WarSclerotic

Strategic value of shock and shush raids – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Analysis: Israeli airstrikes expose inherent weakness of its enemies, emptiness of their threats

Riccardo Dugulin

During the last couple of weeks, the concept of “shock and shush” has been widely discussed. The Israeli strategy of conducting surgical strikes against top tier targets is not a new one, but it has gained an incredible amount of attention due to the alleged targeting of military objectives inside Syria.

Since 1967 and most importantly since the elimination of the Iraqi nuclear threat, the Israeli Air Force has played a central role in the defense of the Jewish State by enhancing its power projection capabilities.

It is clear to anyone that since 1948, Israel has been living in a tough neighborhood where bigger and numerically far superior states and organizations have been merging forces in order to attack and harm the Jewish state. With greater national cohesion, technically superior weaponry and well-crafted tactics Israel has been able to rebuke its enemies each time they attempted to endanger its existence. One of the essential traits of the strategy used in almost all major engagements has been the element of surprise and the flexibility of the Israeli ground and air forces with the common objective of seizing the initiative and depriving the enemy of its capacity to dictate the course and the tempo of its actions.

The current strategy of strikes against key military assets of the Syrian regime is once again successful in depriving the enemies of Israel of the ability to coordinate any offensive action that may harm the Jewish state.

By conducting raids when it deems necessary to, the Jewish State issues a clear warning based on two points. On the one hand, it is made clear that the military superiority of the Israeli Defense Forces is close to absolute. The ability to control the air and to gather necessary information sets Israel above any of its regional adversaries.

Control public discourse

On the other hand, Israel exposes the inherent weakness and emptiness of its enemies’ threats. Regardless of the arrogance any of the regional regime shows in its taunts against the Jewish state, their inability to defend themselves and to respond in a conventional, state-led fashion represents their military inferiority and the shallowness of their propaganda.

It also, and maybe this represents the true added value of such raids, creates a sentiment of constant vulnerability in the hearts of the Syrian military planners, a message which does not remain unread by the cadre of Hezbollah nor by the Iranian regime.

The secrecy of these operations, their effectiveness and the overall inability to retaliate against them creates a situation in which Israel’s enemies are left drowsy while their tactical and strategic plans are constantly altered and their assets diminished.

These attacks are also successful in frustrating leaders and organizations which for the last decades have been boasting their anti-Israeli initiatives. While Arab states along with Iran and regional terrorist organizations have stepped up their rhetoric against the Jewish State, their effective ability to surprise Israel in a strategic attack has diminished.

This does not mean that Israeli citizens are no longer under the threat of terrorism and random rocket fire. In fact, the opposite is true.

Since, conventional and semi-conventional techniques are bound to fail, the enemies of Israel are increasingly feeling like they are pushed in the ropes. At these moments, like in a boxing game, the inferior fighter is likely to use low blows or illegal techniques to delay as much as possible the fatidic moment where his situation will be irreversible. In fact, if a coordinated response to these “shock and shush” raids may not happen, Syria and Iran are likely to step up their support for paramilitary and non-state organization.

Surprise raids and single strikes should nevertheless be considered a double edged sword for Israel. As it had been the case in the early days of the Israeli intervention in Lebanon in 2006, the Israeli ability to target enemy infrastructure pushes the latter to increasingly dissimulate its materiel and adopt non-conventional tactics putting at risk the life of civilians. In this sense, Israel may fall victim to its own success. In fact, the ability to target high value objectives does not in itself eliminate the threat posed by terrorist organizations and enemy states. The deterrence created by those strikes should not be overplayed as they do not inflict irreversible damage to the enemy, leaving its will to harm Israel almost intact. In other words they are useful to contain, not defeat, an enemy.

Since Israel’s independence, the Israeli Defense Forces have exploited the element of surprise and the rapidity of small unit /commando style actions act as a force multiplier. As the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians learnt in 1967, Assad and Hezbollah are currently experiencing Israel’s ability to strike any target it deems a strategic one. This is the reason why the Hamas leadership remains bunkered under a civilian hospital or why Hezbollah maintains its weapons hidden in villages.

For this situation to be possible, Israel needs to keep and develop two key assets: Its ability to collect and assess vital intelligence regarding its neighbors’ activities and a command and control structure which enables swift, rational and democratic decision making.

