By Mike Scruggs – The War in Syria is not really a civil war. It is part of a Muslim Brotherhood plan dating back more than 40 years to implement the Islamic Doctrine of Takfir in the Middle East. Takfir sanctions Muslim violence against Muslim rulers who do not conform to the Islamic doctrines of Islamic Supremacy, Sharia Law, and Jihad. The purpose of Takfir is to remove these rulers and replace them with salafists (fundamentalist Islamic revivalists). The “Arab Spring” of 2011 was a revival of Muslim Brotherhood efforts to remove secularist, moderate, or Western-leaning Arab leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria. The latter included Syria’s President, Bashar Assad, whose ruling political and economic coalition is dominated by the moderate Alawite Shia Muslims and includes the Christian minority (about 10 percent) in Syria.
U.S. President Barack Obama backed the Muslim Brotherhood’s 2011 “Arab Spring” plan to overthrow non-salafist Muslim leaders in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Syria. Few of the Syrian insurgents conformed to the American media fiction of idealistic Muslim freedom fighters. Almost all were salafist terrorists including various terrorist branches of Al-Qaeda and later ISIS. According to U.S. intelligence reports declassified by legal actions filed by Judicial Watch, under President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the U.S. actually supplied Al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorists with weapons to defeat Assad’s Syrian Army. Some of these weapons may have been used by ISIS for religious genocide against Christians, Yazidis, and Alawite Shia Muslims. President Obama’s alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood-backed salafist rebels pushed Assad into a closer relationship with the Russians and a desperate and dangerous relationship with the radical Islamist regime in Iran.
The presence of Iranian Army, Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), and Iranian backed Hezbollah (Army of Allah) troops in Syria has expanded the threat to Israel considerably and substantially reduced the chances of peace in the Middle East generally. The total number of Iranian controlled troops in Syria, including large volunteer Shia Muslim units from Afghanistan and Pakistan may now be over 80,000. This is far more than remain of the largely defeated Sunni salafist rebel groups. Iran’s ambition is to establish a Shia Muslim crescent stretching from Iran to Lebanon, which after many years of civil war and Christian flight is coming under Hezbollah control. Iran’s radical Islamist leaders continually repeat their ambition to destroy Israel.
On May 8, President Trump, after many months of study, announced U.S. withdrawal from the Iranian Nuclear Agreement entered into by President Obama but never approved by Congress. The Obama Administration even sweetened Iran’s agreement with a $150 billion cash bribe! President Trump’s reasoning for ending U.S. agreement with Obama’s Iran Nuclear deal, strongly backed by the Defense Department and National Security advisers, was that the Obama agreement facilitated and speeded up rather than prevented the possession of nuclear weapons by the radical Islamist regime. Apparently Obama’s State Department was not familiar with the very basic Islamic Doctrine of Taqiyya, which encourages deception and lies to advance Islam. Iran is the leading national sponsor of Islamic terrorism. Many conservatives are calling Obama’s Iran Nuclear Agreement the greatest and most foolish act of diplomatic appeasement since British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 agreement with Adolph Hitler on Czechoslovakia. President Trump has already begun increasing economic sanctions on Iran.
On May 9, Iranian and Hezbollah forces in Southern Syria launched 20 rockets into Israel’s Golan Heights district bordering Syria. Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) immediately launched an attack on Iranian and Hezbollah positions in southern Syria. Twenty-seven IDF F-16 fighter aircraft launched 60 rockets on 27 enemy positions. Another ten Israeli rockets were launched from ground positions in northern Israel.
None of the Iranian rockets resulted in damage or casualties in Israel. Israel’s “Iron Dome” anti-missile system and batteries are said to be the most accurate and sophisticated in the world. In 2012 actions, they brought down at least 90 percent of incoming Hamas rockets. Iron Dome is now supplemented by a laser beam system that destroys missiles immediately on interception. According to defense reporter Mark Thompson, “Iron Dome is the most-effective, most-tested missile shield the world has ever seen. Iran may, however, have as many as 130,000 rockets in Syria and Lebanon, with which they hope to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome. Israel is small, but its defense technology may be the most advanced in the world and is supplemented by U.S., French, and British weapons systems.
