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Experts Address Iran's Expansionism and Threats to the Region
(JNS) Yaakov Lappin - Syria has become a "Shi'a colony of Iran," Bassam Tibi, Syrian-born professor emeritus of international relations at Georg-August University of Gottingen, told a recent conference at the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. "The Alawites of the Assad regime have killed our Sunni identity." Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran has been filling the vacuum "created by the removal of Saddam Hussein. Ever since, Iran has been expanding its power....The Saudis are unable to meet the Iranian challenge. Iran now controls Iraq, Lebanon and Syria." Daniel S. Mariaschin, executive vice president and CEO of B'nai B'rith, who recently met with Persian Gulf leaders in the UAE, said, "Sunni eyes are opening to the fact that Israel poses no threat, but that Shi'a Iran...aspires to dominate far beyond its borders." Professor Hillel Frisch, a member of BESA, said the term "Arab-Israeli conflict" is no longer relevant to describe the region. "It's basically an Israeli-Iranian conflict or an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The only Arabs that are confronting Israel today are proxies of Iran." Frisch described Iran as "truly a radical imperial state. The best proof of that is that it's the only state in the Middle East...that projects power over 1,000 kilometers from its border," using it to attack Israel, which harbors no ill will towards Iran.