In addition to that, the governmental institutions need to outline a clear strategy to control the public discourse. In the era of mass communication, this last point is essential, as if it is badly handled it can deprive Israel of a part of its strategic advantage.

Riccardo Dugulin holds a Master degree from the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences Po) and is specialized in International Security. He is currently working in Paris for a medical and security assistance company. He has worked for a number of leading think tanks in Washington DC, Dubai and Beirut. Personal website: www.riccardodugulin.com

Russian military aid to Syria: Burning questions and answers – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

What are the new missile systems Russia is supplying to the Assad regime and how will they affect the region? Anshel Pfeffer breaks it down.

By Anshel Pfeffer | May.19, 2013 | 1:16 PM | 1

A file photo of a Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile system on display in an undisclosed location in Russia. Photo by AP

What are the new missile systems that Russia is reportedly supplying to Syria?

Two systems. One, the S-300, is an advanced version of the air-defense system originally designed in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and further developed in the 1990s. The S-300 has several advantages over the older Soviet-era anti-air batteries Syria already uses. First, the range of its radar and missiles allows it to hit targets at ranges of up to 200 kilometers. Second, the system uses different types of radar and command-and-control systems, which allow it to “engage” dozens of targets simultaneously. In addition, the system is fully mobile, carried on heavy road vehicles, making it harder to detect and destroy.

There were a number of reports in recent years regarding a possible delivery of S-300 batteries to both Syria and Iran, but the Russians responded to Israeli and American requests and froze the deal. Now they are speaking of “completing the deal” though they have yet to clarify when exactly they plan to ship the two batteries ordered to Syria.

The second system is the P-800 Yakhont, an anti-shipping cruise missile that entered Russian service about 13 years ago. The Yakhont is capable of flying at more than twice the speed of sound and delivering a 250 kg warhead against targets at sea at ranges of up to 300 kilometers.

In 2011, Russia already supplied Syria with two coastal-defense batteries, including 72 Yakhont missiles; now it is talking about supplying an advanced radar, which would greatly improve their accuracy.

What will the new missile systems change in the region?

The presence of these systems in Syria will make it more difficult (but not impossible) for Israel or any Western army to carry out air strikes on Syrian targets or to bombard or invade it by sea.

The S-300 will also threaten fighter jets using stand-off missiles (precision munitions that are launched at a distance of 40-50 kilometers from the target, enabling the fighter to evade most anti-aircraft systems) used by Israel, the United States and other air forces. The system also has a limited ability to hit ballistic missiles.

The Yakhont could limit the operations of Israeli and Western warships off the coast of Syria and make a sea-borne operation against it or Lebanon much more risky. The long range of the cruise missile could also threaten Israeli offshore rigs drilling in natural gas fields.

Can Israel’s military deal with these missiles?

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, the former commander of the army’s Military Intelligence said over the weekend that the Israel Air Force can deal with the S-300. There have been reports in the foreign press that Israeli pilots have trained against S-300 systems used by allies such as Cyprus, Greece and Azerbaijan, and developed evasion tactics. Israel carried out at least three major strikes against Syria in recent years and succeeded in breaching Syria’s significant anti-aircraft defenses. If the S-300 is indeed added to these systems, it would make a future mission more difficult but not thwart it. (The possible supply of the S-300 to Iran would be more problematic as the IAF cannot send a large number of fighter and electronic-warfare planes to distant Iran as it can to neighboring Syria.)

At sea, the Israel Navy has greatly upgraded its missile defense capabilities since the 2006 Second Lebanon War, when a Chinese anti-shipping missile fired from the Lebanese coast by Iranian Revolutionary Guards hit INS Hanit. Among other innovations, Israeli missile boats are now equipped with the Barak8 anti-missile system. Yakhont would add a new threat to the naval battlefield but not one that would prevent Israeli ships from operating near the Syrian shore.

What are the chances the missiles will actually be supplied to the Assad regime?

Syria already has the Yakhont, which is most likely stationed around the port of Tartus on the Mediterranean coast. Since this is the heart of the relatively calm Alawite region, it is likely that the system is already fully operational and there are probably Russian technicians and officers there to advise Syrian forces on their use. The Russian presence, however, may limit the use of the missiles by the Syrians.

