Overthrowing Jordan and courting Azerbaijan: Iran's master plan for the region - opinion

• Published date: 12 April 2024
• Author: MORDECHAI KEDAR
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Following the recent Israeli attack on the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, which eliminated senior members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the mullahs in Tehran are going after the Hashemite regime in Jordan, seeking to have its government toppled and replaced with a pro-Hamas leadership

There are reports that Iranian weapons are flooding into the West Bank, which Iran hopes will unite with a new Hamas-led government in Jordan and overthrow the entire PLO-led Palestinian Authority (PA), creating a united Hamas front against Israel.

According to a recent MEMRI report, Iran seeks to topple the Hashemites and ultimately also the PA so that they can attack Israel from the east as the Jewish state remains occupied dealing with Iranian proxies in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza: "The political aim of this plan is to thwart the Saudi-American project of normalization with Israel."

Peace in the Middle East?

This would lead to Saudi Arabia never making peace with Israel alongside a number of other moderate Sunni Arab countries. It also includes efforts by Iran to make amends with Azerbaijan, while weakening the Sisi government in Egypt, another ally of Israel in the region.

The MEMRI report noted: "The regime in Iran has never concealed its aim and aspirations: to have the Iranian Islamic Revolution take over the region, to bring down the West-facing moderate Arab Sunni regimes by exporting the revolution and to eliminate Israel, the 'Little Satan' and the cancerous growth, and to liberate Jerusalem from it.

To achieve this, the Iranian regime uses its array of resistance axis militias from Yemen to Lebanon and from Iraq to Azerbaijan, as an effective military arm for establishing its messianic vision."

Last March, the foreign ministers of Iran and Azerbaijan met at the Organization of Islamic Conference, where they agreed on the reopening of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran after an Iranian court sentenced the terrorist who attacked the Azerbaijani Embassy on International Holocaust Memorial Day, killing a security guard, to death.

Why would Iran agree to execute this person in order to restore ties with Azerbaijan, given that there is a great chance that Iran orchestrated this terror attack?

The answer to this question is that the Iranians are greatly disturbed that Armenia is getting closer to the US and France after the Armenians decided it was in their best interest to distance themselves from the Putin government, under heavy international...