Posted on 07/16/2006 10:22:00 AM PDT by NYer
Iran warned its arch-enemy Israel of "unimaginable losses" if it attacks Syria and vowed that it was standing by the Syrian people.
"We hope the Zionist regime does not make the mistake of attacking Syria, because extending the front would definitely make the Zionist regime face unimaginable losses," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
"Iran is standing by the Syrian people," he said of the Islamic republic's sole regional ally.
"We have offered and will offer Syria and Lebanon spiritual and humanitarian support," Asefi insisted, reiterating Iran's denial that it is providing military and financial assistance to the Hezbollah movement.
The Israeli army has said Hezbollah militants had used an Iranian-built radar-guided anti-ship missile in an attack on Friday on an Israeli warship off Lebanon's coast.
The attack marked the Lebanese militia's first successful strike on an Israeli warship, dealing an unprecedented blow to the Jewish state's military. One Israeli sailor was killed and three more were missing, feared dead.
An Israeli military intelligence official has also alleged that around 100 members of Iran's powerful ideological army the elite Revolutionary Guards were in Lebanon, acting as military advisors to Hezbollah.
Iran is a major backer of Hezbollah, but regularly insists that it only gives "moral support" to the Shiite movement.
"We have no Guards there. It is not true that we have sent missiles. Hezbollah is capable enough. The Zionist regime is under pressure," Asefi said, repeating Iran's denial of any connection to the attack.
He also hit out at the United States after President George W. Bush said Israel had "every right to defend itself".
"The United States has had a destructive role by vetoing resolutions and hence encouraging the Israeli crimes," Asefi said, referring to Washington's use of its veto in the UN Security Council Thursday to block a resolution calling for a halt to an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
"The United States should reconsider its policies and correct its wrong attitude of supporting the Zionist regime."
On Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that Israel was not powerful enough to take on Iran and also warned against an attack against Syria.
"Thanks be to God, despite its criminal and savage nature, the Zionist regime and its supporters in the West do not have the power to look in the same way towards Iran," the fiercely anti-Israeli president said.
"If Israel commits another act of idiocy and aggresses Syria, this will be the same as an aggression against the entire Islamic world and it will receive a stinging response," Ahmadinejad said in a telephone conversation with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.
The hardline president, who has calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" or moved as far away as Alaska, has also compared Israel's military strikes on Gaza and Lebanon to tactics used by Nazi Germany's leader Adolf Hitler.
"Their methods resemble Hitler's. When Hitler wanted to launch an attack, he came up with a pretext," Ahmadinejad said Saturday.
"Zionists say they are Hitler's victims, but they have the same nature as Hitler," said Ahmadinejad, who has previously described the Holocaust of six million Jews in wartime Europe as "a myth."
"We have two solutions for the crisis. One of them, which is a logical one, is that as you (Western nations) who imposed this regime by fabricating stories, you put an end to it and take it with you," he said.
Ahmadinejad's second solution was to have a referendum in which only the "true Palestinians," decide their fate.
They can't GET to Israel without coming over us. And I don't believe we're going to allow that to happen.
Ten divisions between Iran and Israel? Priceless.
YEah, I think if Iran has a nuke it would probably be a dud. If you haven't tested, you ain't got it, IMO. Not that I want to test that theory out, mind you.
I don't think Israel is very worried by the prospect of Iran suffering unimaginable losses if Israel attacks Syria.
You don't think the Iranians are dumb enough to be suggesting Israel will suffer the losses, do you?
Shalom.
Tell you one thing, there wouldn't be an Aswan Dam any more, and that means there wouldn't be a... Cairo, IINM.
Actually, it sounds like they're chanelling Baghdad Bob.
Shalom.
The problem is that Iran's president doesn't care about the war, and who actually starts it.
He only cares that there is one, and that many Islams die, so that the 12th IMMAM will return and seek vengeance.
This is his goal.
Thank you both for the post, I have wanted find some scripture references.
Remember being a kid, and wanting to be part of the 'in' crowd?
How some smoked, some stole car radios? And the whole time it was revolt against authority. Something we go through in our juvenile years.
Well, DU and DailyChaos are nothing but the ramblings of juveniles who refuse to grow up. I would venture to say that some of their members are of the Jewish faith (loosely) and are going along 'to be cool'.
Oh, the anonymity of the internet is a superhighway for pretension.
Did you do that one?
Israel is seeking a casus belli and Iran might just be irrational enough to give them one.
I know he means Zion as a put down - but it makes me thing of an old old hymn
We’re marching to Zion,
Beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We’re marching upward to Zion,
The beautiful city of God.
He just has no idea....
"Their methods resemble Hitler's. When Hitler wanted to launch an attack, he came up with a pretext," Ahmadinejad said Saturday.
Tactics used by Hitler against whom? Not against the Jews since according to him the Holocaust didn't exist.
Would that be the "mother of all losses"?
The line in the sand he is drawing is curiously not south Lebanon. It is Syria. He basically gives up Israeli destruction of Hezbollah and occupation of southern Lebanon but draws the line at Syria. I wonder why?
The Lebanese will fight to the last Palestinian, the Syrians will fight to the last Lebanese, and now Iran vows that it will fight to the last Syrian! Such commitment is inspiring. In me, it inspires laughter.
LOL!
Onward Judeo-Christian Soldiers.
A "dirty bomb" could be another possibility
"Their methods resemble Hitler's. When Hitler wanted to launch an attack, he came up with a pretext," Ahmadinejad said Saturday.
A master of PR in the way that Saddam Hussein was a master of PR ("Look, these hostage children love me!"). This guy needs to make up his mind--was the Holocaust fake and Hitler was a misunderstood sort, or was it real and Hitler was scum? And of course, the question needed to be asked but won't be, how they pretexted up Palestinian incursions and rocket launchings into Israel? Those durn sneaky jooooos! One is reminded of the punchline, "How do you arrange a flood?"
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