As for the S-300, the situation is murkier. Senior Russian officials have said in recent days that they plan to complete the deal, which was signed in 2007 and suspended in 2010. It is unclear though where the batteries will come from since the company manufacturing the S-300 announced last year it is shutting down the assembly line. Russia could supply Syria with used batteries from its own armed forces.

The critical issue is the capability of the Syrian army, which has been seriously degraded by two years of civil war and tens of thousands of defections – and even before the war, it lacked the resources to put an advanced system that includes three different kinds of radar to operational use in a relevant time frame. It is hard to see the Syrians carry out that type of technological mission in their current state. One possible solution would be supplying the S-300 with a team of Russian operators and “advisers” (which would also give the batteries an insurance of sorts from bombing), but it is highly unlikely that Russia would endanger its officers in the Syrian warzone.

So why is there such a high level of concern over these missiles?

Well, it isn’t entirely clear why Israel has made such a fuss about them in recent days or whether Benjamin Netanyahu’s rushed visit to President Vladimir Putin was justified, or even had much chance of success. (According to some reports, it was Putin who summoned Netanyahu to warn him over further strikes against Syria).

It is highly likely that a lot of what we have been hearing over the last few days has been spin serving various agendas. Netanyahu, like many others in the Israeli government and defense establishment, is extremely worried that jihadist rebels will take over Syria and that they, or Assad’s allies Hezbollah, will obtain advanced and chemical weapons. Despite the massacre of Syrian citizens, some in Israel seem to prefer that the Assad regime hold on for as long as possible. The news of the missile supplies could strengthen Assad’s hand by underscoring the fact that he is still receiving significant Russian backing.

The reported presence of advanced missiles in Syria will also boost the case of those in Washington who continue to oppose military intervention. They have argued for a while that Syria possesses much stronger air and sea defenses than the Gadhafi regime did in Libya, and that, therefore, an attack could be extremely costly. The recent strikes attributed to Israel have eroded this argument, but the appearance of the S-300 in the region could bolster them again.

Of course, those with the most to gain from the recent reports (besides the Assad regime naturally) are the Russians, who want to demonstrate to the West (and Israel) that they have not given up on Assad and that as far as they are concerned, a Western strike against him also would be an attack on Russia’s interests.

But why are the Russians still backing Assad?

The reports on possible missile shipments are part of a wider move by Russia to show its support for Assad. This includes a large naval exercise in which 11 Russian warships have converged in recent days in the eastern Mediterranean, not far from Syria’s shore. It is the Russian Navy’s largest maneuver in the Mediterranean since the fall of the Soviet Union more than two decades ago.

The Russians have a clear interest in Assad’s survival. He is the last secular head of state in the Arab world who isn’t considered an ally of the U.S. administration or a supporter of radical Islamist movements that are also threatening Russia’s eastern provinces. Assad is the last recognizable agent of Russian influence in the Middle East, and despite his closeness to the Iranian-Shia axis over the past decade, his current dire situation puts him at Moscow’s mercy.

The Russian Navy has a long-term lease for use of Syria’s Tartus port and is the only Russian military presence currently in the Mediterranean basin. Even if the regime in Damascus falls, an Alawite rump state would probably remain for a while along the coast, with Tartus at its heart. Both Assad and the Russians have a joint strategic interest in defending that bit of coast.

PM: Israel will keep stopping weapons transfer to Hezbollah | JPost | Israel News.

Netanyahu: We’ll continue to halt Syrain arms transfers | The Times of Israel.

With northern border heating up, prime minister says Israel ‘has acted responsibly’ and remains undeterred by Assad’s bluster

Benjamin Netanyahu (center), arriving at a cabinet meeting in March. (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Amid escalating rhetoric between Jerusalem and Damascus in the wake of reported Israeli airstrikes in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Sunday to continue to act to prevent advanced weaponry from being transferred to Lebanese terror group Hezbollah via Syria.

“The Israeli government has acted responsibly and prudently to ensure the security of Israeli citizens and to prevent advanced weapons from reaching Hezbollah and [other] terrorist organizations… and we will do so in the future,” Netanyahu said during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

“The Middle East is in one of its most sensitive periods in decades, primarily Syria,” the prime minister added. “We are monitoring the changes there closely and are prepared for any scenario.”

On Sunday, the Times of London reported that Syria had trained long-range missiles on Tel Aviv, to be used if Israel violates Syrian territory. Israeli jets reportedly struck sites near Damascus twice earlier in May, aiming to stop the transfer of advanced Fateh-110 missiles to the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.

