BBC:
Bashar talked about reform. He seemed to be a break with the past. Western leaders tried to befriend him. Tony Blair considered giving him an honorary knighthood. But stubbornly, President Assad wouldn’t give up his opposition to Israel and his support for its enemies.
Wow amazing. Straight from the horse’s mouth. They came right out and admitted that the reason the West or at the least the UK hates Assad so much is because he opposes Israel and supports its enemies.
Though frankly this last part is nonsense. Assad used to let some of the Palestinian groups have be headquartered in Damascus, but those were just political above-ground offices that did nothing but issue press releases and make posters. I assure that the true core armed wing of the DFLP, PFLP, PFLP-GC and Hamas are not headquartered in Damascus! The true hard core armed wings of these groups are simply right there in Palestine. The leaders are in Palestine too, generally hiding out underground. The real political leadership of Hamas has recently been in the UAE and Qatar and their top leaders like Mashaal have always moved between Qatar, UAE, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen and Iran. So really it is the US allies in the Arab World who are truly harboring the hard core of Hamas. However, most of the US allies in the Arab world have renounced overt support for the Palestinian armed wings. Even Syria doesn’t give them much of anything. Hamas at least is armed by Hezbollah and Iran. I have no idea where the rest of the groups get their guns. They certainly do not get them from any Arab state openly. No Arab state dares to arm the Palestinians openly, however the weaponry they get from Hezbollah does come from the Syrian military. A lot of the missiles Hamas was firing in the last war were Syrian-made but acquired via Hezbollah. Hamas is now manufacturing their own missiles in factories in Gaza, so the notion of who is arming them will soon become moot. Iran and Hezbollah arm Hamas via the Sinai in general. The weapons come from Iran or Hezbollah to either Sudan or the Sinai. If they go to Sudan, they are moved to the Sinai. Once in Sinai, Bedouin smugglers who will do anything for a buck and have a long tradition of living outside the law smuggle the weapons up to El Arish next to Gaza. They are then moved into Gaza via tunnels or possible via small ships from Sinai to Gaza. Iranian and Hezbollah personnel disembark in the Sinai and then are moved by the Bedouins to the El Arish area where they are moved into Gaza via tunnels. Much of the vast underground Gaza tunnel structure was designed by Iran and Hezbollah.
Really the only Muslims who are helping the Palestinians with arms and armed infrastructure are the Shia Iranians and Hezbollah. No Sunni government other than Sudan is doing jack for the Palestinians.
Israel, the US and the rest of the West have decided that Iran, Hezbollah and Syria form an Axis of Resistance Block that are hardline anti-Israel entities. They are all linked and they need to be taken down. If you take down one, the others are weakened. For instance, if Assad can be taken out and a US client like the Free Syrian Army takes hold, they will cut off relations with Iran and Hezbollah and align themselves with the West and probably remove Syria from the Axis of Resistance. This is why so many Syrians oppose the FSA – they are nothing but pro-US puppets who want to sell out to Israel and the US and turn Syria into another US client Arab state.
The West figures if they can take out Syria, the other two will be harmed. Hezbollah is supplied by Iran and Syria. Iran moves weapons to Syria, which moves them to Hezbollah. If you take out the middle of the chain, Iran would have to supply Hezbollah directly and there are no good and easy ways to do that. They could go through Turkey, but Turkey dislikes Iran. They could go be sea, but Israel controls the Eastern Mediterranean. I suppose they could directly fly the weapons in, but Lebanon might not want to let Iranian planes land in its territory to supply Hezbollah. Israel and the US would start seriously threatening Lebanon .
So if you take out Syria, Hezbollah is more or less screwed. They would lose out their main supplier and their link to Iran. Iran would be weakened too by the loss of Syria. Now Iran would be alone and isolated among the hostile Sunni states of the region. And the link between Iran and Hezbollah could be severed, possibly fatally.
