Israel Matzav

Hezbullah MP: 'Without Hezbullah, Damascus could fall to Israel within hours'

MEMRI translates an al-Quds al-Arabi interview with Hezbullah MP Walid Sukariyya. The interview appeared on October 19, 2009.

"Syria cannot abandon Lebanon, [Sukariyya says.] This option does not exist, for reasons that have to do not with politics but with the security and military [considerations]. Syria's front [with Israel] stretches from Jabl Al-Sheikh [Mount Hermon] to the Jordanian border, and [all the way] to the Lebanese front and the Mediterranean. This is why Damascus supports the resistance - because it dos not want to confront the enemy itself, [so] supporting the resistance is its only way for it to defend Al-Sham [i.e., Greater Syria].

"From a military standpoint, Damascus has no [other] way to delay the Israeli army and to impede its advance [into the Syrian heartland]. Since the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon, the entire Beqa' region has become exposed [to an Israeli attack]. Therefore, the value of the resistance [in Syria's eyes] is that it can delay an Israeli invasion into Syrian soil. Without the resistance, Israel would be able to enter the Al-Masna' area [in Syria] within hours. Sukariyya explains that Syria needs a steadfast force on the Israeli border in the Al-Qa'im region - not in order to interfere in Lebanon's [internal] politics, as the simple folk believe, but for a clear military and strategic reason, namely in order to defend Damascus. Without the resistance [i.e., Hizbullah], Damascus will be as good as fallen, from a military standpoint. Syria's direct lines of defense will be exposed, and it will take only a few hours to surround Damascus and take it. The situation [in Lebanon] is different from the one in the Golan, where [Syria's] military lines are [defensible]."

...

"Sukariyya admits that the resistance in the Lebanese region... may not prevent a forceful ground offensive by Israel aimed at taking Damascus. However, [Hizbullah's] presence will delay the Israeli army should it decide to attack. As everyone acknowledges, this is a great advantage in a military campaign, and it will be of considerable value to the Syrians now that they have withdrawn from the Beqa' region. This, Sukariyya believes, is why... Syria naturally pursues a strategy of directing [the activity of] the resistance in Lebanon and supporting it. Also, according to him, this is why it is no longer a secret that the missiles that destroyed the Israeli tanks during the July [2006] aggression were actually Syrian."

Yet another reason why Israel was so foolish not to attack Syria in 2006 when it had a green light from the US and Hezbullah was reeling.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:34 AM