Watch out for Iran bases in Syria, Netanyahu warns US
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU is pushing the United States to oppose Iranian plans to build a military base in Syria, as President Trump considers pulling out of a landmark nuclear treaty.
Mr Trump was widely expected to announce this week that he will decertify the deal between Iran and six world powers, including the United States — a decision that could cause it to unravel.
Theresa May told Mr Netanyahu on Monday that Britain remains “firmly committed” to the nuclear agreement.
But Israel is more concerned by plans in Syria, where the Assad regime is suspected of having struck a deal for an Iranian naval base on the Mediterranean in exchange for military support in the ongoing civil war.
The pact is reported also to include an airbase in Syrian territory.
Construction on these bases has yet to begin but Israeli intelligence believes that the Iranians are already scouting for locations.
Israel has warned it will not allow them to be built. They were the main item in recent conversations between Mr Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin and will be on the agenda next week, when Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu arrives in Israel for an official visit.
Israeli intelligence sources say they have already detected “encouraging signs” of divergence between Russia
and Iran in Syria. One of these is Russia’s reluctance to sign a deal with the regime on leasing its own Mediterranean port in a way that would include an Iranian presence.
The Iran nuclear deal, concluded under former US President Barack Obama in 2015, saw Tehran agreeing to restrict its nuclear programme in exchange for loosened economic sanctions.
Despite strong hints from Mr Trump’s team that he will decertify the deal, the five other countries — Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia — continue to support it and the US Congress would need to vote to reinstate sanctions.
Theresa May told Mr Netanyahu in a telephone call on Monday that although it was important for the nuclear deal to be carefully monitored, Britain remained committed to the deal.
According to Mrs May’s spokesman: “They agreed that the international community needed to be clear-eyed about the threat that Iran poses to the Gulf and the wider Middle East and that the international community should continue working together to push back against Iran’s destabilising regional activity.”
Analysts said Israel could ironically be better served by a less confrontational approach right now from the Trump administration, arguing that if Mr Trump were not to fully decertify the deal but leave it to Congress to decide whether to reinstate sanctions, the Kremlin may prove more amenable to curbing Iran in Syria.
Mr Netanyahu is understood to be anxious for a coherent American policy on confronting the growing influence of Iran’s advance units — the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah — near Israel’s borders.
One significant move in this direction would be the inclusion of the IRGC on the State Department’s list of terror organisations and terror-supporting entities.
Signs of divergence between Russia and Iran