The threats emanating from Syria have become downright frightening. For the past several days, Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan has been warning repeatedly that it is certain that Israeli population centers will be hit by Syrian ballistic missiles and that we have to be prepared for the worst-case scenarios, including Scud missile-launched chemical weapons attacks on Israel’s metropolitan centers.
On Wednesday, air force commander Maj.- Gen. Amir Eshel spelled out Israel’s concerns from a military perspective. The chance of war breaking out at any time is extremely high. Syria has a massive arsenal that includes advanced anti-aircraft missiles, anti-ship missiles and surface- to-surface missiles. Syria also has large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, advanced artillery as well as the other components of a large conventional military force.
Syrian President Bashar Assad is one of the most dangerous leaders in the world. He is a major supporter of terrorist groups. He enabled al-Qaida and Hezbollah to use Syria as a logistical base in their war against US forces in Iraq. He is a vassal of Iran.
He is allied with Hezbollah. He is a mass murderer.
Since the civil war began two years ago, Assad’s complete dependence on Iran and Hezbollah – as well as on Russia – has been exposed for all to see. There is little doubt that whatever checks the US was able to exert against him before the civil war began no longer exist. And if he survives in power, he will be completely indifferent to US pressure and so will behave far more violently than he did before the war began.
Moreover, everyone agrees that the conflict can spill out in two ways – ways which are not mutually exclusive.
First both the government forces and their Shi’ite allies, and well as their al-Qaida opponents, could attack Israel. Both sides have a clear interest in attacking Israel, since the one thing they all agree on is that they wish to see Israel destroyed. So as is the case for the Palestinians from all parties, for both Assad and his Shi’ite allies and his Sunni opponents, attacking Israel is a surefire way to build public support.
The second danger is that the weapons in Syria will proliferate far and wide. US officials have already admitted that they have lost track of much of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.
The party most responsible for the barbarous, protracted Syrian civil war that will almost certainly drag Israel into a regional war, is of course the Syrians themselves. But the party second most responsible for this mess is the Obama administration.
After Obama ensured that pro-Western forces would have no chance of taking over a post-Assad Syria, he allowed Russia to make matters worse. Rather than threaten Russian President Vladimir Putin in a credible way to prevent him from supplying S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, Obama sat back and did nothing to block the imminent transfer of the game-changing system to Syria.
And as Eshel warned, Syria’s advanced anti-aircraft batteries, which will threaten Israel’s air superiority, will increase in a profound way the probability that Assad will attack Israel.
In the face of American rank incompetence, Assad has already broken all the red lines he and his father followed for more than 40 years.
He has already used chemical weapons. He has proliferated advanced weaponry to Hezbollah.
And he has already attacked Israel on the Golan Heights. Now that he has already crossed all of these red lines, the only question is how much he will escalate. Equipped with the S-300, the probability that he will escalate drastically has risen precipitously.