Iran-Syria Aid Could Be In The Billions: Tehran Think Tank

(Reuters) - Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei backs offering $5.8 billion in aid to Syria to bolster its economy, a French newspaper said Friday, citing a report by a Tehran think-tank linked to Iran's leadership.

Damascus has long been Tehran's main ally among otherwise mainly hostile Arab states. After four months of popular unrest, Syria's economy is reeling under the weight of strikes, reduced oil exports, scaled-back trade and international sanctions.

Its troubles have prompted Iran's leadership to consider offering $5.8 billion in financial help, including a three-month loan worth $1.5 billion to be made available immediately, French business daily Les Echos said.

It added that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has backed the idea of the aid, which was outlined in a secret report by the Center for Strategic Research, a think tank linked to the Iranian leadership.

It was not possible to verify the report Friday.

Iran, Les Echos said, could also provide 290,000 barrels of oil to Syria each day over the next month while helping to boost border controls to stop Syrians from fleeing the country for Lebanon with cash.

After four months of civil uprising in Syria, human rights groups report that more than 1,400 civilian have been killed, drawing a chorus of condemnation from around the world.

International sanctions are only targeted at Syria's leaders, not its banks and companies. But France and the United States are pressing for tougher penalties and a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the crackdown, after the embassies of both countries in Syria were attacked.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions

Comments

[ryancass]

11:12 AM on 07/17/2011

What about Iran sending some of that to Somalia?

[leutenizer banned twice]

02:59 AM on 07/16/2011

"It was not possible to verify the report Friday."

Can't verify it but we published it anyways!

That's the meat of this story.

[marknez21]

09:54 PM on 07/15/2011

Mississippi in US calls on Iran for help with primary health care system

Deep South calls in Iran to cure its health blues
In ground-breaking project, one of America’s poorest communities is turning to the Middle East to try to resolve its crisis

By Christina Lamb
December 20 2009

As Marie Pryor shuffles along a Mississippi roadside collecting discarded drink cans to sell for a few cents, her breath comes in short puffs caused by a congenital heart defect. The same condition caused her granddaughter’s death earlier this year.

The last place on earth she would look for help is Iran, a country widely regarded in America as the enemy. The US and Iran have not had diplomatic relations for 30 years and the two governments trade daily insults over Iran’s nuclear programme. Last week Tehran charged three American hikers with espionage after they apparently strayed across the border.

But with Congress acrimoniously debating the reform of health care, it is to Iran that one of America’s poorest communities is turning to try to resolve its own health crisis.

A US doctor and a development consultant visited Iran in May to study a primary health care system that has cut infant mortality by more than two-thirds since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

Then, in October, five top Iranian doctors, including a senior official at the health ministry in Tehran, were quietly brought to Mississippi to advise on how the system could be implemented there.

[marknez21]

09:52 PM on 07/15/2011

IRAN IN USA

http://www.aarp.org/health/doctors-hospitals/info-06-2010/iranian_cure_for_thedeltas_blues.html

Iranian Cure for the Delta’s Blues
by: Joel K. Bourne Jr., | from: AARP Bulletin | July 1, 2010
Baptist Town, with its tumbledown clapboard shacks on the wrong side of the tracks in Greenwood, Miss., seems an unlikely spot for any kind of revolution, especially one inspired by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But soon, that Mississippi neighborhood and others like it in the Deep South may see some startling changes.
While political leaders in the United States and Iran are practicing boisterous brinkmanship over nuclear proliferation, a small group of health care professionals from both countries are quietly working together to practice a new type of medicine, beginning in Mississippi, a state that has been mired at the bottom of nearly every health index for decades. Their primary focus is the storied Mississippi Delta. The flat, hot, rural landscape that gave birth to the blues—the quintessential American art form that put suffering to song—now suffers a host of health woes, with some of the highest rates of diabetes, obesity, hypertension and infant mortality in the nation.

[leutenizer banned twice]

02:59 AM on 07/16/2011

Excellent!

[Jack Daniels Esq]

06:12 PM on 07/15/2011

Iran - pariah from hell is going to lend who, how many billion dollars ? They are broke ?

[Vlad Roudenko]

08:33 PM on 07/15/2011

As far as I remember the Shah was quite popular with the US government. Suddenly this dictator gets deposed and Iran becomes a pariah? Yes, they actually have money since they are an oil exporting country. The US is the one who is broke.

[catz1515]

01:58 PM on 07/16/2011

the us IS NOT BROKE! This is the propaganda they want you to believe. The top 1% control the majority of the wealth. The US is the wealthiest nation on this planet. Its wealth is being transferred form the middle class to the rich.

[Magic 62]

11:56 PM on 07/15/2011

They have over 100 billion in FOREX, another 100 billion in their sovereign fund with a nation debt of under 60 billion and a national budget of 508 billion for 2011, and 14 Trillion worth of oil and gas under ground. No, I don't think that they are broke.

[Jack Daniels Esq]

12:34 AM on 07/16/2011

They barter everything

[LIbislife]

04:59 PM on 07/15/2011

As if that aid will ever trickle down to the citizens of Syria.

