Syria and Iran are going to stay bestest buddies like, forever!
Syrian President Bashar Assad rejected claims that Syria’s alliance with Iran had been weakened by Damascus’ participation in last month’s US-sponsored Mideast peace conference, saying Thursday that the two countries’ ties will never be shaken.
Assad made the comments as he inaugurated two joint Syrian-Iranian industrial projects – factories for cars and cement. He was joined at the ceremonies by the Iranian industry and housing ministers.
What? You mean getting a Syrian representative at Annapolis was all for naught?
The November conference in Annapolis, Maryland, which relaunched Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, was widely seen as also aimed at isolating Iran by bringing together Arab nations. US officials have expressed hopes that Syria’s attendance would mark a start to easing it out of its alliance with Teheran.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other top officials denounced the conference, and some officials expressed surprise over Syria’s participation – though none directly criticized it.
It’s a love story made in hell. And cash money.
“I confirm, on this occasion, that relations will not be shaken for any reason or under any circumstance,” Assad said at the factory in Hasya, some 160 kilometers north of the Syrian capital, Damascus. according to the official SANA news agency.
Syria and Iran have growing economic ties, with the annual two-way trade estimated at about US$200 million. The size of Iranian investments in Syria has reached around US$2 billions in sectors such as power generation, automobiles, cement and agriculture.
Syria is Iran’s closest Arab ally. The two countries have had close relations since 1980 when Syria sided with Persian Iran against Iraq in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
I just love hearing the “experts” talk about how Syria is going to be drawn away from the Iranian influence. Not in this lifetime, bubelah. Syria is Iran’s backup in Lebanon and Gaza. Iranian influence on Syria threatens Israel’s existence. Iranian arms, missiles, and munitions dot the landscape of Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza. The Iranian proxy war against Israel continues, using Syrian influence in the region. Bashar al-Assad learned very hard lessons from his mass-murdering father Hafaz (let’s not forget Hama, the town that was razed to the ground, and the thousands slaughtered there). He knows that without a common enemy, his people will remember that he’s the real reason they live in misery.
*shrug* Any “Syria is really nice people, no, really” smokescreens it just James A. Baker the Third trying to sock away more Syrian oil money for future James A. Bakers.
I wonder if that cement factory will be producing the same kind of “cement” that Syria was recently importing from North Korea?