(Al Arabiya) Abdulrahman al-Rashed - Israel attacked 50 positions managed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Syria in retaliation for their firing 20 missiles toward Israel. Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid al-Khalifa wrote: "Since Iran violated the status quo in the region and violated countries' (sovereignty) via their forces and missiles, then any country in the region, including Israel, has the right to defend itself by destroying the sources of threat." Sheikh Khalid's stance is consistent with any state that stands against Iran's crimes in the region. If we ask the majority of the Syrian people about their opinion, they would support Israel in targeting Iranian forces and their militias in Syria. For the first time ever, we see the Revolutionary Guards who dominated in the region, in Iraq, Yemen and Syria, pay a high price and realize that they trespassed their limits. The Israelis will not go to court or wait for international inspection committees to address this. They know that Qassem Soleimani's forces are behind this. The picture is today clearer and the aim is to force Tehran's regime to retreat. The plan includes President Trump's decision to scrap the nuclear agreement and reinstate economic sanctions. This is in addition to Israel's painful strikes that destroyed Iranian sites, and convincing the Russians to be neutral. All this is after the Tehran government refused international calls to militarily retreat to its borders and stop interfering in the affairs of the region's countries and toppling their governments. The writer is former editor-in-chief of Asharq al-Awsat.
2018-05-18 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive