IN the past few weeks, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, has been constantly stressing the serious threat of Israel to Lebanon and other Arab nations in the region. Perhaps Iran is talking about Hamas in Gaza and maybe Syria. During Ahmadinejad's two-day visit to Syria, the Hizbollah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, surprisingly showed up in Damascus and gave him a warm welcome, along with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Their talks mainly focused on the Israeli threat to the region, particularly Lebanon. The only recent violation committed by Israel and reported by the Lebanese government was the violation of Lebanon airspace by Israeli jets, as Lebanese, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri explained. If this is the case, then what is the obvious threat President Ahmadinejad talking about? Last Thursday, Israel finished its sixth big military manoeuvre since its 33-day war with Lebanon in 2006. It seems that the purpose of the latest manoeuvre was to gauge whether the Israeli army could handle a simultaneous three-front assault by Iran, Hizbollah and Hamas. As for Iran's controversial nuclear programme, US President Barack Obama could increase the sanctions on Tehran. A new round of sanctions would probably target Iran's oil industry, especially gasoline imports, as well as the Central Bank, and increasing restrictions on official Iranian trips abroad. But China and Russia, two of the permanent Security Council members with the right to veto UN resolutions, are still resisting new sanctions on Iran. Both of them have business ties with Iran and their own unresolved problems with the US, so they would like to use Iran's nuclear file as a tool to play with Washington. But Israel is tired of diplomacy and may act separately, without getting the green light from the US. Two weeks ago, when Iran was struggling to get the fuel it needs for its reactor in Tehran (where work is underway to turn 3.5 per cent enriched uranium into 20 per cent enriched uranium), many countries, which suspect Iran is secretly planning to make nuclear bombs under the guise of a peaceful nuclear programme, became worried. According to the technicians, it would only takes Iran six months to enrich 20 per cent uranium to 90 per cent uranium, the density needed to make a nuclear bomb. Ali Larijani, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, was visiting Japan at the same time as Ahmadinejad was in Syria. At a press conference on Friday in Tokyo, he clearly stated that Iran wants the same nuclear programme as Japan has. Japan has very sophisticated technology, which would allow it to make a nuclear bomb in just a couple of months, if it so wanted. Iran is anxious to master the technology it needs to produce nuclear weapons, but, as Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said in the US on February 26, he doubts if Iran wants to strike his country with a nuclear bomb. “I don't think the Iranians, even if they do get the bomb, [will] drop it in our neighbourhood," Barak told a forum sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "They fully understand what might follow. They are radical but not totally crazy," added Barak, who was in Washington calling for stricter US sanctions on Iran. Back to President Ahmadinejad's recent visit to Syria and all the hype surrounding it, its purpose was to shift public attention away from Iran's nuclear programme to a war that might break out in this region. Nasrallah's presence in Syria wowed the Arab nation and the world, since it's very dangerous for him to appear in public, especially after the war between Israel and Hizbollah in the summer of 2006. He came to Syria to show his solidarity and support for the Iranian government, to show the world that Tehran is not alone and has allies in the region. Hizbollah and Hamas would undoubtedly support Iran if Israel struck it, but how about Syria? Would Syria, which acts like a mediator between Iran and its two allies in Gaza and southern Lebanon, be ready to bomb Israel? What could Iran do if Syria walked out on it? In the press conference attended by Ahmadinejad and al-Assad in Damascus, the President of Iran repeatedly called Syria a brother, a friend and an ally, but President al- Assad wasn't as enthusiastic as Ahmadinejad! Al-Assad simply stressed that Iran is a strategic ally of Syria, describing their friendship as ‘strong and important'. Syria's main goal is to retrieve the Golan Heights from Israel and, since this goal hasn't yet been achieved and it doesn't think the US is being sincere about the peace talks between these two countries (Israel and Syria), it is now simply playing with Iran and the Hizbollah card, in the hope of getting a bigger and better offer from the US. Time will show us whether this friendship is as serious and deep as Iran would want. On February 27, Iran launched a two-day conference on Palestine, attended by senior Hamas figures such as Khaled Meshaal and the Hizbollah representative in Tehran. Analysts see Ahmadinejad's high-profile visit to Syria, the conference in Tehran and Barak's visit to the US as signalling a confrontation in this region in less than a year. However, the Israeli defence chief did not specify how his country would react to a possible Iranian nuclear strike. -------------------------------------------- Entekhabifard is an Iranian journalist staying in New York. She contributed this article to The Egyptian Gazette.
