Iran claims successes in its air defense
By Alexandr Svaranc – New Eastern Outlook – 16.05.2023
Despite decades of sanctions imposed by foreign powers, the Islamic Republic of Iran has garnered tremendous experience surviving and thriving in isolation. Given Tehran’s political system, which is not so much a theocratic form of government as an independent course, is under attack by Iran’s adversaries, the Iranian authorities have prioritized the strengthening of their army and navy. In order to do this, a lot of attention is put on the development of key technologies, mainly in the defense industry, as well as the advancement of education and research.
For many foreign experts it was a revelation that it turns out that Iran has achieved a major breakthrough in the development and production of unmanned aerial vehicles. At the same time, the spoils of the Iranian UAVs on some “hot conflict” fields have allowed experts to also discover advanced Western technology. The Iranian capabilities, meantime, created a stir in a number of international newspapers, raising the question of how the Persians acquired these outlawed and sanctioned technologies from the West or Israel.
Some believe that the Iranians simply ordered products through the AliExpress channel to fictitious addresses, disassembled them, and had local engineers create new inventions (such as joining a water line to a gas line in the hopes of creating carbonated water). Others argue that Iranian replicas of Western technologies are the result of successful scientific, technological, and industrial espionage by Iranian foreign intelligence agencies, specifically the Ministry of Information, IRGC intelligence units, and the Ministry of Defense.
How can one, however, recognize such enemy intelligence triumphs when it also indicates counterintelligence support failures for sanctioned technology and products from NATO nations and their partner Israel? At the same time, their opponents cannot admit (whether out of envy or for other reasons) that Iran simply had to spend a lot of money over the years to build its own education and research, rather than encouraging corruption, as is the situation in other post-Soviet countries. However, the real condition of the arms of the Iranian army should be accepted as a fact.
The commander of the Iranian Army’s Air Defense Force, Brigadier General Alireza Sabahi-Fard recently stated in an interview with Al-Alam News Network, an Arabic news channel, that Iran now has absolute power in the region due to significant technological progress in the production of military equipment, particularly air defense weapons. Moreover, Iran relies 100 percent on its own high-tech production. Tehran now has more opportunities to export domestically produced weapons therefore.
Any army and every war place a high priority on an effective air defense. By assuming control of aerial combat, the army is able to conduct effective defensive and offensive operations during combat operations.
Iranian air defense forces are structurally a combination of the army and IRGC air defense units. Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarter of General Staff of Armed Forces is in charge of coordinating joint military operations within the Iranian forces. It should be mentioned that the Iranians build their own air defense systems and have previously tested several of them in live combat.
Iran’s air defense system includes: Radar systems (Nazir, Fath-14, the Matla ul-Fajr and Kashef, Meraj-4, etc.); medium-range SAMS (100-240 km) Bavar-373, Khordad-15, Talash, 3rd Khordad, Mersad-16 and short-range SAMS (up to 100 km) Ya Zahra-3 and Herz-9. In fact, the Bavar-373 is an enhanced version of the Russian S-300PMU-2 Favorit. Iran makes a variety of combat and reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including the Karrar, Ababil, and Mojaher as well as upgraded ballistic Shahab, Sajil, and the Meskat medium-range cruise missiles.
In addition to using outdated but still functional U.S. systems left over from the Shah regime, trophy French equipment from the experience of the war with Iraq, Iran still has to combine its own production of air defense equipment with imports of relevant military equipment from Russia, China, and India. Some of Iran’s most recent innovations in this field involve modifying the equipment bought from China and Russia.
Air defense facilities cover the sky, administrative and political centers, troop concentrations, and critical facilities such as defense-industry enterprises, Natanz nuclear facility and the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant.
Iran, despite its reliance on domestic production, cannot yet match the world leaders in the development and production of air defense systems, particularly Russia and the United States. Nonetheless, the Iranian military-industrial complex’s success is becoming noticeable in the Middle East. According to Russian experts such as Ruslan Pukhov, developing air defense systems is an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. The process of testing one type of equipment at army ranges to placing it on combat duty in the troops can often take up to ten years.
However, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has had to deal with improving its own defense industry for more than four decades. We only possess a portion of the information available in public, since no one discloses all of their accomplishments and technological characteristics.
Furthermore, the current political and military environment and tensions with Israel, the NATO bloc, and the United States encourage Iran to accelerate its military development. For Iranian topography, the east, south, and west have always had a high level of military escalation. On Iran’s northern borders with Azerbaijan and Armenia, a new hotbed of military conflict developed in the post-Soviet era. Of course, this is about the unresolved Karabakh issue, the two conflicts that took place there from 1991 to 1994, 2016, and 2020, as well as the ongoing provocations across the line of contact.
Given the accomplishments of the domestic military-industrial complex, Iranian air defenses undoubtedly have a certain advantage over some nations in the region, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Syria, Qatar, the KSA, and even Turkey, which is a NATO member. Nonetheless Iranian missile and air defense systems are unlikely to be more advanced than those of Israel, let alone the United States, in terms of technology.
Turkey started paying more attention to import substitution and modernizing the country’s military-industrial complex throughout the years of President Recep Erdoğan’s rule. Ankara was able to supply the army and navy’s weaponry with 80% of its own manufacturing thanks to this strategy for boosting the country’s independence. The development and manufacture of Turkey’s Baykar Bayraktar Kızılelma reconnaissance and combat unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Hisar surface-to-air missile and SIPER air defense missile, TCG Anadolu with unmanned combat aerial vehicles on board, Altay tank, BMC Kirpi, etc. are all being observed around the world.
The Turkish government holds regular events practically every day to showcase the aforementioned and additional products of the military-industrial complex, especially during current election campaigning days. Some of the military equipment on display in Turkey might still be purely for show, and it will take some time before testing and real breakthrough is made. Even so, Turkey is making an effort to keep up with Iran and its neighbors in terms of the military-industrial complex.
There is always hope for the army because of the generals’ faith in their own air defense systems and airspace control forces. However, public statements frequently don’t match reality (or don’t match it completely), which can further the goals of misleading the direct and potential enemy or fostering diplomacy during the negotiation process.
Anyway, Iran is expanding its military-technical cooperation with Russia, China, and India to produce air defense systems in all circumstances, keeping up with new advancements, and testing them not only on army ranges but also in combat theaters, where it takes part in varying degrees.
What are Storm Shadow Missiles and How Can Russia Defeat Them?
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 12.05.2023
The NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine witnessed another escalation this week, with the UK announcing the delivery of long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Kiev. What are these weapons? How do they differ from missiles already supplied to Ukraine? And what can Russia do about them? Sputnik explains.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken distanced the State Department from the UK’s decision to send Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine after the Kremlin warned that it considers the development “very negatively” and said it would require an “adequate response” by the Russian side.
“Different countries will do different things, depending on their own capabilities, depending on their own technology, depending on what makes the most sense. So we’ve provided some things uniquely to Ukraine through this process. Other countries may do things different than what we’re doing. The question is: Does the whole thing add up to what Ukraine needs? And we’re determined that it does so,” Blinken told US media on Thursday.
Asked point blank whether the State Department supports the escalatory step, Blinken deferred to Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin on the matter, adding that besides weapons, “support” for Ukraine can include training, maintenance, and “understanding how to use all these things in a cohesive and effective plan – combined arms, as it’s called in the business.”
This isn’t the first time London has decided to think “differently” from its allies across the Atlantic. Earlier this year, the UK became the first NATO power to agree to send current-generation main battle tanks to Kiev. Then in March, the Ministry of Defense revealed that the tanks would be armed with depleted uranium munitions – highly toxic weapons which have devastated wide swathes of the former Yugoslavia and Iraq, and have given rise to a host of cancers and other deadly diseases among both local populations and NATO servicemen.
What are Storm Shadow Missiles?
Storm Shadows, which defense Secretary Ben Wallace confirmed this week are either “going into” or are already “in the country itself,” are cruise missiles with a range of up to 250 km for the export version and up to 560 km for the domestic variant. If fired over northeastern Ukraine, the export variant Anglo-French weapons would have sufficient range to target major Russian cities like Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh or Sevastopol, as well much of Belarus – including its capital, Minsk.
UK officials privately assured that Kiev has promised that the missiles would not be used to attack targets inside Russia. But that’s little consolation to Moscow, given that Ukraine’s government moved to turn the crisis into a terror bombing free-for-all over a year ago, not only indiscriminately and deliberately targeting cities in Donbass, but attempting to launch missile, artillery, and drone attacks on targets deep inside Russia.
The Storm Shadow is the most potent NATO missile delivered to Kiev to date, and has a range well beyond the 75 km that the HIMARS rockets that have been delivered in the thousands over the past year.
The $2.5 million-apiece cruise missile weighs 1.3 tons, has a length of 5.1 meters, a diameter of about 0.4 meters, and a 450 kg tandem warhead – enough to destroy heavy fortifications, or level apartment buildings, industrial facilities, railway junctions, or columns of vehicles and troops. A warship-fired derivative exists, with that variant having a range of up to 1,400 km, and a 300 kg warhead. The missiles feature inertial navigation, combined with GPS and terrain referencing.
The UK is estimated to have been 700 and 1,000 Storm Shadows in stock.
“This is an air-launched rocket that uses stealth technology. The warhead can be a cassette munition or a penetrating warhead, and has a 450 kg weight…As a rule, it’s installed on European-produced aircraft…It’s not installed on US aircraft. The French version differs from the British one only in the interface for installation on the corresponding fighters,” Dmitry Drozdenko, editor-in-chief of Arsenal of the Fatherland, a Russian defense news and analysis portal, told Sputnik.
Who Developed the Storm Shadow?
Created jointly by Matra BAe Dynamics – a British-French missile-focused defense giant created in the 1990s, the Storm Shadow was first introduced into service in 2002, just in time for the US and NATO-led decade-and-a-half long campaign of invasions and bombings in the Middle East.
Where Have Storm Shadows Been Used?
UK forces first used Storm Shadows in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, with the British, French, and Italian air forces using them again during the NATO air war of aggression in Libya in 2011. The missiles were then used by French and British forces in Syria in 2015, 2016, and 2018, including strikes purportedly targeting Daesh (ISIS)*, and targeting Syrian forces based on false flag evidence of a chemical attack by the Syrian government (the pretext for the latter attack was later revealed to have been a hoax).
In addition to delivery to NATO countries like Italy and Greece, Storm Shadows have been exported to India, Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, with the latter using them against Houthi militia fighters in Yemen.
What are the Storm Shadow’s Limitations and Weaknesses?
Storm Shadows are designed to operate from Eurofighter Typhoon, Rafale, Mirage 2000, and Tornado jets. Ukraine has none of these planes, and the UK and NATO have so far been reluctant to hand over advanced aircraft to Kiev amid reported fears that Russia would quickly decimate them.