Netanyahu’s remarks come after several days of increased tension between Israel and Syria. On Saturday, Syrian President Bashar Assad accused Israel of backing and providing support to rebel factions, contradicting top defense official Amos Gilad, who on Friday stated that Israel was not seeking to topple Assad.

Israel, which never officially took responsibility for the strikes, has said it will continue to act to stop weapons transfers, and even threatened to topple the regime in Damascus should Assad hit Israel. Syria, for its part, has warned that it would retaliate if attacked again.

Last week, Russia said it would go ahead with the sale of advanced S-300 anti-missile systems to Syria, despite Israeli protests, which included a personal visit by Netanyahu to Moscow to discuss the issue. The sale is seen by military analysts as making Israeli sorties into Syrian airspace much more difficult, and as complicating the possibility of an imposed no-fly zone over Syria by outside powers, as was done over Libya during the civil war there in 2011.

Moscow also sent a number of warships to the Mediterranean in what was seen as a warning to Israel not to hit Syria again. Russia has long maintained a major naval port in Syria.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

Hezbollah fighters head to strategic Aleppo town as fighting rages – Alarabiya.net English | Front Page.

Battles raged in Qusayr between fighters from the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah and the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), as activists reported the killing of at least 10 Hezbollah members.

Sources told Al Arabiya early Sunday morning that Hezbollah fighters are reportedly heading to Qusayr, located in the central Homs province.

The town is a strategic boon to the rebels, AFP said. The opposition uses it as a base from which to block the main road from Damascus to the coast, impeding military movement and supply chains.

Bashar al-Assad’s forces, backed by Hezbollah fighters, continue to battle the rebels in order to gain full control over the city.

Qusayr is very close to the Lebanese-Syrian border.

According to Al Arabiya, a battalion of opposition fighters had earlier set a trap along the banks of the Assi river on the Syrian side of the Lebanese border. The battle saw the deaths of at least 10 Hezbollah fighters and wounded dozens more as they attempted to enter Syrian territory.

Activists told AFP on Saturday that Qusayr is surrounded by government forces on three sides, and approximately 25,000 residents are believed to still be in the city.

A military source told AFP last week that the Syrian army dropped leaflets over Qusayr warning civilians to leave before an attack is launched on the rebels who are allegedly holding the town and won’t surrender.

Report: Assad preparing missile strike against Tel Aviv in case Israel attacks Syria again – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

The Syrian army is deploying advanced surface-to-surface missiles aiming at Israel in the aftermath of the alleged Israeli strikes, The Sunday Times reports.

Syria is making preparations to strike Tel Aviv in case Israel launches another attack on its territory, The Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

The Syrian army has begun deploying advanced surface-to-surface missiles, the report said, adding that it has received orders to strike central Israel in case additional attacks against Syria are carried out.

The Sunday Times said that the information was obtained by reconnaissance satellites that were tracking the Syrian forces. According to the report, Syria was deploying advanced Tishreen missiles which are capable of carrying a holf-ton warhead.

Israel, foreign media reported, was behind three attacks against targets in Syria in the past five months. The air raids, it was said, targeted shipments of weapons heading to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Israel refused to officially confirm the recent attacks.

On Wednesday, The New York Times quoted a senior Israeli official warning of further attacks against Syria in case Bashar Assad decides to take action against Israel. The official also said Israel is determined to prevent any transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that Syria would supply his organization with ‘game-changing weapons‘ in response to recent air raids near Damascus attributed to Israel.

Israel caught in the middle as U.S. and Russia clash over Syria’s future – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

The conflict of interests between the U.S. and Russia over Syria is closely linked to an issue that has recently slipped down the priority ranks but is expected to take center stage again soon – the Iranian nuclear program.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Photo by Reuters

The recent developments in Syria have been overshadowed by the direct clash of interests between the United States and Russia, in which Israel plays a minor, if inadvertent, role.

While Washington continues to hesitate over the degree of force needed to affect regime change in Damascus, Moscow, which does not believe that toppling Syrian President Bashar Assad will necessarily benefit the Syrian people, continues to warn against its possible replacement by a Sunni extremist government.

On the strategic level, even after the publication of images of the latest atrocities in Syria and the new accusations of use of chemical weapons, Russia has two goals: To keep the regime in place for as long as possible, since it maintains its hold on Tartus as Moscow’s private port in the Mediterranean Sea, and to subvert U.S. influence in the region.

