Israel Matzav

US going easy on Syria out of fear it will attack Israel?

I'm sure many of you have been puzzled by the zeal with which the 'international community' has intervened in Libya as compared with its continuing to give Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a pass. JPost columnist Yaakov Katz believes that Israel may have something to do with that.

Israel does not share a border with Libya, but it does share one with Syria, and there are fears in the IDF that in the event of foreign military intervention there, Israel would feel the brunt of Bashar Assad’s retaliation.

While Assad is already believed to be trying to divert attention from his lethal crackdown on protesters by encouraging Palestinians to raid the Israeli border, as occurred this past Sunday, this is just the tip of the iceberg of what Syria can do.

One intelligence assessment speaks of the possibility that, under extreme pressure – caused politically or militarily – Assad might decide to attack Israel with more than just angry Palestinians from the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus.

Instead, he would have available the thousands of ballistic missiles Syria has manufactured over the years, as well as an extensive chemical arsenal, bolstered as a replacement for the nuclear reactor Israel destroyed in 2007.

For this reason, Jerusalem is quietly warning about the potential consequences of Western military action aimed at toppling Assad. This does not mean, of course, that Israel wants Assad to remain in power; in reality, the opposite is true. But the concern cannot be ignored; what will happen the day after Assad falls, and into whose hands will the ballistic missiles and chemical weapons fall?

At the same time, senior IDF officers believe that there is no turning back for Assad and that after killing some 1,500 of his own people, he will not be able to rule again as he once did. What this means practically is still unclear, but the hope is that it will ultimately lead to a larger break in the Iranian axis that connects Tehran, Damascus and Beirut, and will further isolate Iran and cut off supplies to Hezbollah.

And Hezbullah is quite concerned about that possibility.

Western intelligence agencies have raised the possibility that Hezbollah is trying to transfer advanced weaponry it reportedly maintains on Syrian soil to Lebanon due to the ongoing turmoil in the country.

The group is believed to have stored advanced arms in Syria – including longrange Scud missiles- as part of its logistical deployment along Israel’s northern border.

But unfortunately, Iran is using all the attention being lavished on Syria to advance its nuclear weapons program.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Hezbullah, Iranian nuclear program, Syrian uprising

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:43 AM