Iran official: Fallout from western military action in Syria will bury Israel

Iranian Parliamentary Speaker and top aide to Supreme Leader Khamenei says Syrian crisis is not similar to situation in Libya, warning West of their ‘dangerous game.’

A western military intervention in war-torn Syria will result in a regional upheaval that would undoubtedly engulf Israel, a senior Iranian official said on Wednesday, following a massacre in the Syrian city of Houla, which garnered severe criticism in the West.

Syria - AP - 23.5.2012

Image released by Shaam News Network, purporting to show a building on fire from shelling in Homs province, Syria - Photo by AP

Russia said on Wednesday that the UN Security Council should not consider new measures to resolve the crisis in Syria at this point and signaled it would block any effort to authorize military intervention, the Interfax news agency reported.

The warnings came after the French President Francois Hollande said military intervention was not ruled out provided it was backed by the Security Council, and Germany said it would push for “new engagement” by the council on Syria.

Referring to the possibility of military action being taken in order to depose the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday, Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani warned of the consequences of such a move.

“Possibly, U.S. military officials are misunderstanding regional issues because Syria’s specifications are no way similar to those of Libya,” Larijani, an aide of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said.

In what seemed to be an explicit threat against the consequences military action could have on Israel, Larijani said that violence form a Syrian version of Benghazi “will spread into Palestine and the ashes of such flame will definitely bury the Zionist regime.”

“It seems that the United States and the West are seeking to pave the way for a new crisis,” he added, saying that “U.S. officials should be aware of their dangerous game. Isn’t it necessary that they take measures in response to the military occupation of Bahrain? The question is why they are preventing the reform plan in Syria from moving forward.”

Larijani’s comments came after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned civilian deaths in the Syrian crisis, adding, however that the West and certain Arab countries were interfering in Syria and sending weapons to help bring down the government.

“We cannot trust these people because their objective is to bring down Assad,” he said.

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By Avi Issacharoff

Avi Issacharoff