 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Professor Ajaz Ahmad and we are going to discuss the developments in West Asia, particularly Iran and Syria. Ajaz, last time we discussed and you had said that in Syria it's clear that the US, Israel, Saudis and their proxies have lost. And essentially the Syrian government, Bashar al-Assad's government has with the help of the Iranians and the Russians have been able to assert control. So that was one of the observations you had. Do you think that given that Trump has now pulled out of the nuclear deal, Israel has targeted what it calls Syria but really Syrian defence forces including its air defence. Do you think that they are trying to reverse this defeat that they have had on the ground? I don't think they can reverse it. My sense is that they will not allow the Syrian government to stabilise the situation. And they will try to now actually focus against, focus on the Iranian and Hezbollah personnel and its relations and so on. My fear is that they are going to try and draw Iran more and more in a combat situation with Israel in Syria. The other thing is that the Iranians have been very successful in re-establishing the channel to send weapons and munitions to Lebanon through Syria. They want to cut that down. Any attempt to actually reverse it will bring the US again in conflict with Russia. And that is not what they want at the moment. What they want to do is escalation against Iran. Syria, they will destabilise because any confrontation really with Iran, either they escalate in Iran or they escalate in Syria or they escalate in Iran. The outcome will necessarily be an Iranian counter attack through Syria and Lebanon. So it is part of the wider war that they are seeking, I think. So in that sense Iran, Syria and Lebanon, which has identified itself as the axis of resistance, this is what really the larger war is against. Yes, I think for one thing, if they actually invade Iran, and that's a very big if, the battlefield will be all the way from the Mediterranean coast to the Hormuz and beyond. And not only these three countries, but Iraq will eventually become part of the battleground. So that's a very big battleground in case there is a direct war between, I mean, the direct invasion of Iraq. That can be only done by the United States. It can't really be done in Israel. Not by Israel. Israel is trying to actually escalate it in Syria and engage. My sense is that the war against Iran is not coming soon, even if it comes and whether or not it comes, we don't know. But that is not coming soon. What's coming against, what the Americans want against Iran is, first of all, a far more severe regime of sanctions than the Obama administration or any previous administration had on Iran. And the crux of the matter, in my view, is Europe. How much Europe will allow its own interests to be compromised by this, there is no post Second World War instance in which Europe has defied the United States in any major decision. So my view is very dim as regards the European resistance to the US. And if Europe does not resist, the Americans will go ahead with very severe restrictions and build towards the war pretty much what they did with Iraq. But this time, if they want to make war, it will not be a 10-year period of sanctions. It will start with sanctions and then we should see how far enough. Looking at the Syrian battleground that Israel is trying to really intervene, it has had a set of strikes, interestingly enough, it has not invaded Syrian airspace after one of its aircraft was shot down in a previous strike. So it's now only doing strikes from Israeli airspace or Lebanon airspace. Lebanon airspace, of course, it has been violating for the last so many decades that we stopped regarding it as a major issue, or at least Lebanon even if it protests, this protests are very weak. So this time they lost the strikes through Lebanese airspace and of course from Israeli airspace. But with the Syrian response in Jalan that they seem to have responded with artillery and some missile strikes, it does seem that there is now a qualitative change that even if the strike Syria, Syria may respond against Jalan. Do you think that changes the equations? You see, my guess, we don't really know. My guess is that Israel probably cleared with Russia the targets that it was going to choose. And Russians said, okay, that is what you're doing, that is between you and the Syrians and Iranians. So far as we know, these were not serious targets. Yes, some Iranian personnel seems to have been killed, maybe some Syrian personnel, but the targets themselves were not major targets. So my sense is that if Israelis escalate more, they run the risk of Russians coming back into the battlefield. And that is a great constraint on them, I believe. And that is precisely the basis on which a Syrian retaliation was conducted and will be conducted in the past. So if you really want this mini battle, let's do it. And if you're going to escalate, then it becomes an international issue. I think that's how it is getting played. So Israel does not have, I don't think Israel has much of a free hand in Syria. So if I parse what you are saying, you are saying America and Russia, if they come in, of course, it changes the contours of the war. But otherwise, the battle in Syria is going to be limited strikes and limited counter-strike. Israel's ability to intervene seriously in Syria is also compromised because of this. It's compromised. It is limited. It is limited also by the fact that Hezbollah is now supplied with very, very, very sophisticated weaponry and immense amount of ammunition. Not to speak of this absolutely historic fact that Hezbollah has now dominated, is governed. But it's no longer just a political party, not just a military force like any other armed militia in the area. It is governed. So you are taking on something very different. That's why Israelis are saying that if Hezbollah does something against it, we will take it as an action by the Lebanese government. So that has complicated the situation even further. The other thing is that by now, both the Syrian army, in my view, and Hezbollah are a much more experienced fighting force than they ever were. Hezbollah fought very short war against the Israelis. And for the rest, there were great actions here and there. This time they have actually fought a number of battles over several years to gain territory to engage in battle for a very long time. So their personnel is now much more experienced, much better. So the retaliation, Israel has to think about how far it is willing to go. The retaliation can also be quite severe now. You know, this brings me to the larger issue that Israelis have now started talking about, that yes, we have nuclear weapons, et cetera, et cetera. But we had the strategic qualitative edge in the region, which means we could virtually march into any of the surrounding countries occupied for a limited period, except perhaps Egypt. That's why the Egyptian peace was reached really after the 1973 war. But they had this region at its mercy, so to say, because they could project military force outside its borders. Do you think now that ability, at least in Lebanon and Syria, has been severely circumscribed? It has been circumscribed a great deal, Praveer, in my view, but you see what has changed the equation. Let me put it this way, that Iran, the Syrian military forces have certainly won the war, but very largely because of Russian assistance. They have also taken a very big hit, virtually half their personnel has been killed or injured in war. So the decisive factor here is actually Russian determination not to allow Syria to be overrun. In fact, to make sure that the Syrian government becomes stable and controls virtually all the territory that matters, basically. It is that that has changed. So the constraint on, that is the primary constraint on Israel. The other constraint that they have is that Iran never in the past had the ability to operate beyond its borders, which it now can. Thirdly, yes, those sanctions hurt Iran a great deal. But now, as we talked about last time, Iran is now part of a very crucial and very big, very central strategic alliance, which is sort of, you know, China, Russia, Iran. So the strategic map has shifted. This is not just a strategic alliance, it's also a financial economic alliance. Well, absolutely. It's absolutely by strategic. I don't just mean the military. The military is actually second. Iran doesn't have that big military alliance directly with Russia, none with China. They are receiving very sophisticated weaponry from Russia, but that is the lesser part. The bigger part is the economic one. And unlike the Americans, the Russian-Chinese alliance values the economic relationship far more than you know, having bases here or there, military bases here or there. But it strengthens the military posture. What fundamentally strengthens the military posture for Iran is what I said earlier, that for the first time it can actually operate from. Outside its territory. I think in so far as internal politics of Iran is concerned, I think that is where the real risk is. That the Iranian government, the present government may have its back to the wall and may feel compelled to start some degree of, you know, enrichment again. And there you, Americans will use that as an excuse for invasion. And on that excuse, they'll go to the Europeans and push them into consent and to the UN and all that. Thank you very much, Ajaz. On that note, we shall conclude this discussion. Do keep watching NewsClick for this and further discussions that we'll have on such issues.