(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Dore Gold - Iranian President Rouhani now threatens to close the Strait of Hormuz and endorses Ayatollah Khamenei's call for the elimination of Israel, exposing as a lie the claim that there is a moderate faction in the Iranian regime. Under Rouhani's presidency, Iran continued its drive for regional hegemony and continued to increase the number of areas under its influence in Africa and South America, while exporting the Islamic Revolution throughout the Middle East. If Iran was moving in the direction of moderation, as was asserted back in 2015, you would have seen Iran pull back from all its foreign commitments. What we have seen is that Iran has doubled down with its Shiite militias. Iran is not leaving Syria. Iran is digging in to Syria and expects international support for remaining there, seeking to consolidate what it has won in the Syrian civil war. The Iranians want to establish a crescent of influence from the Iran-Iraq border across to the Mediterranean Sea, and have a supply line for the massive military operation that it is planning. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has laid out a plan to combine the various militias in Syria into a 150,000-man army to achieve Iranian hegemony in the Middle East. The writer, former director general of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Israeli ambassador to the UN, is president of the Jerusalem Center.
2018-07-20 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive