Sunday, September 3, 2017

Lessons from the Syrian strike - Prof. Eyal Zisser




by Prof. Eyal Zisser

Jerusalem is once again seeking help from its allies -- the U.S. and Russia -- and warning them, this time about Iran gaining a foothold in Syria and turning the country into a base of operations for the Revolutionary Guard

This week will mark 10 years since the destruction of the nuclear reactor Syrian President Bashar Assad wanted to build in northern Syria, with help from North Korea. Although Israel refrained from claiming responsibility for the reactor strike, it was the Syrians who were quick to blame it on Jerusalem. Later, official American sources, notably then-President George. W. Bush, confirmed that Israel had been behind the strike on the Syrian reactor. 

Although there was concern about a Syrian reprisal, Assad avoided the risk of confronting Israel militarily and preferred to ignore the destruction of his reactor, which marked an end to his nuclear aspirations, which he had hoped would make his regime bulletproof against any domestic or foreign threat, and might even have hoped would give him full, absolute strategic balance with Israel's power. 

The fact that the Syrians attributed the 2007 strike to Israel helped rebuild Israeli deterrence, which had sustained a severe blow in the 2006 Second Lebanon War. That war ended with the other side feeling that Israel had taken a bad hit and had no effective response to Hezbollah missiles. Damascus had the same kind. 

After the 2006 war, Assad even toyed with the idea of following in the footsteps of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and green light terrorist attacks on the Golan Heights and the threat of missile volleys if Israel were to strike Syria in response. Taking out the Syrian nuclear reactor completely changed the direction in which things were headed. 

One can only imagine what would have happened in [if] Assad had managed to get a hold of nuclear weapons. After all, this is a despot who did not hesitate to use chemical weapons against his own people. Even before doing so, Assad led a war against Syrians that left nearly half a million dead and forced a third of the county's population -- some 8 million people -- to flee and seek asylum as refugees outside Syria. 

We should also remember how for years world leaders explained to Israel that it mustn't get upset about the Assad regime's stocks of chemical weapons. They argued that the Syrian regime was a rational one led by pragmatic, realistic rulers who understood the great danger of using chemical weapons and were keeping them as a method of deterrence, not for use. Israel has heard similar explanations this past decade about Iran's nuclear program. 

In his memoir, Bush describes how then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert begged him to order the U.S. military to demolish the Syrian reactor, but Bush couldn't comply with his request because the American intelligence community claimed it had no information that could confirm the Israeli claim that the Syrians were working to acquire nuclear weapons and could not, therefore, give Bush the backing he needed to order the army to attack in Syria. So Bush, rightly considered one of the friendliest U.S. presidents to Israel, was forced to leave Israel to its fate. 

This thrilling historical story is relevant to the challenges Israel is currently facing on its northern front. Jerusalem is once again seeking help from its allies -- the U.S. and Russia -- and once again it is warning them, this time about Iran gaining a foothold in Syria and turning the country into a base of operations for the Revolutionary Guard on the Mediterranean coast. This is a base that would be used to operate against Israel, or at least threaten it. 

But Russia and the U.S. are basically brushing off Israeli fears about Iran. It seems that history is repeating itself and we cannot depend on anyone, not even Israel's friends, to do our work for us.


Prof. Eyal Zisser

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19825

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