Getting them to operate would require Ukraine’s Air Force to adapt them to their MiG-29 or Su-27 fighters, Su-25 close air support bombers, or Su-24 strike jets. Either of these options carries limitations, with all of these planes apart from the Su-24 facing payload restrictions that would limit how many Storm Shadows the planes would actually be able to carry (payload weight limits range from 2,500-4,500 kg, depending on plane and modification).
On top of that are fundamental design differences between the NATO and Warsaw Pact planes (all of Ukraine’s combat aircraft are designs left over from the Soviet period).
“Adapting these planes to a fundamentally different guidance and target designation system will be quite difficult. It’s not as simple as strapping it on, flying out, firing and flying away,” says Sergey Khatylev, former head of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the Moscow Air Defense Special Forces Command.
“They would need a flight and navigation complex, a special program with data on range, altitude, thrust, g-forces, turn angle. It will be necessary to pick and somehow select targets,” the retired colonel explained to Russian media. “If you attach them to the Su-27 or MiG-29, serious revisions would need to be made. A large number of questions arise about how this will all be organized, and in what time frame.”
The other option is a ground-based platform – but that would require an entire new command and control system, according to Khatylev. “In addition to the launcher, you would need a command and control vehicle. You’d need to get the target designation from somewhere,” he said.
How Will Russia Respond?
In addition to targeting the weapons on route to their destinations, air bases, or Ukraine’s remaining inventory of fighters and bombers, Russia can respond to the delivery of Storm Shadows by further shoring up its layered missile defenses.
Khatylev pointed out that delivery means for the Storm Shadows are only one part of the equation. The other is Russian air power and air defenses. “We aren’t allowing Ukraine’s Air Force to fly. Russian aviation has won air superiority. If they use these missiles from aircraft, it would actually be good for us, because it’s easier to target airplanes than missiles themselves. We’ll hit the carriers. The kill zone of the S-400 is several hundred kilometers; upon entering this zone, it will simply destroy the carrier,” the reserve colonel said.
If the missiles are launched, detecting and targeting them in a timely manner would be crucial, he added, noting that systems capable of targeting the Storm Shadow include the S-400, S-300, and shorter-range Buk-M3 and Buk-M2 systems operating in tandem.
The defenses around Crimea are a perfect example of layered anti-aircraft and anti-missile defenses, Khatylev emphasized. “There, the Black Sea Fleet, air defense units, the air force, the army corps, special forces have brought together all of their reconnaissance capabilities, as well as their fire systems, into a single system. All of this in accordance with a single plan, from one command post… And all of this has an effect.”
In other words, using Storm Shadows in an imperialist war against war-torn developing countries with limited or non-existent air and missile defenses is one thing – trying to use them against a nation like Russia is something else.
US mulls sanctioning Arab League for Syria normalization efforts
By Drago Bosnic | May 12, 2023
There are very few things that have been as unifying for America’s political establishment as the belligerent thalassocracy’s propensity to impose sanctions. Republicans and Democrats will almost always be at each other’s throats for virtually any issue, but when it comes to sanctions, particularly against the Syrian people, their unity is unquestionable. For well over a decade, the unfortunate Middle Eastern country has been at the forefront of Washington DC’s regime change efforts, with the United States using everything from sanctions and financing various “moderate democratic opposition forces” (i.e. head-chopping terrorists) to direct attacks on Syria and its armed forces.
Unfortunately, the Arab League actively took part in this comprehensive attack on a fellow Arab country and it took years of active Russian and Chinese diplomatic efforts to have the organization reengage with Damascus. In the last couple of months, there have been several major breakthroughs in this regard, culminating with announcements that Syria will be readmitted into the organization. President Bashar al-Assad even visited several prominent Arab countries, some of which previously played an extremely active role in attempts to oust him. The likes of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia went from “Assad must go!” to “We’re happy to see Assad stay” in mere months.
And while Damascus must tread carefully when reengaging countries that actively took part in a comprehensive aggression against it, this opportunity is something that should not be missed. As previously mentioned, it was only thanks to the sustained diplomatic efforts of the multipolar world that this inter-Arabic conflict came to an end, inflicting a devastating blow to US plans for Syria’s destruction. However, the warhawks in Washington DC are far from giving up. Top GOP and DNC members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee are pushing for a bipartisan initiative to sanction anyone taking part in Syria’s full diplomatic reinstatement. Since May 8, they made several announcements about this.
The bipartisan group is now urging President Joe Biden and his deeply troubled administration to impose “crippling sanctions” on any state or entity engaged in attempts of normalizing relations with Syria. Expectedly, the initiative is led by one of the most prominent neocon warmongers, Texas Republican Michael McCaul.
“Readmitting Assad to the Arab League is a grave strategic mistake that will embolden Assad, Russia, and Iran to continue butchering civilians and destabilizing the Middle East,” McCaul and Gregory Meeks (NY DNC Rep.) said in a statement, further adding: “The United States must fully enforce the Caesar Act and other sanctions to freeze normalization efforts with this war criminal.”
The aforementioned Caesar Act, hypocritically designated as the so-called Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, is a US legislation that sanctions the Syrian government, including President Bashar al-Assad himself, for bogus “war crimes”. It was signed into law in December 2019 and came into force on June 17, 2020. The illegal exterritorial legislation targets virtually the entire Syrian industrial capacity, including its ability to build and maintain infrastructure, as well as energy production. It also targets individuals and businesses accused of allegedly “funding or assisting the President of Syria”. This also includes entities from other countries, including Russian and Iranian companies taking part in the reconstruction efforts in Syria.
Essentially, the Caesar Act adds insult to injury in terms of well-over-a-decade-long unprovoked US aggression on Syria by imposing economic sanctions that are specifically designed to prevent the rebuilding of the devastated country, further prolonging the suffering of the Syrian people. Worse yet, all this is done under the endlessly hypocritical pretext of “protecting” the same people whose lives it has been destroying for more than ten years. The US political establishment decided to keep enforcing the illegal sanctions even after the disastrous earthquake that killed thousands and left tens of thousands homeless in the already ravaged country. It has also prevented or at least significantly complicated international relief efforts.
However, it seems the Caesar Act will soon be used against US “partners” that have been nearly 100% compliant up until recently. This includes Saudi Arabia and Jordan, both of which still have extremely close relations with the Pentagon. On May 9, Damascus and Riyadh formally announced the restoration of their official diplomatic relations. The move is directly tied to Syria’s readmission to the Arab League.
“The State Department denounces Syria’s readmission to the Arab League. We do not believe that Syria merits this decision by the Arab League at this time,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said on May 8, adding: “We continue to believe that we will not normalize our relations with the Assad regime, and we don’t support our allies and partners doing so either.”
As previously mentioned, sanctions are not the only way in which the US is conducting its well-over-a-decade-long and truly unprovoked aggression on Syria. The Pentagon has approximately 1000 soldiers illegally occupying nearly all of eastern Syria, as well as an occupation force in the area around their base of Al-Tanf. The forces deployed in the east are openly stealing Syrian oil, while those in Al-Tanf are training and equipping several US-backed terrorist groups whose sole purpose is to continue destabilizing the country. If Syria normalizes relations with virtually the entire Middle East, this could severely undermine US efforts to keep its war on Syria going on indefinitely. This is yet another proof that war, death and destruction are the primary “export commodities” of the world’s terrorist No. 1.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Syria’s Return to Arab League Shows US Gulf Allies Tired of ‘Regime Change’
By James Tweedie – Sputnik – 09.05.2023
Syria’s secular government is still standing after more than a decade of sectarian terrorist insurgency backed by the US and its regional allies. Independent investigative journalist Christopher Helali said its readmittance to the Arab League was a sign of waning US power in the Middle East.
Return of Damascus to the bosom of the Arab League after 11 years of pariah status shows the failure of the US doctrine of regime change, a journalist says.
The regional group of nations voted on Sunday to reverse its 2012 decision to expel the Syrian Arab Republic over President Bashar al-Assad’s resistance to religious-sectarian ‘rebels’ backed by the Western powers and several of the Gulf monarchies.
The tide of the conflict turned in 2015 with Russia’s military assistance, helping to break the sieges of Aleppo and other cities alongside volunteers from Iraq and Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Christopher Helali told Sputnik that the major change of stance by the Arab nations was “part of the ongoing geopolitical shifts that we’re seeing in the wider region.”
“Syria being allowed back into the Arab League is certainly a coup, not only for the Arab countries, but I think for countries like China behind the scenes who have been pushing diplomacy and pushing rapprochement between different sides in the Syrian civil war,” Helali said.
The welcome back for Damascus and President Bashar al-Assad showed there was “no more appetite for regime change” or for backing the “alphabet soup of jihadist groups” funded and armed by Washington — the al-Nusra Front, Islamic State, various al-Qaida affiliates and the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
Those sectarian terrorist forces were supported by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and possibly Qatar and Jordan, the journalist said.
The journalist noted there was “growing discontent” among the Arab states over how the conflict has progressed and its unwanted effects. “People are saying, okay, let’s just let’s finish it and let’s send a lot of these refugees back.”
The other question is who Assad must negotiate with to finally end the 12-year conflict, given the Gulf monarchies previous insistence on a political “transition” that brings the “rebels” into the mainstream.
Those groups have been “allowing different Western journalists there to show that ‘we are moderate rebels… we are Islamists, but we’re not fanatical like ISIS, even though they are underground’,” Helali said.
“Ultimately, Assad would have to speak to the great power brokers in this conflict — the people who supported those groups. So you’d have to think about Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, the United States, Russia, Iran, everybody would have to be at the table,” he continued. “But of course, nobody’s coming to that table except for the people already on Assad’s side. Plus Turkiye, because it’s being pushed to find a settlement, especially for the northern part of Syria, especially by Russia and as well as Iran.”
The elephant in the room remains the illegal US occupation of north-eastern Syria, with its concentration of lucrative oil fields, along with its outpost at al-Tanf in the southern desert near the border with Jordan.
“There can be no peace plan, there can be no situation in which everything is resolved so long as foreign troops, including US troops, still occupy sovereign Syrian territory and so long as arms and equipment and funding keeps funnelling in to Syria, to other armed groups,” Helali stressed.
“Once that stops and once there can be sovereignty over in territorial integrity, Syria reclaiming all of its borders, then there can be some plan. But that plan will have to be Syrian-led” and not imposed form outside, he said.
The ultimate significance the republic’s return to the League is the tacit admission that the US-led plan to overthrow Syria’s government failed — with disastrous consequences for her neighbours.
“What the Arab League is saying is that we’ve tried, it’s failed. Assad is here to stay and we have to find some normalization because we’re also dealing with millions of refugees in the region,” Helali said. “There has to be some political resolution to this conflict so that people can return home. Turkiye has 5 million Syrian refugees. Everybody wants a resolution to this.”