At the same time that it prepares to host an international conference on Syria in June, Russia finds it comfortable to also flex its muscles over the three aerial strikes in Syrian territory that have been attributed in the foreign media to Israel. That is the reason for the current talk of deliveries, not yet completed as far as is known, of Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to persuade the Russians to halt the deal signaled the start of a new war of leaks between Washington and Moscow. Every day a different U.S. news outlet receives information about the worrying scope of Russian assistance to Assad’s regime. Of particular concern to Israel, in addition to the S-300 surface-to-air missiles, are an advanced version of the high-precision Yakhont shore-to-ship missiles and the punched-up presence of Russian warships in the waters surrounding Tartus.

There is probably little Israel can do to scotch the Russian-Syrian arms deal. Even assuming that Iran will keep prodding Assad to help it in getting armaments to Hezbollah, Israel may have already used up most of its ammunition. The temptation to intervene militarily to halt munitions smuggling is always great: Intelligence officials will say they have precise information and cannot promise the same quality of intelligence after the advanced weapons systems have crossed the border into Lebanon. The pressure on the leadership to approve additional operations targeting arms shipments will be significant.

On the other hand, there’s no guarantee that the paralysis that gripped Assad after the previous strikes will continue forever. A senior Israeli official responded in The New York Times on Wednesday to Syrian and Hezbollah threats to take action against Israel after the third strike, in late April, with a direct threat to take down the Assad regime. But that is not what Israel wants. Among the myriad dispiriting options in Syria it is the current situation, however unappealing, that is presumably the least terrible.

On Saturday, The Times of London reported a senior Israeli intelligence official as saying that Assad was preferable to the rebels. Former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy, writing in Foreign Affairs earlier this month, even went so far as to call Assad “Israel’s man in Damascus.”

Iran: The next chapter

The complex political battle surrounding Syria is closely linked to another issue, one that seems to have slipped down the priority ranks slightly in the past few months, namely Iran’s nuclear program. It’s been some months since Israel has explicitly threatened to attack Iran. The lull is partly due to the wintry weather, thought to further complicate aerial strikes on that country. It might also be linked to understandings reached between Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama during the latter’s March visit to Israel.

But that doesn’t mean the Iran chapter is behind us. It’s only a delay, until next month’s presidential election in Iran. America told Israel: Let’s wait for the election. If the ayatollahs’ regime tries to skew the results, as in 2009, perhaps another “green revolution” will break out in Iran, and perhaps this time it will, with inspiration from the Arab Spring, be more effective.

And even if the Iranian regime does survive, as is likely, the political and economic pressure on the country might finally convince the country’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to at least consider temporarily suspending the nuclear program in exchange for an easing of the international sanctions. If nothing happens, Washington has hinted, perhaps we will need to take direct action against Iran on our own.

Israel does not entirely trust this veiled promise from the United States, mainly in light of the White House’s embarrassing hesitancy over Syria and limp response to North Korea’s nuclear muscle-flexing. The Obama administration has been caught up in a series of public-relation disasters since the start of the president’s second term. All of this must suggest to Netanyahu that once again he has been left to fix the Iranian nuclear problem alone.

The prime minister will certainly not take comfort in a new report released on Friday by the Rand Corporation, that dares to ask the question that must not be raised in polite society: What will the region look like after Iran achieves nuclear capabilities? The veteran U.S. think tank, which often works for the government, says that obtaining nuclear weapons will further Iran’s national security goals, deter Israel and the United States from an attack in Iran, lead to greater instability in the region and increase the likelihood of war, whether by accident or as the result of a series of misunderstandings between Tehran and Jerusalem.

All of the obstacles that stood in the way of an Israeli attack on Iran last year will be relevant this year as well: The Obama administration is opposed to unilateral action from Israel, technocrats in Israel are against it, and there is a new, political obstacle in the form of Netanyahu’s main coalition partner in the new government, Finance Minister Yair Lapid. Lapid’s civil and economic agenda has no room for war with Iran. Nevertheless, it’s a safe bet that within a month, after the dust of the Iranian election settles, the issue of the ayatollahs’ nukes will once again claim center stage.

Assad accuses Israel of supporting ‘terror groups’ in Syria | JPost | Israel News.

