2024-03-19 05:49:04
Saqer Milham, a diplomat at the Syrian embassy in Tehran, says in his memoirs that with the death of President Hafez al-Assad in 2000, Iranian delegations came to express their condolences at the embassy. At the head of one delegation of officers was an unknown lieutenant colonel at the time, Qassem Soleimani, later commander of the Jerusalem militia responsible for all activities outside Iran. The visitors did not know that the Syrian diplomat spoke Persian. Soleimani told his friends: “Finally the stubborn old lion (Assad) is dead. His son will open the gates of Syria for us.
We will ascend freely to the grave of Zaynab (in Damascus), and the Mediterranean Sea will open before us.” It was a breathtaking combination of two elements in the souls of Revolutionary Guards officers. One: deeply emotional Shiite religiosity. Zaynab was the heroic sister of Hussein, the third Imam of Shiism. Her grave is revered on the Iranian Shiites, but Assad, who was afraid of the Iranians, allocated visas sparingly to them. The second element is long-term global strategic planning. In 2000, it was not clear what the Iranian need for a military port on the Mediterranean Sea: after all, they have ports from the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea , in the Indian Ocean. They also have control over the Straits of Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, and therefore in the global oil economy. What do they have with the Mediterranean Sea?
Bashar Assad at the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia (Photo: Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS)
On March 6, at a conference to mark the 40th anniversary of the Imam Hossein Military University, General Yahya Rahim Tzavi, the senior military advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, announced that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards will increase their strategic depth from -2000 km today (ie: up to the Syrian-Lebanese coast) to a range of 5000 km. The meaning: that the Iranian naval arm and missiles will reach every point in the Mediterranean Sea up to the Strait of Gibraltar. “The Red Sea and the Mediterranean,” said the general, “are strategic points. We have no choice: the navy and air force of the Revolutionary Guards must focus on these points because future wars will be based on sea and air.” Looking back, it appears that as early as December 2023, Lt. Col. Mohammad Reza Najdi, deputy head of the Revolutionary Guards’ twin administration, stated that Iran was striving to reach a position where it could disrupt traffic in the Mediterranean Sea as far as Gibraltar, and Iranian strategists have been discussing this since 2016.
Iran already has a hold on the coast of North Yemen. Its Houthi allies are disrupting traffic throughout the Red Sea. Because of the Houthi disruption, the port of Eilat is already closed today. Iran has failed at this stage in its attempt to get a military naval base on the opposite coast, the coast of Sudan, but it will not give it up. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Houthis announced that his country will soon begin disrupting the movement of ships in the Indian Ocean as well. If the threat is realized, it is likely that Iran will also block the current sea route bypassing the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, the long one, which goes from East Asia around Africa to Gibraltar, and to Europe and Israel.
The Houthis (Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah)
Iranians excel at long-term strategic thinking. In 1980, while immersed in a difficult war against Iraq under the rule of Saddam Hussein, Itullah Khomeini ordered to promote close economic and security relations with the Alawite regime in Damascus. The supreme leader recently threatened that if Israel escalates the fighting in Lebanon, he will expand the attacks from other sides as well, and he means Syria. In 1982 he ordered the establishment of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the result is known. In 1994, his successor, Ali Khamenei, ordered Hezbollah to cultivate the Houthis in Yemen. Today we see the result there as well.
In 2003, when the US military eliminated the Ba’ath and Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, Khamenei sent powerful Iraqi Shia militias that had been in Iran back home to Baghdad. Since the Americans eliminated Saddam’s security apparatus, these militias took control of Iraq with incredible ease under the noses of the Americans. Today Iraq is an Iranian colony for all intents and purposes. This is how Iran created a huge empire, from Iran to the coast of Syria and Lebanon, with an extension in Yemen. It is now working to close settlements on Israel in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. It seems crazy, but within a few years it is possible.
But that’s not all. In 2015, Iran agreed with the powers to limit uranium enrichment. Because of a terrible mistake by the Israeli government, President Trump agreed to its demand and withdrew from the nuclear agreement, but without committing to attack if Iran goes back to enriching uranium. The result: Iran once again bursts into the bomb, and no one is stopping it. It already has enriched uranium at a level of 60%. About ten to 93% will have fissile material that will be enough for several bombs. Iran is also working at full speed on the explosion mechanism. She has resources and patience. When Iran becomes a nuclear power, it will not act with madness but with logic.
Donald Trump, Joe Biden (Photo: Reuters)
It will try to dictate a policy to Israel by threat alone. For example, the “Rahbar”, the supreme leader, will say in a speech that if Israel begins to eliminate Hezbollah “I will use all the means at my disposal” to prevent this. Will Israel risk a nuclear escalation? Iran hopes that with an Iranian nuclear missile , it would be impossible to eliminate, or even severely damage, Hezbollah. And worst of all: if all this expensive activity resulted only from an imperial ambition to expand, it would be possible to force Iran to cease it by disruption, which would make the price unprofitable. The problem is that the regime in Tehran Sees all this as a survival necessity, as “no choice”.
Right now, we are engrossed, and rightly so, in what threatens us in the immediate area: Gaza, Yosh, Hezbollah, Cyber. The Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the nuclear threats. Israel is not necessarily alone. However, the mobilization of the USA and Europe requires international relations much closer than those that exist today.
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