<\/a>. Mr. Ledeen has the ability to step away from the obvious and see the big picture. Today he posted an article at the PJ Media<\/a> website on the Israeli<\/a> bombing of Syria<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr. Ledeen reminds us that the bombing of Syria by Israel was not really about Israel–it was about Iran<\/a> and Russia. He also points out that the success of the attack was embarrassing to the Russians as they have supplied antiaircraft systems to both Iran and Syria and Israel seemed to have no problem getting past those systems.<\/p>\n

The article at PJ Media reports:<\/p>\n

The primary Israeli targets seem to have been Iranian missiles shipped from Iran to Syria, reportedly pending transfer to Hezbollah<\/a>. They are capable of carrying chemical warheads, which may explain President Obama\u2019s<\/a> quick support for Israel.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The attacks came after more than a month of diplomatic activity:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013On Thursday, April 25th, the United States<\/a> announced that we had evidence that the Syrians had used chemical weapons. That announcement was not merely the result of internal American deliberations; it came after several meetings with allies<\/a> following claims of chemical attacks from the Syrian opposition in late March.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article at PJ Media gives the timeline of the diplomatic activity regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria, but it also deals with the larger picture.<\/p>\n

The article notes:<\/p>\n

These discussions were undoubtedly about the \u201cbig picture\u201d as well as the specific question of chemical weapons. I cannot imagine the Israelis not sharing their view of Iran\u2019s regional strategy, which they believe includes a contingency plan (named after Quds Force commander Qasem Suleimani) for the occupation of Syria<\/a> if Assad were to lose control.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2026Syria\u2019s centrality in Iranian strategy was voiced by Mehdi Taaib, who heads Khamenei\u2019s think tank. He recently stated that \u201cSyria is the 35th<\/sup> district of Iran and it has greater strategic importance for Iran than Khuzestan<\/a> [an Arab-populated district inside Iran].\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Iran\u2019s strategy includes domination of Iraq, which they could use as an operational base if Syria falls.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SIDEBAR: You may have noticed that casualties in Iraq are now running at roughly half those in Syria, as the Iranians apply the same methods they used unsuccessfully against us: foment civil war by the use of terror and religiously inspired mass movements.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have been engaged in a proxy war with Iran for a number of years. It really is time to go after the root of the problem rather than continually fighting small wars that have no end in countries surrounding Iran.<\/p>\n

\"Enhanced<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Ledeen is a a \u201cFreedom Scholar\u201d at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is a reliable source of information on what is going on in the Middle East. Mr. Ledeen has the ability to step away from the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3434,246,86,2705,245,5277,91,285],"class_list":["post-18687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-foundation-for-defense-of-democracies","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-michael-ledeen","tag-middle-east","tag-pj-media","tag-syria","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18687"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18690,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18687\/revisions\/18690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}