Israel will continue doing the dirty work in Syria - by Jonathan S. Tobin

So the next time you hear about the United States defending Israel, remember that on this strategic front, it has been Israel that is defending the West’s interest in preventing Iran from getting even stronger than Obama and Trump’s blunders have made it.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
14 January '19..

For some observers, this past weekend’s revelations about Israeli strikes against Iranian targets in Syria was just politics as usual in the Jewish state. Some pundits treated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public acknowledgement that the Israel Defense Forces has struck specific Iranian military targets in Syria as an attempt to distract the voters from his personal legal woes in advance of the April elections.

Similarly, there might be those who consider outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Gadi Eizenkot’s exit interviews with the Israeli and international press in of the same ilk. He, too, spoke about the army’s ongoing duel with Iran’s Quds Force and its Hezbollah auxiliaries in recent years as evidence of his desire to puff up his image before eventually turning (like so many other top officers) to politics.

But taken together and coming after U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will be withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria, the unavoidable conclusion about these statements is that, while Israel’s operations there have been an open secret never before publicly acknowledged, the Jewish state is sending a clear message to Tehran. After years of pounding Iranian forces on the quiet, Israel’s security establishment feels the time is right to make it clear that it will continue to enforce certain red lines in Syria to ensure that the Islamist regime isn’t in position to launch a war on its northern front.

(Continue to Full Column)

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