Iran Promised to Help Syria in Case of US Military Intervention

Vocabulary Ammunition

Iran threatened to wage war with the U.S. in writing, but then called off the aggressive statement.

Iran officially threatened the U.S. with total defeat and warned that in the case of military pressure on Syrian leader Bashar Assad, it would take retaliatory measures. In other words, Tehran seemed to be ready to declare war to Washington.

Normally, only one person in Iran allows himself such aggressive statements — the president of the country, Mahmoud Ahmadinedjad. This time, however, the threat of war was posed by the Chief of the Committee for Culture and Propaganda of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Muhammad Ali Asoodi. He was instantly quoted by the Iranian pro-government news agency, Young Journalists Club. However, strange things began to happen afterward. After some time, Asoodi’s statement was erased from the agency’s newscast. Nevertheless, by that time the statement had already spread to other Iranian mass media agencies and later around the entire world.

Either Iranians became afraid of a harsh reaction from the U.S. (though what could be harsher; Washington has already imposed nearly every possible sanction on Iran) or the official realized that it was not within his authority to make such bold statements. In any case, it has become clear what can be expected of Iran if U.S. President Barack Obama decides to fulfill his promise and send American soldiers to Syria. Let us recall that last week, after searching for a long time, his administration has finally found a reason to intervene in the Syrian internal conflict. Obama announced that if Damascus begins to use chemical weapons, the Pentagon will immediately take his order to proceed to decisive action.

In response, Tehran reminded the U.S. that there is an agreement between Syria and Iran, signed back in 2006, about mutual aid if defense against external enemies is necessary. At the same time, the official mentioned that other “allies of Damascus” will join in retaliatory measures. However, Asoodi did not go into detail on who else besides Iran is ready to declare war on the U.S. Yet, it is obvious Tehran gave Obama a hint in this way that by invading Syria, Washington and its main Middle Eastern ally, Israel, might get pulled into a serious regional war on several fronts. We shouldn’t forget that the Palestinian movement Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah have always maintained close ties with Syrian leaders. For Obama’s administration, such an unfolding of the situation would obviously become a real nightmare of internal political affairs.

Washington, which evidently is no stranger to Iranian threats, has not yet commented on the threatening statements. However, Foreign Minister of China Yang Jiechi, in his telephone conversation with the UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, expressed deep concern due to the worsening situation in Syria. “China was deeply concerned about the worsening situation in Syria and paid high attention to the humanitarian conditions,” he says in the brief message.

Relevant

“External intervention must be positive. We insist that the key players intervene in a completely certain way: Each of them must get the internal Syrian parties (both government and opposition), especially those on which they have influence, to stop violence,” stated Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking in MGIMO on September 1. “But when our partners claim that the government must cease military operations first, withdraw all its military personnel and armaments from the cities and only then turn to the opposition with a request to do the same, then this is a failing plan. That’s a discourse either about naivety or provocation. When battles are taking place in the cities, saying that the only solution is one-sided surrender of one of the militant forces is unrealistic. The matter is not based on ideology. We are not holding onto some regime or persona of the Syrian situation, but we are coming from what is realistic and what is required to solve one main task: stopping violence and saving lives. The Russian approach meets that task in that the first point of our plan is to demand ending the violence and coming to the negotiation table.”