WarSclerotic

In its 65 years, Israel has had a lot of experience in saber rattling, as it deters its enemies from war. So Israel tends to publicly flex its muscles.

That is what the Israelis did in September 1970 to prevent a Syrian invasion into Jordan. Israeli tanks were paraded in broad daylight to the Golan Heights. And, according to various reports, that was also Moshe Dayan’s tactic when reports began to emerge that Israel was arming its missiles with nuclear warheads during the first terrible days of the Yom Kippur War. To a certain degree this was also the thinking behind the sentiment raised by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Ehud Barak, to the effect that Israel was planning to single-handedly destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities — an impression that prompted the world to impose tough sanctions on the ayatollah regime in Tehran. Possibly one of the most important outcomes of that tactic was Saturday’s victory for the relatively moderate Iranian presidential candidate — Hassan Rohani.

Was this weekend’s Time magazine report suggesting that the U.S. and Israel are preparing, together with Jordan, for the possibility of military intervention in the Syrian civil war just another chapter in this type of deterrence tactic? Was it a case of making public declarations in order to avoid military action?

This weekend’s timetable was significant on a minute-by-minute basis. In one minute, the White House confirmed that Syrian President Bashar Assad had in fact crossed the U.S. red line and used chemical weapons, prompting the American administration to announce that it will assist the Syrian rebels. There are those who believe that this announcement was not the product of a scientific chemical lab test but rather a relatively angry response to criticism by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who disparaged U.S. President Barack Obama’s helplessness when it came to involvement on behalf of the Syrian rebels. A sort of internal war in America.

In any case, it is clear that if there is in fact coordination between the U.S. and Israel (and it is possible that Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon traveled to the U.S. last week for precisely that purpose), Obama has no intention of intervening in a wide offensive. He is considering imposing a no-fly zone in a 40-kilometer range so that Assad will not be able to kill refugees fleeing the war torn country with his jets, and possibly arming the rebels with relatively unsophisticated weapons. This is a value-driven development that is causing concern among the Russians and Iranians, but not something that could dramatically change the situation or bring it to an end.

In Israel the debate is raging: Which is the lesser of the evils? Assad retaining power, or being toppled by the rebels, which will soon emerge as Islamist extremists? The world views this issue as part of a wider international debate. Russia and Iran cannot accept the end of their agent Assad’s regime, while the U.S. feels a similar commitment toward the rebels, and the root of the problem is the conflicting “cannots” on either side.

The question is whether the new Iranian president — who is moderate in ayatollah terms — will lower the flames on the Syrian front as well. Such delusions, or hopes, will likely flood the Western media until the new reality becomes clear. Because after all, between Iran and Syria, and between them and the superpowers involved in the Middle East, all things influence each other.