US fears backing Iran attack by Israel

Syrian Premier Mohammad Naji al-Otri says Israel lacks US backing for an attack on Iran in fear of potential consequences of an ensuing conflict, a report says.

“It is unlikely that there will be a future war and I doubt America would give Israel the permission” for a strike on Iran over the country’s nuclear program “because the reaction from Iran would be unexpected,” Syrian media reported the prime minister as saying in a recent interview with Yemen’s September 26 weekly.

“Any such attack,” said al-Otri, “will blow up the whole region.”

He called Israel “the main enemy of the Arab and Islamic nations” and pointed out that Tel Aviv works in collusion with its western allies to achieve its goals in the region.

On November 7, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon claimed that Tel Aviv’s persistent threats of military action against Iran were not just bluffs.

Iranian officials, on the other hand, have issued stern warnings that any military action against its territory will entail “extreme costs” to the aggressors.

“In case of an attack on Iran by the Zionist regime, the region’s political equation will be entirely altered,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said recently.

The West has portrayed Iran’s nuclear enrichment program as a threat despite assurances from the International Atomic Energy Agency on the non-diversionary nature of the country’s nuclear activities.

Iran, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, argues that it is entitled to develop a nuclear program to meet the state’s growing electricity needs, as well as radio-isotopes used in nuclear medicine.