Iranian legislators urge Shiite anti-Israel military pact

Iranian parliament members propose an anti-Israeli military alliance of the terror groups it sponsors along with Syria.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Several dozen members of Iran’s parliament members have prepared a motion calling on the Islamic Republic to establish a military alliance among the resistance front’s countries and groups in countering threats from the Israeli regime, the Iranian Tasnim News Agency reported.

Parliament member Abolfazl Abutorabi said the proposal to establish a “Defense and Security Treaty of the Resistance Group” was signed by 34 lawmakers and submitted to the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.

According to the proposed NATO-style security pact, members would react so that “if the Zionist regime attacks any of the resistance front’s countries or takes action against them, the other member states or liberation movements of the treaty will make every military, economic and political effort to counter the threat.”

Although the report did not list the members of the alliance specifically, the “Axis of Resistance” is estimated to include Iran as the lead country, Syria, the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen who have been trying to overthrow the government there, Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) that are sponsored by Iran, and the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups it sponsors in Gaza.

Abutorabi’s motion states that determining the liberation movements will be under the authority of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. Tasnim noted that last year Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said Iran will “support and assist any nation or any group that opposes and fights the Zionist regime.”

The firebrand Iranian parliament member is known for his anti-Israel and anti-America rhetoric.

“We can attack the White House itself,” Abutorabi said a year ago following the assassination of notorious Iranian General Qassem Soleimani after the Iranian parliament offered an $80 million reward for the assassination of President Donald Trump.

“Iran, its proxies, and the Syrian regime—the so-called “axis of resistance”—will likely be among the first to test President Biden,” Michael Eisenstadt and Christine McVann of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said in a paper earlier this month. “First impressions are important, and the new president’s response to early tests will set the tone going forward for U.S. ties with allies and adversaries alike.

“A firm defense of American interests would bolster U.S. credibility, earn the administration good standing with partners, and, perhaps, buy time by deferring additional challenges. Yet failure to project resolve would likely embolden U.S. adversaries, with reverberations far beyond the Middle East,” they noted.