Syria’s return to Arab League is a big deal
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MAY 8, 2023
When a mere subplot overnight assumes habitation and a name, it becomes more fascinating than the main plot itself. Syria’s return to the Arab League after its decade-long exclusion can be regarded as a sub-plot of the China-brokered rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. But then, China and Iran are not per se party to the process.
Syria’s return to the Arab League is seen as an Arab initiative, but it is quintessentially a project Riyadh steered through in close consultation and coordination with Damascus, ignoring some murmur by a clutch of Arab States and patently in defiance of Washington’s trenchant opposition.
Against the backdrop of the epochal struggle for a new world order characterised by multipolarity and resistance to Western hegemony, Russia and China quietly encouraged Riyadh to move in such a direction.
A riveting thing about the decision taken by the foreign ministers of the seven Arab League nations at the meeting in Cairo on Sunday is its sweet timing. For, this is the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the Ba’ath Party in Damascus in 1943, which espoused an ideology of Arab nationalist and anti-imperialist interests that have lately re-appeared in the geopolitics of West Asia.
Syria has a tradition of strategic autonomy. Through the past decade, it was preoccupied with fighting off the US-sponsored regime change project, with help from Russia and Iran. As it turns the corner and is stabilising, Syria’s strategic autonomy will be increasingly in evidence. This is one thing.
However, the strategic relations with Russia and Iran will continue to remain special and there should be no misconceptions on that score. But Syria is capable of ingenuity and diplomatic acumen to create space for itself to manoeuvre, as geopolitics takes a back seat and Assad prioritises stabilisation and reconstruction of the economy, which requires regional cooperation.
The recent visit by Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi to Syria testifies to Tehran’s “soft diplomacy,” exuding pragmatism that on the one hand made it clear that despite the recent rapprochement between Damascus and Arab countries, Syrian-Iranian ties are still strong and even highlighted Syria’s role in the resistance to Israel — with Raisi holding a meeting in Damascus with senior Palestinian officials, including leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad — while on the other hand, the negotiations with the Syrian leadership was largely about economic cooperation.
Raisi said Iran is ready to take an active part in the post-war reconstruction of Syria. Iran faces competition from Gulf countries that have deep pockets. Meanwhile, the warming of relations between Syria and Turkey is also on the agenda, which is sure to lead to increased trade and spur investment flow.
To put matters in perspective, Iran’s exports to Syria currently amount to a paltry sum of $243 million. However, since the beginning of the conflict in Syria, Iran has been a key sponsor of the Syrian authorities. In January 2013, Tehran opened the first credit line of $1 billion for Damascus, which was under international sanctions, thanks to which the government was able to pay for imported food. This was followed by a loan of $3.6 billion for the purchase of petroleum products. The third loan of $1 billion was extended in 2015. Tehran also allocated funds to Damascus to pay salaries to civil servants, which helped preserve state institutions. In 2012, a free trade agreement began to operate between the countries. Iran is also spending billions to finance Shiite militias in Syria and supply them with weapons. Naturally, Tehran would like to recoup some of these investments.
Syria is assessing, rightly so, that normalisation with the Arab neighbours and Turkey will be a game changer. But, while everyone is talking about Syria’s “readmission to the Arab family” as a concession, Damascus reacted to the Arab League decision in a measured way.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry statement said on Sunday, “Syria has been following the positive trends and interactions that are currently taking place in the Arab region, and believes that these benefit all Arab countries and favour the stability, security and well-being of their peoples.
“Syria has received with interest the decision issued by the meeting of the Council of the League of Arab States.” The statement went on to stress the importance of dialogue and joint action to confront the challenges facing the Arab countries. It recalled that Syria is a founding member of the Arab League and always had a strong position in favour of strengthening joint Arab action.
Most important, the statement concluded by reaffirming that the next stage requires “an effective and constructive Arab approach on the bilateral and collective levels on the basis of dialogue, mutual respect, and the common interests of the Arab nation.”
From all appearance, the Arab League statement itself was a “consensus statement” drafted with great sensitivity by Saudi Arabia.
In an interview with Al-Mayadeen, Raisi said prior to his departure for Damascus that “Syria has always been on the axis of resistance… We unequivocally support all fronts of the axis of resistance, and my visit to Syria is within the framework of this support, and we are working to strengthen the resistance front, and we will not hesitate in this.” In fact, Raisi’s arrival in Syria coincided with increased Israeli attacks by Israel on Iranian military facilities, including on Aleppo airport.
Without doubt, Iran remains Syria’s main ally and Iranian influence in Damascus is still strong. Iran views Syria as its strategic territory through which Tehran can establish ties with Lebanon and confront Israel.
What works to Syria’s advantage here is that the Saudi-Iranian detente is based on a common view in Riyadh and Tehran that they have to coexist in one form or another, since their enmity and regional rivalry turned out to be a “lose-lose” proposition that didn’t improve their regional standing. Suffice to say, their national interest resulting from their rapprochement overrides past rivalries. Syria will be a testing ground where each other’s true intentions as well as conduct will come under close scrutiny.
The good part is that the Saudis have concluded that President Assad is firmly in the saddle, having weathered the most devastating war since World War 2, and mending relations with Damascus can be a “win-win” for Riyadh.
That said, Syria is a strategic hinge where Riyadh will need to balance its strategic ties with the US and its tacit ties with Israel. But then, Saudi Arabia’s new strategic calculus also includes China and Russia. When it comes to Syria, Russia is an anchor sheet for Assad, while China has been all along on the right side of history.
