An Interesting Piece
By Alastair Crooke
Asia Times
"Slight but highly significant movements are taking place in the Middle East. There's Turkey's shift in focus away from the United States and the European Union, a weakening "southern tier" - Saudi Arabia and Egypt - and a growing realization that US-led sanctions on Iran will fail. But the most significant change will follow calculated new Israeli revelations regarding Syrian nuclear projects.....
Does this piece truly reflect Israeli thinking? We do not know; but Fishman certainly is well connected. Does the Israeli security establishment really conceive that the road to military action against Iran passes through Damascus? For those who recall the tacit support given by Europe and the US to Israel's 2007 surprise military attack on Syria, Fishman's scenario is not as unlikely as it may seem.
That earlier episode could easily have escalated to a wider war. More likely is that this is but one of a number of "game changing" scenarios that Israel is considering, but which ultimately all have Iran as the "end game".
In the past, Israel's political parties of the right had a reputation for conceiving unconventional military actions, which sought to transform and invert the political paradigm of that time. Such actions did not always wait on, or seek, a US "green light". There was not direct collusion with the US. Israeli leaders looked more to the direction of the political wind in Washington. It was viewed by Israelis historically as finding a creative way to help a US president "get to yes" - to borrow Obama's own phraseology - by creating the public support and momentum to let a US president feel pulled forward by sentiment from a need to "hold Israel back".
Is a new scandal of Iranian nuclear malfeasance and proliferation into Syria to serve as the pretext? Will a repeat of the 2007 air strikes on Syria lead to a wider conflict? Does the Israeli leadership think to ease Obama out of his Iran dilemma, by using the supposed "provocation" of a "Syrian-Iranian nuclear partnership" for a widening conflict? Perhaps we should beware these December "winds"? "
By Alastair Crooke
Asia Times
"Slight but highly significant movements are taking place in the Middle East. There's Turkey's shift in focus away from the United States and the European Union, a weakening "southern tier" - Saudi Arabia and Egypt - and a growing realization that US-led sanctions on Iran will fail. But the most significant change will follow calculated new Israeli revelations regarding Syrian nuclear projects.....
Does this piece truly reflect Israeli thinking? We do not know; but Fishman certainly is well connected. Does the Israeli security establishment really conceive that the road to military action against Iran passes through Damascus? For those who recall the tacit support given by Europe and the US to Israel's 2007 surprise military attack on Syria, Fishman's scenario is not as unlikely as it may seem.
That earlier episode could easily have escalated to a wider war. More likely is that this is but one of a number of "game changing" scenarios that Israel is considering, but which ultimately all have Iran as the "end game".
In the past, Israel's political parties of the right had a reputation for conceiving unconventional military actions, which sought to transform and invert the political paradigm of that time. Such actions did not always wait on, or seek, a US "green light". There was not direct collusion with the US. Israeli leaders looked more to the direction of the political wind in Washington. It was viewed by Israelis historically as finding a creative way to help a US president "get to yes" - to borrow Obama's own phraseology - by creating the public support and momentum to let a US president feel pulled forward by sentiment from a need to "hold Israel back".
Is a new scandal of Iranian nuclear malfeasance and proliferation into Syria to serve as the pretext? Will a repeat of the 2007 air strikes on Syria lead to a wider conflict? Does the Israeli leadership think to ease Obama out of his Iran dilemma, by using the supposed "provocation" of a "Syrian-Iranian nuclear partnership" for a widening conflict? Perhaps we should beware these December "winds"? "
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