Muddled Israeli-US policies on Assad set stage for Golan offensive against Israel.

( One of the darker readings of the conflicting and confusing press coverage of Syria.  Some of it I agree with.  I don’t agree with it’s conclusions because I believe Netanyahu is way ahead of debka, me or anybody else who writes on the subject. – JW )

Fox News: Israeli commandos returning from Syria.

Four days after a “senior Israeli official” warned Assad through The New York Times of Wednesday, May 15 that he risks forfeiting power if he retaliates for Israeli attacks on weapons supplies to terrorists, “Israeli officials” were telling the London Times of Saturday, May 18 something quite different: “An intact, but weakened, Assad regime would be preferable,” they said. “Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if… extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there.”

The night before this report, Fox News aired footage appearing to show Israeli commandos inside Syria racing back on foot to Israeli territory.

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Without going into whether the two sets of “Israeli officials” were one and the same, their utterances are clearly making Israel’s policy-makers and defense leaders look muddled and uncertain – or, worse, unable to think clearly – about how to cope with the menace building up on the Syrian Golan. This could take the form of a Syrian war of attrition and/or a Hizballah offensive against Upper and Western Galilee.
At all events, the Syrian civil conflict appears poised ready to spill over to one or more of its neighbors, starting with Israel as a result of six factors:

1. President Barack Obama’s inability to make up his mind on whether the US should intervene militarily in Syria – even in a limited way, such as the imposition of no-fly zones or finding a way to supply non-Islamist Syrian rebel groups with sorely needed weapons.
2.  The US president’s refusal to recognize that chemical weapons have already been used in Syria. His reaction to the file put before him in the White House Friday, May 17, by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan – with evidence from physicians treating wounded Syrians – remained dismissive. “The US has seen evidence of chemical weapons being used in Syria,” he said, adding however, “it is important to get more specific details about alleged chemical attacks.”
This comment was interpreted as the US president’s acceptance of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian war so long as it was on a limited scale. Obama, like Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, has therefore waved away another red line for military intervention in the Syria conflict, by closing his eyes to the evidence.

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Former Israeli defense minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was more realistic last week when he brusquely brushed aside a radio interviewer’s query by saying: Of course, Assad has used chemical weapons and isn’t it obvious that he has already transferred to Hizballah both chemical substances and other advanced weapons?
3.  Following again in American footsteps, Israel failed to prevent Russia sending advanced S-300 anti-air and Yakhont anti-ship missiles to the Assad regime – both improved versions which were outfitted with sophisticated radar to improve their range and precision.
When Netanyahu was challenged with failing in this mission in his May 14 trip to buttonhole Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, he said only that he would “travel wherever is needed and talk to whoever is needed to keep Israel safe and secure.”
This was the closest he came to admitting that he had fallen down on his efforts for keeping advanced Russian weaponry out of Syrian hands.
4. Strategic errors, which may turn out to be irreversible, because they emanated from faulty assessments shared by Israel and the Obama administration of the strengths on the Syrian battlefield. To this day, the US, Israel and Turkey cling to the belief that Assad’s days are numbered and refuse to recognize the steady advances made by the Syrian army in its counter-offensive for dislodging the rebels from land they captured in more than two years of combat.
5. This misreading of the Syrian ruler’s survivability is part and parcel of the omission by Obama, Netanyahu and Erdogan to appreciate and counter two major strategic changes overtaking the region:

a)  They stood aside as Moscow, Tehran and Hizballah deepened their military commitments to Assad’s fight for survival – starting with the arrival of Russian military personnel in Syria to man the sophisticated missiles supplied by Moscow until Syrian crews were instructed in their use.
They didn’t raise a finger to interfere with the almost daily Russian and Iranian air lifts to Syrian air bases of complete brigades of elite Hizballah fighters and thousands of Iranian Bassij militiamen who now control key war sectors.

Washington Jerusalem and even Jordan sat on their hands when 3,000 Iraqi members of the Asai’b al-Haq (League of the Righteous) and Kataib Hizballah poured across the border into Syria to support Assad’s war on the Syrian rebellion.
b)  Because they kept their distance from all these strategic game-changers in and around Syria, the US and Israel lost their chance to break up the Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah alliance. This objective the Obama administration once offered as his priority and the pretext for avoiding military action against a nuclear Iran.

