Countdown To Syria-Is Obama Ready To Start a Regional War?

One of the real questions about the possible American strike on Syria is not "what will Syria do?" but how will Russia and Iran react?  The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has the full support of the Russians who are still disputing that it was the al-Assad's forces who launched the chemical weapons.

Iran is even more protective of the Syrian government.  Al-Assad has long been an Iranian tool a distribution center if you will, shipping arms and other aid to Iran's terrorist partners in Lebanon and elsewhere in the region.  Syria has been Iran's partner in destabilizing the middle east and the latest news from the Washington Free Beacon indicates that partnership will continue.

Hossein Sheikholeslam, the director general of the Iranian parliament’s International Affairs bureau, claimed the United States would not dare attack Syria but said that if it does, “the Zionist regime will be the first victim.”

“No military attack will be waged against Syria,” Sheikholeslam was quoted as saying on Monday by Iran’s state run Fars News Agency. 

“Yet, if such an incident takes place, which is impossible, the Zionist regime will be the first victim of a military attack on Syria,” Sheikholeslam said in an apparent response to the Obama administration’s increasingly stern rhetoric against Syria.

According to the Iranian Assad would immediately respond to a U.S. attack by going after the Jewish state with the full force of his military. Syria can “heavily attack and raze the occupied territories,” Fars reported him as saying.

During the last few months, Syria has been intermittently sending mortars in and toward Israel trying to lure the Jewish State into the conflict.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that if Israel is targeted "we will respond, and respond with force." 

An American attack on Syria, resulting in a Syrian attack on Israel and the expected Israeli response could end up throwing the entire Middle East into conflict. Al-Assad trying to protect his own skin would have no qualms expanding any conflict that arises as an attempt to bring his parters (Russia and Iran) into the conflict and to bring other Islamists into a redefined battle of protecting Syria from the "Zionist entity."

Based on his actions so far, there is little confidence that President Obama has thought this through.