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Dangerous Development: Iranian Missile Launch into Syria Against ISIS Puts US in Precarious Position

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By Patrick Henningsen  /  21st Century Wire 

Yesterday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard announced that it had fired several missiles at ISIS positions in the Deir Az Zor province in Syria. The reason given for this unprecedented military strike was retaliation for double terrorist attacks which struck Tehran two weeks ago. Readers should not underestimate the significance of this event. 

According to a statement issued by the news agency for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Sepahnews,

“Multiple medium-range missiles were fired from the Iranian provinces of Kermanshah and Kurdestan, and a large number of terrorists were killed and their weapons were destroyed.”

Regarding the alleged ISIS attack which killed 13 people and wounded 50 others, the Revolutionary Guard added,

“The spilling of any pure blood will not go unanswered.”

Make no mistake about it – this was a major media event. It’s been 30 years since Iran has fired missiles at targets outside of its own borders.

Iranian television featured images of the IRGC missiles being launched at night…

The following image (above) was released in a media handout from Iranian news agency, Sepahnews, showing a missile launched by the Revolutionary Guard Corps in the west of Iran, targeting an ISIS position near the city of Deir Az Zor.

The IRGC has also warned that more missile strikes will follow should ISIS militants plot any future attacks on Iran.

“If they carry out a specific action to violate our security, definitely there will be more launches, with intensified strength,” said General Ramazan Sharif of the IRGC (also cited by AP).

Fars News Agency added,

“The IRGC warns the Takfiri terrorists and their regional and trans-regional supporters that they would be engulfed by its revolutionary wrath and flames of the fire of its revenge in case they repeat any such devilish and dirty move in future.”

This latest move by Iran is worrying for a number of reasons. Justified or not, Iran’s launch from its western provinces,  over Iraqi airspace and into Syria will most certainly heighten tensions in an already tense Syrian theatre. If the situation escalates, the question of who has the upper hand may not matter should the situation descend into all-out war involving the US.

Syria: A Crowded Theatre

Iran’s missile strike took place on Sunday June 18th, targeting an ISIS command center located near the embattled city of Deir Az Zor, a key choke point on the road to the ISIS-held city Raqqa in northeastern Syria. This area is currently a hive of international military activity featuring a host of players – the Syrian Army, Russia, Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah militia and opposing US, UK, Australia, France, Turkish and German forces positioned alongside numerous US-allied (and paid for) militias like the Kurdish SDF, YPG militias – all presumably camped in the region to “defeat ISIS.” Add to this the problem of US having repeatedly attacked Syrian military forces in a manner which has aided the strategic advances of ISIS.

Following from this point, it should be well-known by now, based on successive US aggressions inside Syria, that the Pentagon is probing both Syrian and Russian defenses, testing their level of patience, perhaps in the hope that either Syria or Russia might retaliate against an US aircraft, or US support positions on the ground. In the event that the US loses a single aircraft, or loses one member of its combat team to hands of a Syrian or Russian military asset, then Washington will no doubt seize on this event as an “act of aggression,” initiate its media machine to begin consensus-building internationally, ramping-up military operations on par with Iraq in 2003. This would be the excuse that the US-led Coalition has been needing in order to blow the Syrian theatre open into a wide regional or possibly, world-wide war. 

The missile strike by Iran could be a mid-term game changer in the sense that it places Iran squarely into the frame of fighting international terrorism, and ISIS. Up until this point, parties in the US led by the Neoconservative right, the Trump White House, and the sister lobbies of Israel and Saudi Arabia – have tried hard to enforce a strict party line that Iran is somehow, “The number one state sponsor of terror on the planet,” despite the fact that no evidence is ever presented to back-up this sensational geopolitical plank. One of the main beneficiaries of this talking point is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, who gains on two fronts; the ‘Iranian terror’ line deflects from Saudi’s own sordid role in supporting and funding armed militants, terrorist groups (including active factions in Syria) and radical mosques worldwide. This dovetails well with the Trump Administration’s current embrace of Saudi in the ‘War on Terror’ and the simultaneous casting-out of gulf state Qatar from the US-led Coalition’s inner circle in Middle East military and diplomatic affairs. This week, Turkish troops were deployed to Qatar, in a show of support for the gulf state by Ankara. This is just another signal that the geopolitics of the region and around Syria, is getting more complicated by the day.

