by Abu Dharr (Opinion, Crescent International Vol. 47, No. 1, Jumada' al-Akhirah, 1439)
Talk of war is in the air, as are warplanes. Last month drones, fighter-bombers, and helicopters were shot down from and on Syrian territory, in the north and south of Syria; one of them belonged to Turkey, the other to Russia, and the third to Israel.
These developments sounded alarm bells throughout the “attack establishments” in Tel Aviv and its American and Arabian allies. For those whose minds are not trained on the shifty and tricky political and military terrain in and around the Holy Land we suggest a reboot to the mainstream media presentation of events.
The establishmentarian finagling of the news leads one to believe that the wars in the “Middle East” are between a ruffian population (the Palestinians) on one side, and a cultured population (the Israelis) on the other; or between undeveloped Afro-Asian Arabs and developed Euro-American Zionists; or between terrorist Muslims and civilized Jews. All of this is misleading and absolute rubbish. The up-and-coming war, if and when it breaks out, will be a war between victims of Zionist colonization and imperialist globalization on one side and the self-proclaimed master chosen race and its evangelical enablers on the other. To be more precise, it will be a war between Israel, the US, and Saudi Arabia with all their clients in one camp and Islamic Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and their supporters in the other camp.
The downing of an American-made F-16 flown by an Israeli pilot (who, for all we know, may have been a dual American-Israeli citizen) was preceded by the downing of two other F-16s: one of them, shot down over Iraq, was flown by a Jordanian pilot (Mu‘adh al-Kasasabah who was later incinerated to death by salafi savages); the other one was Moroccan and it was shot down over Yemen by Ansarullah. The Jordanian and Moroccan F-16s were older versions and may not have surprised the military industry’s CEOs when they were blown out of the sky. But the Israeli F-16 was an advanced fighter jet with the latest technological and electronic devices and radar jamming stealth capbility, and its destruction must have delivered a severe blow to the reputation of such an “advanced” warplane.
As the days and weeks pass by, we notice that the Israeli military brass and its civilian officials are aiming their rhetoric against the “Iranian” presence in Syria in preparation for aiming their rockets against an Islamic buildup inside and outside Syria. Islamic Iran did not spend the last 39 years in Lebanon and Syria to be so easily dislodged because some Israeli generals or American officials are snapping their military fingers.
The last seven years in particular have offered the Islamic fighters from Tehran to Tyre much needed military experience along with which comes supplementary political maturity. The human sacrifices were huge and material ex-penses massive. Had it not been for such martyrs and costs the Israeli-Saudi-imperialist-strategy (ISIS) would have succeeded and Syria would have morphed into a nation-state that combines the troubles of the Taliban, the wickedness of the Wahhabis, and the ills and iniquities of the imperialists and Zionists. In other words, Syria would have become a failed state much like Libya and Somalia.
The Israeli horrific tactic of trying to contain an ideological Islam within a nationalist Iran pursued through economic sanctions, diplomatic pressures, and even religious subterfuge is crumbling before our eyes throughout Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Bahrain. What do Shi‘i sectarians and Zionist zealots have in common? It is the undoing of an “Islam first” leadership in Iran. The uncommon Zionist “hawzahs” and the singular sectarian Knesset with their dollar-common-denominator are running scared because the Islamic leading-edge leadership in Iran neither imploded nor exploded.
Standing on the edge of a future abyss the Zionist-centered ruling classes may opt for Israeli aggression against Iran: bombing raids, ballistic missile attacks, and maybe some adventurous commando operations. Their targets will be military bases and Iran’s economic and civil infrastructure. Another option is to fight Islamic Iran by waging war against Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Syria. Both of these scenarios are fraught with failure. Even with the help of Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Gulfers — without rapid and direct American military involvement — Israel will not be able to take on an Iran that is about a thousand miles away. The Israeli high-command has been threatening to do that for many years but has not done so because it knows it cannot get away with such folly. The second option — to go to war in Syria and Lebanon — will open the gates of hell for the Israeli warmongers.
The first drawback is the significant Russian military presence in Syria. Without substantial American concessions to Moscow, Russia will not forfeit its calculated political and military gains in Syria. Another drawback for the Israeli regime if it ever started a war in the Levant is the tremendous barrage of thousands of ground to ground missiles fired into all of Israel — from Israel’s northern towns occupied by the well-to-do retirees to the Naqab (Negev) where the risk-taking Zionists dwell. And every military base and urban center will become fair game if Israel dares to bomb Lebanon indiscriminately and arbitrarily. You can say goodbye to Tel Aviv, Haifa, Yafa and even their nuclear plant in Dimona. Pause and imagine thousands of missiles and rockets, most of them with precision technology, landing in a continuous barrage everywhere in Israel. If you’re looking for a definition of Armageddon, there you have it!
The time when people thought that military technology is the tipping factor in wars is no longer true. The one-time Soviet Union had its superior military technology but it died by a thousand wounds in Afghanistan. The American superior military technology could not score a victory in Vietnam, nor in Afghanistan, or Iraq. The superior French military forces were kicked out of Vietnam and Algeria dragging behind them their tails of humiliation. The militarily superior British had to withdraw from their colonies in Asia and Africa with a bloody nose, a black eye, and a “kick in the ass.” When push comes to shove, the Israelis will experience all of the above and more.
The takeaway lesson is that Israel cannot fight a war for more than a few months at most. The warrior generation or the combatant class that has been fostered in al-Sham in the past 30 years and particularly the last seven years is a generation that has been, in a most unforeseen way, militarized and ready to fight an extended war of attrition, a war of slow destruction against the Israeli-American-Saudi troika.
The tipping point in the up-and-coming war is not advanced military weapons manufactured in the Zionist-imperialist military complex; the tipping point is a war that goes on for an extended period of time. No more six-day wars, no more thirty-three day wars, no more short wars. The coming war will be lengthy and protracted. The coming war is not a war of bodies; bodies die. It is a war of souls; and souls do not die.
The Prophet of Allah (pbuh) prayed, “Allahumma barik lana fi Shamina: O Allah! Bless us by means of our greater Syria,” and Allah (swt) Himself said,
And do not consider those who have died on a course to Allah to be dead… (3:169).