Two days later an enthusiastic echo came from Hafez Assad, then Syria's Defense Minister, who proclaimed openly: "Our forces are now entirely ready...to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explodethe Zionist presence in the Arab homeland....The time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation." President Abdur Rahman Aref of Iraq joined the chorus of genocidal threats: "The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map." On June 4, Iraq formally joined the military alliance with Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The Damascus regime's commitment to military final solutions for Israel has been described by Ahmed S. Khalidi and Hussein Agha as stemming from "...an apparently strong conviction that the struggle with Israel is no mere political or territorial dispute, but rather a clash of destinies affecting the fate and future of the Middle East." Moreover, Syria's approach to Israel, say Khalidi and Agha, remains "bound up with the view that force, whether active or passive, is the final arbiter of the conflict with Israel and the ultimate guarantor of any settlement in the area."