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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