What Washington achieved by its hands-off stance on Syria was the very opposite: Instead of weakening the triple alliance, Obama has allowed it to be bolstered by Russian and Iraqi increments.
It is no wonder, therefore, that Moscow, Tehran, Damascus and Hizballah are behaving like winners and gearing up for the next stage of the Syrian war, which, if Tehran and Hizballah have their way, will evolve into a war of attrition against Israel waged from the Syrian Golan.
The opening shot was fired Wednesday, May 15 by a Palestinian terrorist front under Syrian, Iranian and Hizballah tutelage, which shelled an Israeli military observation post on Mt. Hermon. This attack drew no direct Israeli response – par for the course.
6. A war of attrition against Israel from the Golan would not be a new experience either for Damascus or Moscow. In 1974, from March to May, Syrian forces, refusing to accept the defeat of their 1973 offensive against Israel, launched a harsh war of attrition from the same enclave, on the advice of their Soviet patron. In what became know as “the little war,” Syrian forces kept Israeli Golan under heavy shelling barrages and tried repeatedly to capture Mt Hermon.
The big secret of that short-lived conflict was the deployment by the Soviet Union of two Cuban armored brigades on the Golan front against Israel, airlifted in from Angola. All the same, Damascus was forced to accept a ceasefire on Golan which was observed from that day on until the present.
This time, the big difference is that Moscow can leave the heavy-lifting for a limited war on Israel to Tehran and Hizballah.

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Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah in one of his fiery speeches expressed eagerness to make the Golan his new front for war on Israel. And Friday, May 17, it was reported in Tehran that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had entrusted Al Qods Brigades commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani with the task of sending troops to the Golan to embark on hostilities against Israel.
Once they begin, it will be hard to stop the violence from spreading to Israel’s borders with Lebanon, from Syria into Turkey and from Jordan into Syria and Iraq.

Syrian rebels: Dozens hurt in chemical weapons attack in Damascus neighborhood | The Times of Israel.

Assad forces dropped chemically laced mortars near capital, according to reports; Free Syrian Army says it killed 4 Iranian, 7 Hezbollah men

By Times of Israel staff May 18, 2013, 2:01 pm

A victim of an alleged chemical attack in Jobar, Syria, in April. (Screenshot via YouTube)

Assad forces used chemical weapons-laced mortars in a Damascus neighborhood, injuring dozens, claimed the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Saturday according to the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya channel.

Dozens of people were being treated for respiratory difficulties, according to reports.

The channel also reiterated reports by the BBC Thursday that chemical weapons were used in Saraqib in Idlib province on April 29.

Two helicopters dropped devices on the town, which is located southwest of Aleppo, as it came under bombardment from regime forces, the report said.

Doctors at a local hospital said that they treated eight people who had breathing problems or constricted pupils. One woman, Maryam Khatib, died of her injuries, while her son Mohammed  was reportedly injured when he rushed to attend to her.

A doctor who treated Khatib said her symptoms were similar to poisoning caused by organophosphates, ingredients used in nerve gases and insecticides.

Her son told the BBC’s Ian Pannell that there was a “horrible, suffocating smell” and that he lost his eyesight for three or four days.

The following edited video purports to show the aftermath of the mortar attack in the city.

Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition claimed it killed four Iranian men in an attack on their convoy on Friday, as well as seven Hezbollah gunmen who had joined Assad forces in the city of al-Qusayr in Homs province.

Eighteen Hezbollah men were killed in that city last month.

On Wednesday, UK Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman stated that chemical weapons had been used in at least two attacks in Syria.

The US government has intimated that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime against its own people would potentially constitute the crossing of a “red line” for possible military intervention. Still, US President Barack Obama claimed two weeks ago that the intelligence about the use of chemical weapons in Syria was insufficient.

The Syrian government and opposition forces have both blamed each other for an attack in Aleppo in March and another in Homs in December 2012 in which chemical weapons were allegedly used.

Earlier in May the UN panel looking into war crimes in Syria backed down from a claim it had made that rebel forces used chemical weapons.

Syria has asked the UN to investigate only the Aleppo attack, whereas UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon insists on investigating both incidents, creating a sticking point that has so far prevented an inquiry from proceeding.

The UN estimates that the two-year Syrian war has claimed over 80,000 lives, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights putting that figure at 94,000.

Stuart Winer contributed to this report.