BFFs? Trump and the Saudis, sword dancing at the Arab Summit in Riyadh last month. 

However, Washington and Riyadh’s efforts to bracket Qatar with ‘state sponsor of terror’ Iran will be even more difficult following the Tehran’s twin-terror attack and Sunday’s retaliatory missile strike. For this reason, the IRGC believes that Saudi and the US are linked to the Tehran attacks. The FT explains:

However a statement from the Revolutionary Guards linked the “brutal attack” to Donald Trump’s visit last month to Riyadh, where the US president singled out Iran for fuelling “the fires of sectarian conflict and terror”.

“This terrorist act took place a week after a joint meeting between the US president and head of a reactionary regional country [Saudi Arabia] which has been a constant supporter of terrorism,” the statement said. “The fact Isis claimed responsibility proves that they [Saudi Arabia] were involved in the brutal attack.”

Despite all of this, Trump has placed all his chips on Saudi Arabia as Washington’s only major Arab partner in the region. Does Washington really think Saudi is of high moral standing in the region? You can blame their decline in popularity for a number of reasons – supporting Wahhabi extremism, beheading Shia clerics, or Saudi’s ability to buy their seat at the head of the UN Human Rights Committee, or cynically acquiring the UN Women’s Rights chair. Perhaps Washington is over-estimating Saudi Arabia’s position as a bona fide leader in the Middle East.

Tehran Attack: Who Did It? 

Another interesting but under-reported component of this story has to do with the reason for Iran’s missile retaliation. Although ISIS apparently claimed credit for the Tehran attacks on June 6th, other evidence suggests that another well-known international terrorist entity might have been involved.

After events in Tehran, the US-backed regime change terrorist proxy, the MEK (Mojahedin-e Khalq) was named by senior Iranian politician Mr. Hamid-Reza Taraghi, as a partner in the terrorist attacks. This theory gains a bit more credence following a statement from former member of the MEK, Massoud Khodabandeh, who has stated that ISIS drew on MEK ‘expertise’ for the terror attacks on Tehran. Certainly, the MEK have been active in carrying out operations inside of Iran for decades now, while ISIS has not. Massoud’s analysis of the attacks is stunning, and raises two essential points:

“The targets selected by ISIS were sites constantly targeted by the MEK. The Iranian Parliament and its members had always been primary targets for the MEK since the 1980s. The group had managed to assassinate several members of the Parliament and tried to plant a bomb there at one point. They were unsuccessful and some members were killed by security forces while other terrorist teams were arrested. Similarly, after Ayatollah Khomeini’s shrine was created, Massoud Rajavi, the late MEK leader, announced that “Khomeini’s grave must be exploded”. It became a mantra among MEK members which they would chant in indoctrination sessions. The MEK tried unsuccessfully to send terrorist teams there in 1991 and 2002.”

“While ISIS and the MEK have the same interests in attacking Iran, ISIS could have caused much greater anti-government fear and hatred among the civilian population in line with its regime change agenda if they had bombed a civilian target like transport infrastructure or a shopping mall. They could have done more damage by targeting the Revolutionary Guards whose forces are in Syria. Instead, the ISIS targets matched those which had been constantly under attack by the MEK for thirty years.”

The MEK factor is extremely worrying because it signals a new leg in Washington’s asymmetric war in the region. History shows us that when great powers sow this level of chaos, the chances for a multi-country conflagration becomes more likely.