This geopolitical setting has driven Biden Administration into frenzy, NSA Jake Sullivan rushed to Saudi Arabia holding the hands of his Indian and Emirati counterparts for company! Wisdom lies in Washington using Saudis (and Emiratis and Indians) to open a line to Damascus. However, Assad will set the very same non-negotiable condition to Washington for normalisation that he insisted with Turkey — vacation of US occupation. Beyond that lies, of course, Israel’s annexation of Golan Heights.
Kuwait to join Shanghai regional bloc as ‘dialogue partner’
MEMO | May 6, 2023
Kuwait signed a memorandum of understanding on Saturday to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a powerful regional bloc led by China and Russia, Anadolu reports.
The document was inked on the sidelines of a meeting of the SCO foreign ministers on May 4-5 in Panaji city, India, the state news agency KUNA reported.
“Kuwait’s joining of SCO as a dialogue partner is the first step towards joining the organization as a full member in the future,” said Kuwaiti Ambassador to India Jassim Al-Najem.
He added that the accession of some Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries as dialogue partners to the SCO “confirms the growing importance of the organization.”
On March 29, Saudi Arabia agreed to join the SCO as a dialogue partner in preparation for full membership.
The SCO was founded in June 2001 by China, Russia, and the Central Asian states of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The Eurasian political, economic, and security alliance is recognized as the world’s largest regional organization, with eight members, four observer states and several dialogue partners, including Turkiye.
Pakistan and India became full members in 2017.
Iran, an SCO observer state since June 2005, had its permanent membership approved in September 2021 and signed a memorandum of commitment a year later for its full accession.
One killed by Israeli missile strike – Syria
The Cradle | May 2, 2023
Israel launched fresh airstrikes on Syria’s Aleppo in the late hours of 1 May, killing one soldier and once again putting Aleppo International Airport out of service.
“At about 11:35 PM, Israel carried out an aerial aggression using waves of missiles from the direction of southeast Aleppo, targeting its airport and several sites in its vicinity,” a military source told SANA.
“The Israeli aggression claimed the life of a military personnel and caused the injury of seven others [including two civilians],” the source added.
This is the second time in less than two months that Aleppo International Airport has been crippled as a result of Israeli airstrikes.
On 7 March, Israeli jets bombarded Aleppo airport, damaging its runway and forcing aid deliveries for quake-struck Syria to be redirected to Latakia and Damascus airports.
A few days later, the UN issued a statement condemning the strikes and saying that such attacks “impede humanitarian access and could have drastic humanitarian consequences for millions of people who have been affected by the earthquake.”
“Attacks must never be directed against civilians or civilian objects. The humanitarian community has been responding to one of the worst crises that hit Syria since 6 February against the background of 12 years of conflict, economic decline, and a desperate humanitarian situation,” the UN statement said at the time, adding that Aleppo is “one of the worst earthquake-impacted governorates in Syria.”
Both Damascus and Aleppo airports have been regular targets for the Israeli air force. At the start of this year, Israeli strikes left Damascus International Airport crippled and out of commission.
This is the eleventh Israeli attack against Syria since the devastating earthquake ravaged much of the country in February. Just two days ago, Israeli strikes in Homs left several injured.
Israel’s airstrikes on Syria are illegal under international law but frequently happen under the pretext of targeting Iranian and Hezbollah targets. More often than not, however, the strikes target the Syrian army.
As a result, Tehran has expressed its willingness to bolster Syria’s air defenses to counter the continuous Israeli attacks better.
The US grip on the Middle East slips, and peace breaks out
By Robert Inlakesh | RT | May 2, 2023
As Washington’s influence in the Middle East declines, countries throughout the region are taking to compromise, rapprochement, and peace talks, inflicting a blow to the US narrative that seeks to depict its role as a stabilizer and democracy advocate.
Under the leadership of US President Joe Biden, there has been a notable downgrade in the status of the West amongst various long-time Middle East allies. As the US-led West exerts the majority of its efforts on the war in Ukraine, its poor decision making in the Middle East has finally begun to catch up to it.
The first major blow to Washington’s influence came in the form of a Chinese-mediated agreement to end a decades-long feud between major regional actors Iran and Saudi Arabia, one which led to the severing of ties in 2016. This has a number of implications for US power in the region.
The first being that this collapsed a strategy that the US was developing, to unite Saudi Arabia with the likes of Egypt, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, and Israel, against Iran and its allies in the region; the alliance was speculated to serve as a “Middle East NATO.” The second is that the Iran-Saudi rapprochement appears to have caused Riyadh to scrap its plans for normalizing ties with Israel at this time, something that the Biden administration clearly values as a foreign policy achievement. There is also the additional aspect of this being negotiated by Beijing without any regard for how it would reflect on the White House.
Despite attempts in Washington to make the deal seem like something it approves of, and repeated remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about how close normalization with Saudi Arabia is, it was clearly a blow and has major consequences to the US approach to the region. In March, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said that he didn’t care if the US President had misunderstood things about him, and later in April it was reported he also told advisors that pleasing the Americans is no longer a priority.
Immediately after the Saudi-Iran normalization, Riyadh entered into serious negotiations with Yemen’s Ansarallah (the Houthis), in order to end the war that has been raging between the two sides since 2015 and has claimed around 400,000 lives in the country. To make things worse for the US, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister recently made a trip to Damascus to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In addition to Riyadh’s moves and Tunisia re-establishing ties with Syria, it also appears as if Ankara may be on the cusp of rapprochement with Damascus and there is a push for Syria to be re-integrated into the Arab League, which clearly runs contrary to the US agenda.
