Mask ball in Damascus
Op-ed: As opposed to bombastic statements, ‘axis of evil’ characterized by great distrust, doubts
The prevailing wisdom in the Middle East is that in case of war between Israel and Iran, we shall see Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas join the campaign against Israel in one way or another, as attested to by the solidarity and warm ties among these four players. However, the WikiLeaks documents exposed a different, embarrassing reality.
One such classified document was never supposed to be published, but it is freely available on the Internet. It is a long cable by the US embassy in Damascus dated December 22, 2009. At the time, a delegation of top Iranian military officials visited Damascus, including Defense Minister Ali Vahidi, nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, and the commander of the al-Qads force, the Revolutionary Guards elite unit, Qassem Suleimani.
According to the cable, they pleaded with Syria to join them militarily in case of war between Israel and Iran or between Hezbollah and Israel. The Syrian response to the top Iranian officials, apparently uttered by President Assad himself, is surprising in its bluntness: Don’t expect us to fight this war – neither we nor Hezbollah or Hamas. According to the document, the Syrians added: “Iran is strong enough on its own to develop a nuclear program and to fight Israel. We’re too weak.”
In other words, the Syrians estimate that Hezbollah is also uninterested in joining Iran in a war against Israel should such war break out. However, the Syrians added that they would gladly endorse Iran verbally in case of war. According to the Syrian report, the Iranians were unpleased by Assad’s words.
As we are dealing with a mask ball where everyone is pretending, the sides walked out to the journalists and in order to hide the major disagreement signed a military understandings memorandum; now we understand that it was empty of any real substance.
‘Signs of Iranian panic’
Overall, the Syrian impression based on the above document is that Iran is showing signs of panic and that the Iranians were the ones who sought the meetings in Damascus, rather than the Syrians. According to Syria, the Iranians were scared by the Syrian-Saudi rapprochement, as well as by the warming up ties between Syria and France and between Syria and the Obama regime. “They’re jealous,” senior Syrian officials told US diplomats.
What we have here is a sort of proof that the minority Alawite regime in Syria would not be willing to risk elimination by joining forces with Iran, and the same is true for Hezbollah and Hamas. All of them have existential interests and realize these will be destroyed by Israel should they join Iran in a major war. They certainly support Iran, yet they also have independent reasons for existing.
For us this means that the IDF must prepare for the joint threats, and it does so, yet we should keep in mind that nobody in the Middle East will be volunteering to be eliminated.
In any case, this document sheds a different light on what is known as the “axis of evil” and the way it conducts itself. In this mask ball, everyone is scared that the other parties will sell them off behind their back. As opposed to the public, bombastic statements, there isn’t much mutual trust or solidarity within this alliance.
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