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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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.

U.S. Engages Syria; Syria Escalates Weapons' Supply to Hizballah

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
13 April '10

It's completely predictable. In fact, I predicted it. The more U.S. policy engages Syria and stifles criticism of that dictatorship, the more confident (arrogant is a better word) Syria's regime becomes. It continues to help terrorists kill Americans in Iraq; tightens its alliance with Iran; and now sends advanced Scud missiles to Lebanon. At the same time--according to the U.S. Defense Department--Iran is providing advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Hizballah which pass through Syrian hands. Human rights violation continue in Syria, too.

Israel is extremely concerned with the build-up which violates the UN resolution and promises made to Israel at the end of the 2006 war. But to raise the whole matter to the heights of satire, Lebanon--whose government includes Hizballah--is now on the UN Security Council and next month will be chairing the Security Council! This is just in time to run the meetings about efforts to put sanctions on Iran, which is of course Hizballah's patron.

So to summarize:

--Hizballah, a revolutionary terrorist group, violates a UN Security Council resolution but in essence is going to control the UN Security Council. (Sort of goes along nicely with Iran being so powerful on the Human Rights committee while Libya has chaired the General Assembly.)

--Syria keeps slapping the United States in the face but it has no apparent effect on U.S. policy.

(Read full post)
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The Vision Thing

Emmanuel Navon
For The Sake Of Zion
03 March '10

The man whom George W. Bush used to dismissingly call “The Eye Doctor” seems to be doing fine without glasses. Bashar al-Assad, an ophthalmologist who inherited his father’s hereditary job only because his older brother was killed in a car accident, has turned the tables on the United States. Five years ago, he complied with the American injunction to pull his troops out of Lebanon. Today, he is publicly humiliating the United States.

In February 2005, the US withdrew its ambassador to Syria following the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Assad’s involvement in Hariri’s murder was so obvious that former French President Jacques Chirac, a personal friend of Hariri (and long-term guest in his Paris apartment), has been boycotting Assad ever since. By recalling its ambassador, the US was also expressing its discontent with the fact that Syria hosts and shields Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, transfers weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, lets terrorists crossing into Iraq, supports Iran’s foreign policy goals, and cooperates with Iran and North Korea to develop nuclear capabilities (concerns about Syria’s suspected nuclear program were brought to the world’s attention by the Israeli bombing of an alleged nuclear facility in eastern Syria in 2007).

Last month, five years exactly after the scolding of the Bush Administration, President Obama nominated Robert Ford as the new US Ambassador to Syria. The rationale of the current US Administration is that Assad can be sweet-talked into trading his alliance with Iran for a deal with America. Obama’s gamble has produced immediate results, but not the expected ones. Shortly after the nomination of Ambassador Ford, Ahmadinejad paid an official and pompous visit to Damascus (where he also met with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah). Baffled, Hillary Clinton asked Assad why he was doing the opposite of what her government’s policy was supposed to produce. Assad responded as follows: “We have a hard time understanding Clinton, either because of a translation problem or because of our limited capabilities.” Hillary Clinton is being pushed around by Middle Eastern machos and America is being ridiculed.

(Read full post)
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