Then we have the fact that Qatar has announced it is restoring ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which is not as significant as the above mentioned moves, yet adds to a list of peacemaking decisions taken without America. On the level of optics, this makes it seem as if the common denominator is the absence of the US. On the other hand, Washington’s development of ties with the Kingdom of Morocco is egging on tensions with neighboring Algeria. Not only is the Biden administration adding fuel to the fire in the diplomatic feud between both sides, but is helping exacerbate military tensions in a Rabat-Algiers arms race. Earlier this April, the US approved a potential $524.2 million sale of HIMARS artillery rocket systems to Morocco.
Furthermore, the top Middle East partner of the United States, Israel, has been severely weakened by an ongoing domestic political crisis over a proposed judicial overhaul by the Israeli government. Problems have also arisen with Israel’s approach to issues like maintaining the status quo at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a holy site where neighboring Jordan maintains custodianship, and it has caused major rows between Amman and Tel Aviv in recent months. This presents another obstacle to the US, which is being forced to mediate between both sides to maintain calm. Another layer is the feud between Biden and Netanyahu, which has called into question the special relationship between Israel and the US for the first time since the 1950s.
The US strategy in the Middle East has been to impose its dominance, primarily through the military sphere. Its selling points have been security, weapons sales, threats of military action against foes, and the creation of a Sunni-Shia cold war that pitted Iran and Saudi Arabia against one another. The strength of Iran’s weapons programs, along with its regional alliances, has largely left the US incapable of maintaining a military edge that severely outweighs the power of its opposition. The American overstretch in the region has seen it driven from Afghanistan in an embarrassing fashion and rendered it incapable of protecting its allies from the damage of potential missile strikes from Iran and its allies. Washington actively builds relationships based upon strategies that put its own partners in the firing line, but where air defense systems it sells to them do not provide enough protection.
Even when it comes to the Palestine-Israel conflict, an issue wedded to the US since 1967, US leadership is waning. Earlier this week, China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, proposed to his Palestinian Authority and Israeli counterparts that Beijing step in to facilitate dialogue between the two sides. Although the conflict is not going to be solved overnight, the mere fact that another world power is stepping into the arena will certainly send a message to American policy makers.
Instead of engaging the region as equals, looking for economic partnerships that are mutually beneficial, the US has used its military might to divide and conquer, inflicting millions of deaths and spending trillions of dollars in the process. This may have succeeded in the past, but America’s ability to wage regime change wars has been severely curtailed. The main US enemies, Iran and its allies, have made significant leaps in the military field, making direct war increasingly unfeasible, and has even pressured Tehran’s former adversaries to rethink their strategies. Although we are only at the beginning of this new phase in the Middle East, it is clear that poor policy decisions and the inability of Washington to envisage a way forward are pushing away key allies, and this time for the better.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.
Arab states call for withdrawal of foreign forces from Syria
RT | May 1, 2023
The government in Damascus should re-establish the rule of law on all of Syria’s territory, ending the presence of foreign armed groups and terrorists, the foreign ministers of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq said on Monday after meeting in Amman.
Jordan hosted the meeting, the first of its kind since Syria’s membership in the Arab League was suspended in 2011. Prior to the multilateral meeting, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad met with his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi to discuss refugees, border security and “water issues,” according to Amman.
In a joint statement distributed by state news agencies, the five ministers called for “ending the presence of terrorist organizations” as well as “armed groups” on the territory of Syria, and “neutralizing their ability to threaten regional and international security.” They also pledged to “support Syria and its institutions to establish control over all of its territory and impose the rule of law.”
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq pledged to establish ties with the Syrian military and security institutions in order to “address security challenges.” The five ministers also called for stopping “foreign interference in Syrian domestic affairs.” Their joint declaration also called for setting up technical teams of experts that would follow up on the summit and implement practical measures to resolve the conflict in Syria.
The Amman meeting comes just weeks after Mekdad visited Saudi Arabia and received the kingdom’s endorsement for Syria’s territorial integrity. Currently, Turkish-backed militants control parts of northern Syria, while the northeast is under the control of US-backed Kurdish militias. Several hundred US soldiers are also in Syria, controlling most of the country’s oil wells.
MIlitants backed by Saudi Arabia and the US launched an uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2011. With the help of Russia and Iran, the government in Damascus eventually prevailed over the collection of rebels, including terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). While Syria’s neighbors and regional powers have moved to improve relations with Damascus in recent months, the US has not changed its “regime change” policy.
Saudi Arabia seeks dialogue with Hezbollah
The Cradle | May 1, 2023
Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar released a report on 29 April claiming that Saudi Arabia is seeking to establish a line of dialogue with Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah, coming in the aftermath of Riyadh’s reconciliation with Iran and Syria and following years of non-existent relations between the two sides.
According to Al-Akhbar, information provided by an unnamed Saudi official “reached Lebanese officials from a European capital,” which reveals that the kingdom hopes to open dialogue with Hezbollah “soon.”
The newspaper vaguely cites “unofficial sources in Beirut” as saying that the dialogue would “be conducted through a third party.”
“Whether the endeavor succeeds or fails, it reflects the new phase in which Riyadh is rearranging regional relationships on the path of asserting its Arab leadership,” Al-Akhbar writes, referring to Saudi Arabia’s newfound shift in policy as “unprecedented.”
Saudi Arabia has recently distanced itself from Washington significantly – economically and politically.
