As the eyes of the rightly worried world are trained on North Korea's nuclear threats, there is another rogue state in a different part of the continent -- Iran, which is nearing the end of another stage of its plan to solidify its presence in Syria as part of a larger strategy to create a Shiite region. Former U.S. President Barack Obama left Syria and the rest of the region wide open for the Iranians, both as fallout from the joint war against the Islamic State and the desire to strike a supposed balance in the Middle East between the Sunni bloc, led by Saudi Arabia, and the Iran-led Shiite bloc. The administration of President Donald Trump, even though it announced that it opposed the Iranian incursion into Syria, has yet to take steps against it. Because of the almost exclusive focus on North Korea, most of the world is ignoring the fact that because of the nuclear deal signed with Iran in June 2016, Tehran can become a superpower with nuclear arms whenever it wants, and certainly at the end of the six years remaining on the deal. Unlike North Korea, whose capabilities appear to be more limited, Iran sees its nuclear and ballistic potential as a way of achieving its dreams of hegemony. These past few days, The New York Times, which made no secret of its support for the Iran deal, has started showing signs of concern over Iran's aggressive expansion and its role as a sponsor of global terrorism. We can assume that at least part of that concern stems from the paper's untiring line of attacking the Trump administration on every issue, including its helplessness on the matters of Iran and Syria, but that does not detract from the severity of the situation. One of the opinion pieces the paper ran last week reads: "The Trump administration has so far seemed willing to cede Syria to Russia. ... But Washington should understand what this really means: ceding it to Iran." The piece goes on to say: "If the United States isn't interested in Syria anymore ... Iran will be dominant in Damascus." But the Russians also have something to say about all this, as the Times article points out. Russia's main interest in Syria has to do with its military bases and the geopolitical aspirations of its strategic ally Iran are not seen as an obstacle. Another piece in the same newspaper says that "Iran [is] out to remake the Mideast with [its] Arab enforcer: Hezbollah," which lies at the core of the network Tehran has spread across the region -- including Syria, Iraq and Yemen -- to promote its interests. We can assume that intelligence and defense officials in Israel are well aware of what is happening on the other side of the northern border and are taking appropriate action. But a no less urgent task is to convince the friendly Trump administration about the dangers of an "Iranized" Syria and Lebanon so it will adopt a pro-active policy to prevent it. The author of one of the articles quoted above, Syrian expert Prof. David W. Lesch, asks: "Iran is taking over Syria. Can anyone stop it-" We're asking, too.
