Israel may be rehearsing for Iran
CAIRO — Israel added another layer to the Middle East puzzle with airstrikes Wednesday on what was said by Western sources to be a Syrian convoy delivering weapons from besieged Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
One way to look at the Israeli attack is as a dry run for a possible airstrike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Not only was a long military checklist ticked off, but responses to the attack were undoubtedly being used to gauge what the diplomatic fallout might be if instead of hitting a suburb of Damascus, it had been a suburb of Tehran.
The Arab Spring has brought an enduring chill to Israel. The Jewish state is surrounded by more potential enemies than it has been for years. None are politically stable. All have dire economic problems.
Nevertheless, the ease with which the Israelis were able to carry out an apparently undetected, brazen, below-the-radar operation inside Syria underlined that while Assad’s army and rebels cruelly flail away at each other, Egyptians fret about civil war, and Jordanians and Lebanese confront their own political uncertainties, Israel retains a huge military advantage over any potential foes, including Iran.
Moreover, Israel has once again clearly demonstrated to its neighbours, and to the United States, that it will do what it thinks it must any time it believes it is threatened.
Israel’s next target might be Iran’s nuclear sites, if the latest word from the UN about Tehran declaring its intention to accelerate its uranium-enrichment capabilities becomes reality. The reason that Israel attacked Syria now was out of fear that Assad might resort to using chemical weapons, and an attack on Israel could shore up support for his regime and divert attention from the savage 22-month civil war. Such alarmist talk was of a piece with the gas masks that Israel has been handing out to its alarmed citizens for several days.
After Wednesday’s attack there was the usual nonsense from Syria and Iran. Damascus raged that it was “totally unacceptable.” Tehran screamed that there would be “grave consequences.” The reality, however, is that aside from a major terrorist attack — which is always a possibility — no country in the Middle East is able to touch Israel in a militarily meaningful way without suffering massive payback.
But Israel does face a growing problem for which there is no obvious answer. It can certainly protect its major interests through direct military action. But like the U.S. and other Western countries, it has become mostly a witness to the unpredictable events unfolding across the Middle East.
Israel has fewer diplomatic options than before, too. Where it once had fairly cordial relations with Egypt and Jordan, it must not now press too strongly on either front, lest its enemies in those countries raise the issue of relations with Israel to gain public support.
Egypt’s new Islamist rulers have more or less maintained the military’s previous relations with Israel, but only because that has been the only way to keep the U.S. aid spigot open. The tone now is rather different, though, with elected leaders who are far more critical of Israel than the ousted dictator, Hosni Mubarak, ever was.
There was a little good news from Cairo Thursday. For the first time ever, Egypt’s secular opposition held informal discussions with the Muslim Brotherhood about ways to stem a wave of violent demonstrations that have been threatening the country and the presidency of Islamist Mohammed Morsi. But there is still no obvious partner with whom Israel can speak.
Jordan’s King Abdullah remains more reliable. Jordan’s land border with Israel and the West Bank remain open. Royal Jordanian Airlines remains the only Arab airline landing at Tel Aviv, providing a vital link to the rest of the Middle East, as well as to Asia. While nothing like Libya or Tunisia, Abdullah faces increasing opposition at home that seriously limits his options regarding everything, including how to deal with Israel. A huge and still growing influx of unhappy refugees from Syria is not helping, either.
While what is happening in Egypt and Jordan are causing serious unease in Israel, Syria and its Iranian allies are regarded as much larger and proximate problems. With Syria’s Assad increasingly boxed in, ruthless and unpredictable, and his Hezbollah allies undoubtedly keen to get as many weapons as they can from him now, there may be more dry runs over Damascus to prepare Israeli pilots for a more complicated operation against Iran.