[Vlad Roudenko]

08:34 PM on 07/15/2011

lol The same way that the stimulus has trickled down to the American citizens?

[SGTDBK]

02:19 PM on 07/19/2011

Guess we in America didn't get the memo a nation was donating money to the U.S. to bolster our economy...I got my stimulas check from my government though, will Syrian citizens get a check from Iran?

[Deparis]

04:33 PM on 07/15/2011

Them "crippling sanctions" are working just fine on Iran. Sheesh. When will we finally recognize that we have completely failed in our foreign policies in that region? Nearly $6 billion of aid to Syria? That's no peanut money, man!

[Vlad Roudenko]

08:35 PM on 07/15/2011

Yes, the US foreign policy is an utter failure. Sanctions just don't work against determined nations.

[SaudiCitizen]

04:19 PM on 07/15/2011

Iran needs to stop messing with Arab affairs and fix themselves before they interfere or Criticize us.

[LIbislife]

05:06 PM on 07/15/2011

I'm sure if you asked them about it they would tell you they have no problems

[wom122]

08:18 PM on 07/15/2011

Saud Arabia helped the Bahraini regime with troops and brutal force not just money (and that is assuming that Iran' financial help to Syria is confirmed).

[SaudiCitizen]

08:25 PM on 07/15/2011

Bahrain asked for help there in the GCC and peninsula shield force, besides the government is working for Reform and change.

[streetmagik]

04:00 PM on 07/15/2011

Hey Ayatollah - can you read that writing on the wall?? It says "your next!"

[WILSPIN812]

03:44 PM on 07/15/2011

That' precious! Iran's dictator is so in love with violent crackdowns on the public he wants to finance the policy elsewhere. Khamenei is one sick freak. Check his computer for snuff videos.

[altohone]

03:38 PM on 07/15/2011

Falsely accusing their leader of murder has created a rather odd situation.
Murdoch and others owe Assad an apology too.
Not a strong position to begin the next round.

[catz1515]

01:59 PM on 07/16/2011

Assad owes Syrians an apology for his ruthless dictatorship and torturous laws.

[Staxx]

03:31 PM on 07/15/2011

Iran has been under one of the most severe sanctions ever imposed on a country for over 30 years, yet is able to offer that much to another country, these guys are geniuses. Maybe America should stop the hatred and hire them as consultants for how to go through life without borrowing.

[streetmagik]

03:58 PM on 07/15/2011

It does not take a genius to pull oil out of the ground

[Magic 62]

04:09 PM on 07/15/2011

Then why do the Arabs get us to do it for them?

[Sean Beam]

04:31 PM on 07/15/2011

streetma-jok
you are so right....any tom dick n harry could extract oil from the ground...so whats usa doing in the mid east ..dig your own oil ! - the clever bit you missed cause you are not clever is that even with the west imposing paper sanctions, the iranians have shown the middle finger to the west and not only survived but flourished . today its got its own missile systems, a space programme, and various medical breakthroughs ...all without western help..lolz...they may not be geniuses...but certainly look after their pennies and dont live off stolen oil and spoils of war like the west does...shame america.....call yourself a world power...more like a world class thug

[kentah]

04:23 PM on 07/15/2011

Iran has a real monetary system, not the fractional reserve parasite-fest the Western world has been made to suffer. That's all part of the reason the bankster-neocon-Likud-US want them destroyed.

[Ngonyama]

01:50 PM on 07/15/2011

Watch out, dear Ayatollah! Colonial involvement of this nature without the ability to make your colony pay for itself is a proven way to bankrupt yourself. With your own population hating your guts that may lead to you sharing in the destiny of the last czar...

[Magic 62]

01:55 PM on 07/15/2011

A $6 Billion pipeline is going from Iran through Iraq to Syria to the Mediterranean, and a couple of refineries are being built by Syria to refine the oil for export to Europe with the money. This is more of a loan than an aid package.

[JerryLevy]

01:17 PM on 07/15/2011

The "aid" will be in the form of weapons for the thugs and secret police. It is what Iran does best.

[Taxim]

01:44 PM on 07/15/2011

C'mon, you know who the weapons king is.

[ArthroughpadNY]

05:47 PM on 07/15/2011

Mr. Weapons King, or Hamas? I guess you mean Hamas.

[kentah]

02:25 PM on 07/15/2011

The more you pepper your comment history with remarks like this the less believable you'll be when you actually do speak the truth.

[nikau nikau]

12:42 AM on 07/17/2011

Well, that must be happening now, because that statement is the most believable comment posted thus far.

[patchesowl]

12:55 PM on 07/15/2011

So much for diversionary mentionings... what we the people need to see is a solution toour internal domestic monetary problems. Let's not confuse the issue... this problem has been out there for five decades and nobody's been willing to deal with it. Now that it's realized to be going away nobody wants to be associated with it. The best solution would be to immediately cut the defense budget in half, cease all foreign aid except emergency, cease all foreign and military aid. Let the defense contractors turn their attention an resources to creating and manufacturing items of utilitarian use.