Israel Rewrites Rules of Game To Deal With Syria
Prime Minister Netanyahu is grappling with the profound strategic challenges posed by the potential disintegration of Syria, including dealing with chemical weapons and the prospects for a regional conflict, writes Ben Caspit.
When big, historic structures disintegrate, laws are written anew. When familiar frameworks break up, rules change. This, more or less, is what’s happening now in the Middle East. This, more or less, is what’s happening now between Israel and what’s left of its neighbors.
The attack, attributed to Israel, on a target or targets in Syria was meant, allegedly, to prevent “balance altering” weapons from reaching Hezbollah. The thing is that “balance” is a vague term in the current Mideast, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad waging a desperate fight for his life, Syria disintegrating into pieces, Iran conducting a covert war against the rest of the world, Hezbollah sticking out its tongue at Israel in Iran’s name, and the earth is quaking.
Looking at the big picture, one can assume that Israel is now trying to shape new rules of play, as it goes. It’s trying to clarify what’s permissible, what’s forbidden, where the red line runs.
The amount of Syria’s “balance altering” weaponry, strategic and non-conventional, can support all of the world’s terror organizations, whoever and wherever they are. It’s an “Aladdin’s cave” laden with treasures of the kind that a run-of-the-mill terrorist generally hasn’t a hope of encountering. Large stockpiles of quality chemical weapons, chemical warheads that can be mounted onto improved Scud missiles, probably a certain biological weapons capability, batteries of sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles, the latest in Russian technology, batteries of ground-to-sea missiles capable of hitting war ships at sea or distant drilling platforms, and on top of it all knowhow, a lot of know-how, production, assembly and launch capabilities, worth more than their weight in gold. There is no way that Israel can afford to let this treasure trove be breached and distributed on Main Street to any and all takers.