A Chinese-brokered reconciliation of Saudi-Iranian ties has been followed by the kingdom’s openness to reestablish ties with the Syrian government, as well as Hamas – with whom longstanding tension also exists.
This has resulted in significant Israeli frustration, and Hebrew media has referred to it as a blow to potential normalization with Riyadh.
A 1 May report by Israeli outlet Maariv laments that the “Saudi train is expected to stop at a station bearing a large sign with the name Hezbollah on it.”
Reports of dialogue between Hezbollah and the kingdom emerge as Lebanon finds itself in a presidential deadlock that has been ongoing since the term of former president Michel Aoun expired in October last year.
A lack of consensus and parliamentary quorum, as well as external political pressure, have resulted in eleven failed sessions to elect a president.
The two main candidates are the chief of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), the US-backed Joseph Aoun, and the Hezbollah-backed MP Suleiman Franjieh of the Christian Marada party.
If dialogue between Hezbollah and the Saudis is achieved, this would be the first line of official contact between the two sides in 16 years.
However, last year, Middle East Eye cited sources as saying that a secret meeting between Hezbollah deputy chief, Naim Qassem, and a Saudi delegation in Beirut helped “pave the way” for the renewal of a ceasefire in Yemen, as well as the removal of former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.
West’s efforts to isolate Russia have failed – Lavrov
RT | April 29, 2023
The West has failed to isolate Russia, with the majority of the world still interested in maintaining good relations with Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. He also argued that the trend toward multipolarity is irreversible, whether former colonial powers like it or not.
Addressing the World Online Conference on Multipolarity on Saturday, Lavrov said that “Washington’s and its satellites’ efforts to reverse history, to force the international community to live by the invented ‘rules-based order’” are proving to be a fiasco, citing the “total failure” of the West “to isolate Russia.”
According to the foreign minister, a number of countries, which combined are home to 85% of the world’s population, have made it clear that they will not do the bidding of the former colonial powers.
The Russian diplomat said the fact that delegates from several dozen nations “from nearly every continent” attended the online forum shows just how much traction the idea of multipolarity has gained.
Lavrov noted that new global centers are emerging in Eurasia, the Indo-Pacific region, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, and that these nations are pursuing independent policies guided by national interests.
According to the foreign minister, developing nations have been steadily expanding their share in the global economy over the past three decades, while the role of the G7 nations has been diminishing.
He also hailed the fact that more and more countries have expressed interest in joining international groups “of the new kind,” such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Russia, Lavrov explained, champions a multipolar world order based on respect for the UN charter, and a “balance of interests” as opposed to a “balance of fear.”
President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Moscow will not abide by the “so-called rules” invented and imposed by “certain countries.”
Also on Friday, while addressing members of the SCO, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu claimed that the West is putting “unprecedented pressure” on independent countries to pit them against Russia and China, and undermine the rise of the multipolar world.
On Monday, Lavrov called for the expansion of Asian, African, and Latin American representation in the UN Security Council, arguing that the West is over-represented in the international body.
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Book Summary
The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food
Lies Are Unbekoming | January 20, 2026
Soybeans generate approximately $80 million annually in mandatory producer assessments alone, funding a marketing apparatus that has transformed an industrial commodity into one of America’s most trusted “health foods.” The campaign succeeded. Soy milk lines supermarket shelves beside dairy. Soy protein fortifies everything from infant formula to energy bars. Vegetarians rely on tofu and tempeh as dietary staples. Doctors recommend soy to menopausal women. School lunch programs serve soy-based meat substitutes to children. An estimated 60 percent of processed foods contain soy derivatives. The premise underlying this proliferation—that Asians have thrived on soy for millennia and that modern science validates its health benefits—has been repeated so often it functions as established fact.
Kaayla T. Daniel’s The Whole Soy Story dismantles this premise through systematic examination of the scientific literature. The book documents that traditional Asian soy consumption averaged roughly one tablespoon daily, consumed as fermented condiments after processing methods that neutralized inherent toxins—a pattern bearing no resemblance to American consumption of industrially processed soy protein isolate, soy flour, and soy oil. Daniel catalogs the antinutrients that survive modern processing (protease inhibitors, phytates, lectins, saponins), the toxic compounds created by industrial methods (nitrosamines, lysinoalanine, hexane residues), and the heavy metals concentrated in soy products (manganese, aluminum, fluoride, cadmium). She traces the mechanisms by which soy isoflavones—plant estrogens present at pharmacologically significant levels—disrupt thyroid function, impair fertility, and interact with hormone-sensitive cancers. The evidence emerges from peer-reviewed journals, FDA documents, and industry sources themselves.
The stakes extend beyond individual dietary choices. Infants fed soy formula receive isoflavone doses equivalent to several birth control pills daily, with blood concentrations 13,000 to 22,000 times higher than their natural estrogen levels. Soy protein isolate—the ingredient in formula, protein bars, and thousands of products—has never received GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status; its only pre-1960s use was as an industrial paper sealant. Two senior FDA scientists formally protested their own agency’s approval of soy health claims, citing evidence of thyroid damage and reproductive harm. The Honolulu Heart Program found that men consuming tofu twice weekly showed accelerated brain aging and increased dementia. These findings have not penetrated public awareness because the institutions responsible for consumer protection have been compromised by the industry they regulate. The Whole Soy Story presents the evidence that has been systematically excluded from mainstream health messaging, enabling readers to evaluate for themselves what the soy industry prefers they never learn. … continue
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