In recent days, as the world is preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic, Iran continues to pose a strategic threat to Israel and the free world. Recently, it was reported that Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant has been reconnected to the grid and that Iran is managing to produce 70% of what is needed for aircraft and helicopters despite the embargoes. Meanwhile, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Information Center declared, “Sources tracking the movement of freighter planes reported intensive activity between Iran and Syria, which included both Syrian and Iranian cargo planes.”
However, most newspapers in the West are too preoccupied with the pandemic to pay much attention to this. Nevertheless, in light of these recent developments, it would be folly for the international community to continue to ignore the Iranian threat at this critical juncture.
Although the coronavirus pandemic is a grave humanitarian disaster that merits great attention, the Iranian regime is taking advantage of the pandemic in order to strengthen its grip over the Middle East and a world that turns a blind eye to it only enables Iranian aggression.
In our world today, one of the gravest human rights abusers is the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria. He is single-handedly responsible for one of the greatest democides of our times. Mendi Safadi, who heads the Safadi Center for International Diplomacy, Research, Public Relations and Human Rights, highlighted how the Assad regime is strengthening its grip over Syria with Iranian assistance amid the pandemic: “Among the most influential factors that have helped Assad to maintain control on the ground are the Iranian forces and its militias, directly and indirectly.
The Iranian government has declared that Assad’s survival is of strategic importance to it. There are about 80,000 Iranian fighters in Syria, who are deployed around the Damascus International Airport, the periphery of Damascus, Daraa, Al Swaida, Heska, Deir Elzur, the villages surrounding Raqqa, the Qamishli Airport and Al Bukmal. They take advantage of the Syrian-Iraqi border crossings with the assistance of the Iraqi militias in order to smuggle logistics and military equipment.”
However, Iran does not only prop up Assad. It has literally created a sphere of influence from Iraq and Syria to Lebanon, Yemen and the Palestinian Authority, which is maintained by the utilization of sheer and brutal terrorism. Not too long ago, there was an exhibition in Bahrain that included an urgent appeal by a number of human rights organizations highlighting acts of terrorism committed in recent decades by the Iranian regime: “Iran established a number of terror organization, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hezbollah Hijaz, Asaib Ahl Al Haq in Iraq, the militias in Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, the Ashter Brigades in Bahrain and many others.” The appeal noted that in the 1980’s, Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups kidnapped and killed more Americans than any other terrorist entity.
“Terrorism issued and financed by the Iranian regime must be addressed in the world as it violates all laws, agreements, international treaties and moral principles,” the statement read. “Iran’s interference in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen is not new, or urgent, but rather a systematic policy that started since the revolution of Khomeini in 1979.”
As Iranian dissident Mohsen Behzad Karimi noted, “The Iranian regime terror never stops. It never ceased its activities, assassinations, acts of terror, etc. The Europeans try to fool themselves that Iranian terrorist activities have ended.”
Like many other countries, Israel is also threatened by the Iranian regime amid the pandemic. Recently, MEMRI noted that the Iran-backed Iraqi Shia Al Nujaba Movement launched balloons into Israeli territory. According to the report, the balloons had photos of the late Al Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani, alongside pictures of Imad Mughniyeh of Hezbollah, Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis from the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units, Bahaa Abu Al Atta from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Ahmed Al Jabaari from Hamas.
With these photos, they threatened that “the martyrs will continue until the liberation of holy Al Quds [Jerusalem] and to send a warning to the Zionist entity that there will be consequences for any miscalculations that it makes. If such a mistake happens, forces from all over the countries of the resistance axis will line up against this usurper entity.”
Sadly, not everyone sees the writing on the wall. “When the world is busy with corona, Iran continues to smuggle weapons and drugs and to build in Syria and Iran, as well as to improve its nuclear capabilities when no one is in control,” Safadi added. “There are countries like the Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland that ignore Iran’s involvement in global terrorism and chose to serve the interests of a most brutal regime, arrest and restrict the activities of Ahwaz activists, and to expel an Iranian Kurdish human rights activist to Iran. Therefore, these countries are active partners in the Iranian terrorism.”
Given all of this, it is time for the international community to wake up and smell the coffee. As IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohani warned recently, “Iran has become the most dangerous country in the Middle East.”
According to Fox News, a majority of the US House of Representatives is poised to pass a bipartisan resolution that calls for the establishment of a secular, democratic Iran and condemns state-sponsored terrorism by the Islamic Republic. Although Karimi believes that there are other better groups to support aside from NCRI, the idea of a secular, democratic Iran emerging from the ruins of the mullah’s regime definitely deserves global support. The rest of the world needs to follow the American example on this. The fate of the world depends upon it.
Source » israelhayom