Regardless of where blame is apportioned in this case, Iran seems to have accepted the claim by ISIS for these attacks on Iranian soil, effectively giving Tehran an internationally recognized green light to act unilaterally against ISIS assets inside Syria. For those who subscribe to the school of thought that implicates Saudi Arabia and the US for aiding and supporting ISIS covertly, then Iran has not only called their bluff, but co-opted their own ‘anti-ISIS’ narrative too. Presently, Iran has military assets deployed in Syria at the invitation of the government in Damascus, so it’s certain that both Damascus and Moscow were aware of Iran’s missile strike in advance, but not the US – once again demonstrating that without significant ground assets deployed in the region the US cannot really control the situation around Raqqa. This means that Washington, no matter how hard its media machine can spin, are simply not able to dictate facts on the ground in Syria.

Clearly, Iran seized an advantage here, but how this plays out in terms of increased tensions with the US-led Coalition in Syria remains to be seen.

Timing is Everything

The most worrying aspect of this development is the timing. On the same day as Iran fired missiles into Deir Az Zor province in Syria, a US F/A-18E Super Hornet shot down a Syrian SU-22 fighter jet near Raqqa. Washington claimed it as an act of ‘collective self-defense’ as the Syrian jet had dropped bombs “near US-backed forces.” As a result of this overt act of aggression by the US, the Russian Defense Ministry announced this morning that it is halting its “Deconfliction” cooperation with its US counterparts set out in their bilateral Memorandum on the Prevention of Incidents and Ensuring Air Safety in Syria.

Add to this the fact that each day the US continue to kill more Syrian civilians during their supposed ‘anti-ISIS’ strikes in Raqqa, and it’s not difficult to see that the US position is becoming increasingly isolated in the Middle Eastern theatre, leaving its only two remaining solid partners as a pair who themselves are now widely regarded as rogue states in the region: Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The scene has now been set for a wider war. All it will take is a small spark between the two major opposing geopolitical forces or their allies.

Patrick Henningsen is an American-born writer and global affairs analyst and founder of independent news and analysis site 21st Century Wire and host of the SUNDAY WIRE weekly radio show broadcast globally over the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR).

All images in this article are from the author.

The original source of this article is 21st Century Wire

Copyright © Patrick Henningsen21st Century Wire, 2017

http://www.globalresearch.ca/dangerous-development-iranian-missile-launch-into-syria-against-isis-puts-us-in-precarious-position/5595453


Articles by:Patrick Henningsen

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    Total 9 comments
    • last_layman

      War is almost here, 6 nations of Central Europe has signed mutual defense treaty that will enable military of one nation to provide troops, logistics and services to other(s) for the border protection in the case of regional crisis, like incoming new refugee tide. it would be funny, but what if the next tide will be coming from the opposite direction, and sooner, much sooner then expected?

    • Maxwell

      The Americans’ are not only certifiable but are slathering and dripping froth at their mouths in frantic effort to start WW111. With only Isreahell and head chopper Saudis on their side they are going to get their ass kicked. Unfortunately they will probably involve the world in a war that they will turn atomic. It is time for the American military to spring into action and take over from the stump swamp people. If this does not happen both they and all of ourselves can bend over and kiss it good by. STOP THE AMERICAN PHYSCOS

    • Anonymous

      ISIS, MEK, Nusrah, Qaeda, blah blah- they are ALL in service to MOSSAD-CIA agenda to attack the resistance to zionist hegemon’s attempts to subjugate the region. Fkkk them all-US too.
      REAL problem here is Russia who pretends to be opposition- but is just another zionist front in Syria. Why have their S300s NEVER once in EVEN yrs of Syria being DEVASTATED- never shot down anything, or protected Syria in any way?

      WTFU people! you are being had by ALL sides. Its more illuminati bullshit where the theater of war’s melodrama has dropped to the grade D level, with the phoney actors nearly unbearable to watch. Russia, US, all parties mere puppets of MASONIC Talmudism.

    • Man

      this just shows the stupidity of Trump.

