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IRAN: Fiery rhetoric fuels Mideast war fears

Published: Feb. 10, 2010 at 5:34 PM

TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Tough-talking Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has raised the temperature in the Middle East by warning the Damascus regime it will fall if Syria gets involved in the regional conflict that many fear is now brewing.

As the inflammatory rhetoric on both sides becomes more strident, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon has gone on alert.

Israel is positioning its new Iron Dome anti-rocket system along its northern border to counter any Hezbollah broadsides, instead of being deployed in the south to shield against Hamas rockets as planned.

The Israelis are realizing that the next war will expose their civilian population to greater risk than ever before because of the large number of rockets and missiles that will be fired by Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and probably Syria as well.

Yet the hawkish Lieberman warned Syrian President Bashar Assad on Feb. 4: "In the next war, not only will you lose, but you and your family will lose the regime."

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government sought to distance itself from Lieberman's provocative outburst. But to many in the Middle East his comments only emphasized the bellicose statements being voiced by Israeli leaders that war is coming.

This has been simmering since the summer of 2006, when Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war triggered by a Hezbollah attack on the border.

The conflict ended with Israel failing in its avowed aim to destroy Hezbollah. Its guerrilla fighters not only fought the Israelis to a standstill but pummeled northern Israel with 4,000 rockets, eroding Israel's deterrence capability.

The bombardment was the most sustained battering the Jewish state had endured.

Israel maintains that it pulled its punches in 2006 and did not go after the nation as a whole, concentrating on Hezbollah and its infrastructure. But next time, they say, they will show no mercy.

Ever since Hezbollah joined the Beirut government a few months ago, Israel has repeatedly warned the Lebanese that if war erupts again the whole nation will be held accountable.

Tension in the region has been high because of Israeli threats to launch pre-emptive strikes against Iran, Hezbollah's patron, to knock out its nuclear facilities.

The general feeling is that if Israel does attack, despite U.S. efforts to prevent that, Tehran will retaliate by unleashing Hezbollah and Hamas against the Jewish state.

That will undoubtedly entail a more ferocious missile barrage from both groups than anything Israel has had to endure before.

Salvos of ballistic missiles from Iran are likely as well. The Israelis suspect that Syria, Iran's sole Arab ally, will have little option but to join in as well if Tehran orders it to.

The Israelis know they are vulnerable to coordinated attacks by hundreds of missiles from north and south and that their much-vaunted anti-missile shield will be able to knock out only a fraction of the incoming projectiles.

Casualties are expected to be high since the whole country would be exposed, not just the north. One estimate put potential fatalities at 8,000, mostly civilians -- an unprecedented death toll for the Jewish state.

In 2006 Hezbollah had some 12,000 Syrian and Iranian rockets. Now it's believed to have in excess of 42,000, including a large number capable of hitting Tel Aviv, Israel's largest city, and the Dimona nuclear reactor further south.

According to Jane's Defense Weekly, Syria has recently supplied Hezbollah with M-600 missiles, copies of Iran's Fateh-110 system and capable of hitting central Israel.

Even Hamas, less well equipped than Hezbollah, is now reputed to have rockets that can hit Tel Aviv's outskirts from the south.

In the event of a coordinated attack the Israeli air force, the most powerful in the region, would be overwhelmed and unable to knock out every missile launch site.

Israeli commanders have said as much publicly, which indicates that they seek to prepare the civilian population for the worst.

In January Minister without Portfolio Yossi Peled declared that another conflict with Hezbollah was "just a matter of time." He said that if war erupted, Israel would hold Syria and Lebanon alike responsible.

Soon after, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that if Israel had to fight Syria "we will defeat them."

Syria's "undaunted and increased support for Hezbollah appears to reflect a clear strategic turn taken by Damascus," according to analyst Jonathan Spyer of the Global Research in International Affairs Center outside Tel Aviv.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/02/10/Fiery-rhetoric-fuels-Mideast-war-fears/UPI-61251265841240/