Iran can reach Israel’s borders…writes Michael Danby

Russian Deputy Chief of Staff General Nikolay Bogdanovsky was in Israel last week pursuing Israeli/Russian plans to avoid military confrontation particularly in the air over Syria…writes Michael Danby

To his credit, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had flown to Moscow with four Israeli air chiefs, as soon as the extent of the Russian military intervention in Syria was realised.

You won’t read of this fundamental power shift from blockheaded, anti-Israel fanatics like Robert Fisk, or the Pollard–McNeill axis of their brand of

Australian reporting. But the Russians have installed total air defence with sophisticated SA-22s covering much of Syria’s airspace. As Daesh (IS) doesn’t even have a crop duster, this makes even more farcical US President Obama and our Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s initial enthusiasm for Russian President Putin as there to join the fight against Daesh. Jerusalem is wise to make arrangements with Moscow as best it can in a world with a US administration so feckless and strategically confused.

Julie Bishop’s announcements of support for Syria’s dictator Assad, who has murdered 200,000 of his own people, as the only alternative to Daesh taking over Syria is untrue and unethical. But the massive Russian intervention, on the side of Iran and Hezbollah, cements in place Iran’s Shiite crescent from Lebanon, through Syria and Iraq, to Iran. Worse, the Iranian-controlled Iraqi government, where Australia has 300 of its finest soldiers trying to retrain its cowardly army, has announced its gratitude by openly joining a pact with Iran, Syria and Lebanon under Russian auspices

That is why I have moved a resolution in Parliament, for Australian soldiers to be withdrawn from the Taji military camp where we are at least implicitly cooperating with the Iranians (if we were serious about destroying Daesh, our guys would in Erbil training and arming the 25,000 Kurdish fighters who could occupy Raqqa, the centre of IS evil, in two weeks. From a direct national security point of view, of course, this would be much more useful, in preventing attacks like the ones in Parramatta, or Dandenong, by deranged Jihadist teenagers, who are getting their orders from Raqqa from Daesh, rapists and murderers like Al-Cambodi (Neil Prakash).)

Iran launches a ballistic missileBut back to the main strategic shift, the Russian invasion of Syria and what is portends; it is another victory for Iran, after duping and cajoling the Americans and Europeans into the nuclear deal, which, in the medium-term, will refinance, re-arm, and renew Iran’s bid for the atom bomb.

At the end of the 2006 Second Lebanon war, an Israeli naval ship was hit by a Russian missile shore-to-sea missile, supplied to the Iranian stooges Hezbollah. In all of the years since 2006, the Israeli air force has been free to intercept, bomb and destroy further shipments from Iran to Hezbollah of the even more sophisticated 300km-range Yakhont missiles.

Julie Bishop should be reminded that these Iranian mercenaries Hezbollah are still classified as a terrorist organisation by the Australian Parliament. Our foreign minister thinks the nuclear deal with Iran is good, that Assad should be kept in office, and that Russia is fighting Daesh. Putin’s massive intervention, particularly his control of the Syrian skies, mean that, unlike every time in the past nine years, Israel will have to beg Putin to be allowed to destroy covert shipments of these deadly missiles to Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s long-range missiles target Israel’s people, her ports, her navy, and its gas installations.

Another negative outcome of Russia’s involvement in Syria is the reprieve it will give Hezbollah fighters. They have been stretched thin and thousands have been killed or injured. However, with close Russian air support, volunteer Russian troops, plus the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that have arrived as part of the Russian–Iranian ground offensive against non-Daesh rebels in the north and south. How strange it is for our foreign minister to say “If we use [the Iran nuclear deal] as an example of Russia’s preparedness to be part of a solution rather than part of the problem, then we can have some optimism that Russia’s involvement [in Syria] is positive.

Russia’s armed guarantee of the Hezbollah–Assad–Iraq–Iran alliance also brings Iranian power to the borders of Israel on the Golan. Well done, President Obama—your weakness in Ukraine and now Syria endangers the peaceful lives of people everywhere. Iran is a much more serious and existential threat to Israel than the hoodlums, crucifiers and rapists of Daesh.

At least I’ve been able to stop the Australian Opposition from giving its support to this existential power-shift. Selling a few more tonnes of Australian beef is not worth our soft-peddling on Iran and Syria.