      Who supports terrorism? Saudi Arabia. Which country supports the largest US military base in the Middle east? Qatar.

      Is either Qatar or Saudi Arabia on the list of mulism countries banned by the US? Nope

      This isn’t 3d chess against terrorism. This is 3d stupidity

    • truck driver

      Rothschild doesn’t control Iran’s bank. so by baiting Iran like a fish to go to war, Jacob Rothschild gets control of Iran’s bank and Saudi Arabia and the US are Rothschilds puppet to get control of all the money in the world

    • seataka

      WHAT THE HE:: ARE WE DOING THERE??
      Obama was a pretty good hypnotist, btw… thats how he made the snowflakes, they liked listening him speak…trance is pleasant, dreamy, a reduced pain state – in short, they were hypnotized..

      Trump’s emotions regarding Obama (and other things he is being lied to about) are BEING PLAYED by the conductors of the MIGHTY WURLITZER, to induce him to do what they want done… (Google The Mighty Wurlitzer)

      They will be successful unless Trump or some one around him, is familiar with the covert mental manipulations used to control what a man believes to be true. If you don’t know them, then they ‘work’, just like scientology can make a man believe in XENU and the body thetans… same methods, different shore story..

      arnielerma.wordpress.com
      https://arnielerma.quora.com/
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/deprogramming/

    • THOTH

      Decent article.

      After Iran successfully targeted ISIS terrorist bases in Syria, Netanyahu attempted to portray it as a threat towards Israel. For years, I’ve been asking, “If Daesh is truly hell bent on establishing an “Islamic state”, than how could they have shared the Golan heights area with the illegal Israeli settlements for an extended period of time, without a single hair on a Jewish head being harmed?

      Former Israeli defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, partially answered my question when he stated that :- “There was one case recently where Daesh opened fire and apologized,”

      He went on to explain that a small convoy of IDF soldiers entered Daesh controlled territory unannounced and were fired upon by Daesh militants by mistake. He said that the IDF returned fire, killing some of the militants and wounding others. He then mentioned that a Daesh representative contacted the Israeli government to issue a formal apology. The same man stated that Israel would rather ISIS control Syria than the duly elected Bashar al Assad. Israel has also publicly admitted to providing different types of aid to jihadi terrorist groups and have invaded Syrian airspace to strike Syrian government allies who were in the middle of making an advance against terrorist forces.

      In Syria, the US is just another illegal invader, operating on Syrian territory without permission and against the will of the Syrian president and Syrian people. The US military has recently moved mobile missile launching platforms into terrorist occupied territories, to shoot down Syrian jets targeting terrorists. The US sponsors terrorists to overthrow the duly elected government in Syria, invades Syria to provide direct support to their terrorist proxies, shoots down a Syrian jet targeting terrorist forces inside Syria and has the audacity to claim their actions were performed in “self defence”?? :roll:

      In reality, the Syrian government and their requested help are legally within their rights to directly target US forces operating in Syria. Sadly, if they were to exercise this right, the USG and mockingbird media would undoubtedly portray the attack as an unwarranted act of aggression and use it as a pretext to intensify their push to remove Assad from power.

      There is nothing the USG can say to criticize Iran for striking ISIS, because Iran is there at the request of the Syrian government and the US is there in direct violation of international law, against the will of the Syrian government and people. Lately, the USG has been killing more Syrian civilians than ISIS. If the US would leave Syria and stop sponsoring terrorists, as they are legally obligated to do, the Syrian war would have been a long time ago. It might not have even started in the first place

      • THOTH

        Correction: “…the Syrian war would have been ‘over’ a long time ago.”

    • Anonymous

      I am on the Syrian , Russian, Iranian, side. I don’t care for the UN, NATO or the USA s attitude. My belief they are all sucking up to the Israel Zionists, control of the middle east and don’t give a shit on whom they destroy.

      Even the leader of North Korea has a better IQ than most of the American sheep.

      I will end it this way, ” WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE ” ?

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