With Trump warning it not to resume nuke efforts, its ally Putin hosting Netanyahu and its assets in Syria under air attack, Iran is feeling the heat -- and determined to hit back
According to Hebrew TV news reports on Wednesday night, Iran was literally minutes away from launching a salvo of missiles into northern Israel late Tuesday when an airstrike attributed to Israel eliminated the threat. Eight Iranians were among the 15 reported fatalities in the strike at a base in Kisweh, south of Damascus.
Israel patently does not believe the danger of an Iranian strike has passed — public bomb shelters in the north are being opened, the IDF chief of staff toured the north on Wednesday, Iron Dome rocket defense systems are being deployed and tanks are heading north.
But the Iranians, who launched a drone carrying explosives into Israel from Syria three months ago, are since being battered thereby intermittent airstrikes attributed to Israel, which evidently maintains air supremacy and extremely effective intelligence-gathering and is adamant that it will not allow Iran to establish a serious military presence in President Bashar Assad’s bloody, anarchic country.
To date, Iran’s relentless efforts to deepen its military foothold in Syria would appear to have been tolerated by the real powerbroker in that country, Russia.
But there, too, Wednesday brought more negative indications for Tehran: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin with particular pomp and circumstance.
Netanyahu, who was received at a ceremony where Israel’s national anthem was played, spent several hours in Putin’s company and was at the president’s side for Russia’s annual Victory Day Parade, which this year marked 73 years since the Red Army defeat of Nazi Germany.
