Israel Shahak: The Zionist Plan for the Middle East:

In his Complete Diaries, Vol. II. p. 711, Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, says that the area of the Jewish State stretches: ‘From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.’ PDF format

A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm:

A report on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000. The main substantive ideas in this paper emerge from a discussion in which prominent opinion makers, including Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser participated.

thanks for the links, they make for excellent references…
it’s getting uglier and uglier… i figure, as bad a lebanon wants syria out, they’d unite with syria against an american/israeli attack… especially in light of hizballah’s powerful influence within the country….

As an Iranian I can tell you this is overblown in the international media. Iran and Syria aren’t taking it this seriously, it’s just a reaffirmation of their political cooperation. They’ve had their differences, especially regarding Hezbollah, but really recent comments towards US/Israel are just another round of tough-talking, which is all that’s happened so far. My friends and family in Iran are said “What’s all the fuss about?” to me when I asked them about this recent solidarity. It was a visit from the Syrians to Iran, not a declaration of alliance against any foe. Let’s not get reactionary.
All this talk of invading Iran is ridiculous. We’d have to reinstate the draft in the US, risk the wrath of the entire middle east, russia, and china, and there’s no way we can handle Iran if we can’t even handle Iraq. The only real military option towards Iran is a coordinated air strike from Iraq and Afghanistan, to which Iran might respond with a Hezbollah attack on an American base, like in Beirut during the civil war.

also, rafsanjani really isn’t that powerful. in fact, he’s rather impotent. and the title of this article is misleading and misrepresentative of the actual significance (or lack thereof) regarding recent events.

sorry one last thing. rafsanjani isn’t powerful in the sense that his opinions unfailingly respresent the ayatollahs’. the power he has is proportional to how much he parrots the wishes of the akhoonds. (mullahs)

i lied my dad disagrees and he knoes more than i do. rafsanjani is like the karl rove of iran. ignore previous two comments.

true, i don’t think we should get our underwear all tied up in knots over this… iran is way too powerful to be invaded, let alone the persian mentality… it would be a catastrophic war… but the fear is “what would happen if iran was bombed by the US (and probably israel)?? or more likely, what would happen if the US decided to invade syria through iraq? what would iran’s reaction be?

i agree we (anyone exposed to western media) is blowing things out of proportion, but there are some very interesting and potentially dangerous scenerios….

shift, your first post appears kinda suspect, I only looked at the map and the quote so I can’t speak for the rest of the paper. but the brook of egypt appears to refer not to the nile as the map seems to suggest but to some small stream/river that was the old border between canaan and egypt, also because Herzle says that he wanted it to reach the euphrates, this does not mean that he expected it to border all along the euphrates as the map suggests, so while herzles idea of a future state of Israel was much larger then Israel today, that map is not what he had in mind.

this lack of research and false assumptions at the top of the paper tends to make me suspect of the rest of the paper as well, though as I said I haven’t read it.

Has anyone noticed how the dictatorships in the region are calling for an alliance against the Democracies. What these countries like Syria and Iran are really looking for is a way to keep the ME safe for dictatorship.

IF2, you have a point there, the regimes of Syria and Iran do want to protect themselves and would want to band together for their safety however, Iran is not a dictatorship and neither is syria they are theocracies. However this may all be being overblown as Shayan points out.

i must say, the “what ifs” are fascinating indeed. i posted 2 blogs ago about military possibilities. anyway, “israel forever”, the only destabilizing power in the middle east right now that owns nuclear weapons is israel. do you wonder why iran wants nuclear capabilities too, or at least for israel to think it has nuclear capabilities? israel of all nations should understand, being surrounded by hostile powers creates a need for the trump card of all trump cards. iran has the american army on two sides and is getting threatened by the US almost daily, with spy drone incursions, special forces violating iranian land, and mysterious explosions. iran wants the respect it deserves.

“Iran is not a dictatorship and neither is syria they are theocracies“

I know historically Iraq and Syria’s two Baathist parties were never seriously allied with each other but isn’t it true that Syria’s government, much like Hussein’s in the past, is secular and not theocratic in nature?

Faelnarr, your right they are no exactly a theocracy, nor are they exactly a dictatorship, check out what wikipedia says about it.

Syria is very secular. They arrest Islamists like mad.

And as an Arab myself, and an opponent of Israeli apartheid, I have to say I find the reaction here both disturbing and insulting.

You can stand for the independance of Syria and Iran, and defend them against imperialist aggression from the US, without abandoning your duty to support their peoples’ revolutionary aspirations, and without resorting to racist conspiracy theories.

Syria is very secular. They arrest Islamists like mad.

And as an Arab myself, and an opponent of Israeli apartheid, I have to say I find the reaction here both disturbing and insulting.

You can stand for the independance of Syria and Iran, and defend them against imperialist aggression from the US, without abandoning your duty to support their peoples’ revolutionary aspirations, and without resorting to racist conspiracy theories.

if we bomb any middle eastern nation for definitive possession of nuclear missiles (the thermobaric kind), destabilizing influence, near-genocide of a race, and the disenfranchisment of most of the people in it, it should be israel. these peace talks are BS.

more on rafsanjani: his son reportedly stated that rafsanjani hopes to minimize the ayatollahs’ power and become a king. uh oh.