Israel’s population of 8.9 million is small compared to Iran’s 82 million. Only 75 percent of Israel’s population is Jewish, and nearly 18 percent is Muslim. Muslims are not subject to military conscription, but some volunteer. Iran’s population is 99.4 percent Muslim, the overwhelming majority, nearly 95 percent, are Shia Muslim.
According to VSB Defense, Israel has 168,000 active duty military personnel, and Iran has 534,000. IDF active reserve strength is about 650,000, while Iran’s is 400,000. Israel has over 2,600 of the most technologically advanced tanks in the world, while Iran has just over 1,600 less advanced models. Israel also has the deadly accurate Masher anti-tank rocket launchers. Israel has over 10,000 armored vehicles, while Iran has just over 1,300. Israel has 652 aircraft, of which approximately 480 are combat aircraft, including high technology F-15s, F-16s, and F-35s. Iran has just over 450 aircraft, of which about 275 are combat aircraft. . Israel has about 140 helicopters, of which 48 are attack helicopters. Iran has 128 helicopters, of which only 12 are attack helicopters. The IDF’s Jericho 3 solid fuel ICBM has a range of over 6,000 miles and can carry small nuclear warheads.
Iran has a far larger Navy than Israel, but it is unlikely they could operate effectively in the Mediterranean due to the considerable dominance of U.S. and NATO naval assets there.
The Israeli Defense Forces also enjoy the reputation of being one of the best trained and most highly motivated military organizations in the world. The IDF also has the advantage of high quality talent and a meritocratic promotion system. They have adopted one of Napoleon’s secret weapons: “There is a ‘Field Marshall’s Baton’ in every soldier’s knapsack.” Their military command system is highly decentralized and flexible, allowing local commanders to make tactical combat decisions. This is in extreme contrast to the Arab armies they have defeated in the past, which depended upon an inflexible and bureaucratic political chain of command.
Considering both the tremendous striking power and advanced technical superiority of Israel’s military assets and the extraordinary training and motivation of IDF personnel, Iran would be making an awful mistake to mess with Israel.
I have come to suspect that the three principal chemical warfare attacks attributed to the Assad regime in the Syrian “Civil War” in 2013, 2017, and the most recent on April 8, 2018 were “false flag” operations by the salafist Syrian rebels to manipulate the U.S. into bombing and defeating their Syrian Army enemies. Even President Trump’s extreme precision in the 2017 and 2018 responses to the alleged use of toxic gasses hints that he does not consider the Assad regime to be the real enemy. Iran is the most serious threat to peace in Syria and most of the Middle East. Surely the Christians and Alawites that support the Syrian government must realize that radical Iran and their Hezbollah terrorist battalions are a genocidal threat. Surely they can see that Iran does not want to help Syria; it wants to control it and a 1,000 mile radical Shia crescent stretching from Iran to Lebanon. Assad must have been desperate to invite Iran, Hezbollah, and the IRGC into Syria.
Not only Israel, but the Sunni Muslim states of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Arab Gulf are seriously concerned about Iran’s increasing dominance in Lebanon and escalating presence in Syria and Iraq. Trump’s tough doctrine on Syrian chemical warfare allegations may actually be pointed more forcefully at Iran.
Judging from Russian propaganda on their YouTube platform, Russia Today (RT), Russian President Putin is using Trump’s withdrawal from Obama’s Iran Nuclear Agreement to undermine U.S relations with its NATO allies, who are still blind to Iran’s continuing deceptions. But surely Putin and the Russians know that they cannot trust Iran, especially in Syria. Iran is the new big problem in Syria.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Mike Scruggs, Author and Columnist
a.k.a. Leonard M. Scruggs
Mike Scruggs is the author of two books: The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths; and Lessons from the Vietnam War: Truths the Media Never Told You, and over 600 articles on military history, national security, intelligent design, genealogical genetics, immigration, current political affairs, Islam, and the Middle East.
He holds a BS degree from the University of Georgia and an MBA from Stanford University. A former USAF intelligence officer and Air Commando, he is a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War, and holds the Distinguished Flying Cross, Purple Heart, and Air Medal. He is a retired First Vice President for a major national financial services firm and former Chairman of the Board of a classical Christian school.
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