There Are No Good Guys In The Syrian Civil War

Reuters reported today that Israel notified the United States after it carried out two air strikes in Syria–not before.

The article reports:

Israeli jets bombed Syria on Sunday for the second time in 48 hours. Israel does not confirm such missions explicitly – a policy it says is intended to avoid provoking reprisals. But an Israeli official acknowledged that the strikes were carried out by its forces.

“It would not be unusual for them to take aggressive steps when there was some chance that some sophisticated weapons system would fall into the hands of people like Hezbollah,” the U.S. intelligence official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israel is much closer to the war in Syria than America and has a much more vital interest. Bashar al-Assad is aligned with Hezbollah, a terrorist organization sponsored by Iran which frequently fires rockets at Israel from various locations. It is suspected that the rockets Israel stopped might eventually wind up in Lebanon aimed at Israel.

The article further reports:

Rather than an attempt to tip the scales against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Israel’s action is seen more as part of its own conflict with Iran, which it fears is sending missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Syria. Those missiles might hit Tel Aviv if Israel makes good on threats to attack Tehran’s nuclear program.

Another Western intelligence source told Reuters the latest attack, like the previous one, was directed against stores of Fateh-110 missiles in transit from Iran to Hezbollah.

Israel has made it clear that it will take action to prevent Iran from going nuclear. It is in the interest of Israel to make sure that if it attacks Iran the allies of Iran that surround Israel have a few rockets as possible.

The war in Syria is a civil war, but it is also a war between terrorists. Hezbollah supports Bashar al-Assad, a Shiite, and many of the rebels have ties to Al Qaeda, which tends Sunni (the majority population of Saudi Arabia). The problem with the war is that if America gets involved, both sides will unite and turn against the ‘infidels.’ At the present time the Obama Administration is said to be negotiating with some of the ‘moderate’ rebels, but there are some serious questions as to how much power the moderates have with the rebels. If America chooses to arm the rebels, we could be shipping arms to Syria that will be used against American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the very near future. Our best bet is to do anything we can to get innocent civilians out of Syria and let the terrorists fight it out among themselves. Israel has more of a reason to get involved because Hezbollah is already sending rockets against her, and because Israel will be directly involved regardless of who wins. It is in Israel’s best interests to limit the number of rockets going from Iran to Syria so as to limit the number of rockets that will be coming in their direction when both sides stop fighting each other.

This attack on the rockets heading for Syria could be seen as a backdoor attack on Iran or as a warning to Iran. I suspect there will be retaliation against Israel and further action by Israel. By making it public that America was not notified until after the attack, it is quite possible that Hezbollah terrorist cells in America will not be activated in response.

 

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