Posted on 7/22/2007, 3:10:32 PM by sukhoi-30mki
Iran 'pays Syria to spurn Israel'
Abraham Rabinovich, Jerusalem | July 23, 2007
IRAN has pledged to provide Syria with $US1 billion ($1.13billion) for arms acquisitions in return for a pledge from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to drop peace overtures to Israel, reports said yesterday.
Citing an Iranian source, the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mr Assad signed the arms agreement at a meeting in Damascus last Thursday.
The report said that Iran agreed to assist Syria in developing a nuclear research program -- a detail Israeli commentators were sceptical about -- and to advance its chemical weapons potential.
The Iranian leader's visit to Damascus came two days after Mr Assad publicly called for peace negotiations with Israel. The mooted peace accord revolves around the return of the Golan Heights -- captured by Israel in 1967 -- to Syria.
Israeli political figures at the weekend expressed alarm at the reported Syrian-Iranian pact. Minister for Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman said: "The strengthening of the relationship between Assad and Ahmadinejad demands that Israel reorganise its political and military strategies."
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
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The chance of a major war in the Middle East, not the little low level guerrilla war thing going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, but a major action with fleets of aircraft and hundreds of tanks, and in the end flying missiles, just went way, way up.
July 23rd should be interesting.
Nothing so far. Maybe they'll attack the Citadel? (Be kind of interesting in many ways)
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