Why not Syria?

We are getting used to the appalling nonsense we hear from the leaders of al-Qaeda every now and then but we still do listen to their hateful speeches in order to understand more about how those criminals think and to know more about their intentions and plans, so while these audio or video statements they keep sending through al-Jazeera can add nothing to help al-Qaeda, they can be a source for free information to us…

There was nothing significant new about what Zawahiri said in his last message that was aired a few days ago but one line struck me as ironic. He was talking about "jihad against the Americans and the Zionists" and how Muslims must rise up and fight back then he mentioned Iraq and considered Iraq's proximity to Israel an advantage that makes Iraq the best candidate country where "the Islamic Emirate can be established and the mujahideen would then move from this Emirate to Palestine to fight the Jews."

That's strange isn't it? Because Iraq is several hundreds of miles away from Israel while Syria and Jordan directly share borders with Israel!
I will leave the Jordanians out of this because they already are considered traitors by Zawahiri since Jordan signed a peace truce with Israel, but what about Syria which shares borders with Israel, is not at peace with Israel and has territory occupied by Israel since 1967?
Wouldn't it make better sense to establish the Islamic Emirate in Syria? I mean that would allow the mujahideen to literally walk into Israel and save a lot of effort and time. Let alone that it sounds so difficult to establish the Islamic Emirate in such a hostile environment as Iraq which now, by al-Qaeda standards, is full of infidel Americans, heretical Shia and treacherous Sunni!

However, Zawahiri didn't mention Syria and jumped over geography and kept the focus on Iraq and this makes me think of a number of possible explanations:

a) Al-Qaeda considers Syria a more hostile territory than Iraq making the situation unsuitable for the rise of Islamic rule...but if Syria is that hostile to the degree that it stands as an enemy then why not fight this enemy to establish the Islamic rule and then use the advantage of Syria real geographical proximity to Israel?!
This leads to:

b) Al-Qaeda consider Syria an ally stronger as is and prefers not to mess with the Syrian regime in fear from ruining this alliance…or

c) This is not about Israel at all and Zawahiri merely used the case of the current war in the middle east to attract greater numbers of jihadists to Iraq to bolster the presence of al-Qaeda following the losses it suffered in Iraq with the death of Zarqawi and subsequent raids of US and Iraqi forces that left many al-Qaeda operatives dead or captured…

Either way, what al-Qaeda said through Zawahiri shows indirectly that the regime in Syria is one favored by al-Qaeda but more importantly proves again that they have their eyes fixed on Iraq which they openly voiced their intentions to turn into a center for their radical Islamic state.

And if Zawahiri, Nesrallah, Ahmedinejad and Sadr are calling upon extremists whether, Sunni or Shia, from all over the world to put aside their differences and unite in this war against the free world and to establish the Empire of terror from "Afghanistan to Andalus" then this is more than enough reason for you in the free world and for us who are struggling for our freedom to put aside our differences and disagreements and unite, from Sydney to Mumbai to Baghdad to Paris and London all the way till California, all must stand against this evil that is trying to destroy our world.