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Iran Builds Active Front with Direct Presence on Israel's Border

(MEMRI) Y. Carmon and Y. Yehoshua - Iran's deployment in Syria has been based on the establishment of a new Hizbullah Syria organization, as well as on the direct presence of Iranian forces, particularly in the Golan Heights. In May 2014, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) senior official Hossein Hamedani spoke of "130,000 trained Iranian Basij fighters waiting to enter Syria." Iran now commands a theater that stretches through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean. Iran's deployment on Israel's border increases the possibility that any local eruption could quickly develop into a regional conflict. Iran's aim in deploying in the Golan Heights is not only to deter Israel from acting against its nuclear program, but also to establish an active front for anti-Israel terror attacks. Columnist Nahed Al-Hattar wrote in the pro-Hizbullah Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar on Feb. 13: "As much as [Israel] feared the Iranian nuclear program, it never imagined that Iran would be standing on its border even before its nuclear agreement with the Americans was complete. The Iranian threat to Israel is no longer theoretical....The threat has become direct, practical and conventional." Y. Carmon is President and Founder of MEMRI; Y. Yehoshua is Vice President for Research and Director of MEMRI Israel.
2015-02-18 00:00:00
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