Can the US Withdrawal from Syria Be a Blessing in Disguise? - By Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen

However misconceived, President Trump’s decision to withdraw US forces from Syria might have a silver lining for Israel. It forces Jerusalem to reevaluate the basic assumptions of the “peace process” with the Palestinians that has been actively and coercively led in recent decades by successive US administrations.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,051..
30 December '18..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/us-withdrawal-syria-blessing/

The Oslo process took place under unique global circumstances. The Soviet Union had just collapsed and the Cold War had come to an abrupt end with the West’s clear victory. The US became “the only remaining superpower” and the “End of History” loomed over the horizon.

Since then, far-reaching changes have taken place. Russia has reemerged as a major global force and has reassumed its great-power status through direct military interventions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria. The US, by contrast, has substantially reduced its global involvement over the past decade and has lost its hegemonic position in the Middle East. In this respect, President Trump’s recent decision to withdraw US troops from Syria is but the continuation of the disengagement policy begun by his immediate predecessor.

It is arguable, of course, that the withdrawal casts serious doubt on the credibility of the US as a strategic ally. Yet for all its attendant flaws, this step gives Israel a chance to reconsider its longstanding belief in seemingly unshakable US backing.

For quite some time, the Jewish state has found itself in a strategic quandary. On the one hand, the more omnipotent the American image, the stronger Israel’s reputation as a major military and political player. On the other hand, the widespread belief in Washington’s ostensible ability to guarantee any Arab-Israeli peace agreement has placed Jerusalem under constant pressure to take the risks associated with withdrawal from areas vital to its national security. Thus, for example, by way of paving the way for the IDF’s total withdrawal from the West Bank as part of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, the Obama administration proposed a complex security package that substituted the deployment of US forces in the Jordan Valley for Israel’s longstanding demand for defensible borders (accepted by Security Council Resolution 242 of November 1967).

But to what extent can foreign military forces operating in a wholly alien environment provide an adequate substitute for the IDF in enforcing the West Bank’s demilitarization? Judging by the experience of international forces in the Middle East in recent decades, the answer is far from satisfactory.

Syria continues to up the terrorism ante

Arnold/Frimet Roth
This Ongoing War
24 February '11

http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.com/2011/02/24-feb-11-syria-continues-to-up.html

Second Suspected Syria Nuclear Site Is Found

WASHINGTON—A second suspected nuclear installation has been identified in Syria, according to commercial satellite photos, providing new evidence that Damascus may have been pursuing atomic weapons before a 2007 Israeli military strike. The publishing Wednesday of the photos by Washington's Institute for Science and International Security could increase pressure on the United Nations to demand expansive new inspections of suspect Syrian facilities during a March board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency... Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government has rebuffed repeated IAEA requests to conduct additional inspections of the site as well as three other facilities the U.N. agency believes could be related to a covert Syrian nuclear program. Damascus's rejection of IAEA inspections could result in Syria being declared noncompliant with its U.N. commitments and referred to the Security Council for formal censuring. Mr. Assad denied in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last month that his government has pursued a nuclear program. He also said he wouldn't allow the IAEA expansive powers to inspect his country.

The entire article is worth reading, as is this report on Syrian state terrorism. Meanwhile two Iranian navy warships tied up in a Syrian port yesterday (Wednesday). They were the first vessels of the Ayatollah-controlled regime to enter the Mediterranean since the Ayatollahs took control of Iran in 1979. The IRNA newsagency in Tehran said that the commander of Iran's navy, Admiral Habibula Siari, was due to arrive in Damascus yesterday with a delegation of Iranian military officials.

On Tuesday, the Iran's deputy army commander, Abdolrahim Mousavi, was quoted saying that Israel was "astonished" by the presence of Iranian naval vessels in the canal:

"The global arrogance (Iranian code for the US) must know that the Islamic Republic of Iran's army is fully prepared to defend its goals... The world should know that the presence of Iranian warships in the Suez Canal has taken place through the deep guidance of the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) and our young and brave personnel's self-confidence..."

Probably all completely innocent.

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The Resistance Bloc’s Weak Point

Michael J. Totten
Contentions/Commentary
12 December '10

Syrian strongman Bashar Assad is willing to fight Israel to the last Lebanese Shia, but he won’t risk one of his own. It’s far easier — and safer — to let third-party guerrillas drunk on their own martyrdom ideology wage his war against the “Zionist Entity” for him. That way he gets to pocket credit as a “resistance” leader without having to do any resisting himself. He knows he’d lose a conventional war within weeks, if not days, even if Israel were forced to fight Iran and Hezbollah at the same time.

His government said as much to the Iranian government recently, according to a leaked U.S. Embassy cable.

Last year, an Iranian delegation to Damascus asked Syria to commit to joining its military forces with Iran’s and Hezbollah’s because they think an Israeli attack on their nuclear weapons facilities is inevitable. “It is not a matter of if, but when,” an unnamed Syrian official was supposedly told. The official answered, however, that “we’re too weak” to retaliate.

So Syria is not much of an Iranian ally then, is it?

(Read full "The Resistance Bloc’s Weak Point")

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The Middle East Leader Who Should Be Ignored

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
21 July '10


The BBC has just broadcast a program entitled, “Syria's Bashar al-Assad: A leader who cannot be ignored.” This precisely echoes Syria’s main propaganda theme: it is the center of the Middle East, the leader of the resistance (to Israel and the West), the key to peace and the anvil of war.

This is rubbish. In fact, the title inspired me to think: Bashar “the giraffe” Assad is a leader who can—and up to a point, of course should—be ignored. He is the tail on Iran’s dog, an ally who won’t cross Tehran on any major issue. Bashar is intransigent on negotiations with Israel. He takes concessions from the West and gives nothing in return. He is being allowed to get away with recapturing Lebanon; sponsoring Hamas and Hizballah; and killing Americans in Iraq through insurgent terrorists he sponsors there.

U.S. attempts to engage Syria have failed. Syria is too weak to go to war with Israel. It has not even succeeded—despite numerous efforts—to revenge itself for Israel’s bombing of its plutonium reactor (build in partnership with Iran to help Tehran’s nuclear program) or the killing of two important people (one a Hizballah leader; the other a Syrian general who worked on the nuclear program and was liaison to Hizballah) in some of the most secure territory in the country.

(Read full article)

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