Peloni: Brig Gen.(Res.) Yossi Kuperwasser weigh in with Prof. Russel Berman & Amir Oren on the significance of the Syrian conflict with regards to Israel as Iran and Turkey battle for dominance, and what we should focus on going forwrad.
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@Raphael
Syria is overrun by two super powers, one of which (Russia) has no other regional position outside of Syria, and this foreign occupation is a direct consequence of Syrian weakness, ruled by Assad. In fact, Hezbollah’s decimation is what triggered the Rebels to strike at this moment and is intimately associated with the success of the Rebels. Keeping a weak leader in place in the Middle East is sort of like trying to use water ballons in base ball. Only the strong, or at least those perceived to be strong, will survive, and Assad doesn’t qualify and hasn’t for over a decade in this regard, which is why he has foreign armies crisscrossing his nation.
The thing which makes this statement inaccurate is that Turkey is not on the cusp of becoming a member of the Nuclear States Club. Indeed, Turkey’s relative conventional status has no relevance in comparison to Iran’s nuclear program, and Iran’s nuclear program is exactly what makes it the threat which it has been for some time now looming over the entire region including Israel. Notably, Erdogan, for all his efforts to be more of a issue than he is, can not compare to this threat emanating from Iran. Hence, I would argue that Turkey is infinitely less threatening than Iran.
Both true statements, though, I would say that Erdogan makes threats, not just hostile statements, towards Israel more than periodically. So, even though Iran is the greater threat of the two regional Baddies, so to speak, they must each be opposed with vigor and resolve.
Also, Assad is far too well tied to Iran to be left in power. He is allied to Iran, kept in power by Hezbollah, and disputes Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan, as Rafi well noted. Also, he lacks the means to remove Iran from his country, even if he wanted to pursue such a choice. In fact, his fate would be quite difficult to tease apart from that of Iran. The more destabilized the Mullahs become, the more destabilized Assad will become. Hence, I would argue that as the Mullahs must go, when they do, Assad will inevitably fall, unless some other occupying force were to come to keep him in power – don’t think for a minute that Israel will fill this role. So with this in mind, the question which comes next would be why anyone would want to keep such a feckless personification of Syrian weakness, chaos and disunity in place one day more…the answer is that they wouldn’t.
Just thinking out loud…Wouldn’t a weak Syria, ruled by Assad, be better than a Syria controlled by Turkey or Iran? Of course, Assad and Iran are bad, but I think Turkey is more dangerous, being more militarily powerful than either. Erdogan periodically makes extremely hostile statements towards Israel. I also think that he has aspirations of creating a new Ottoman empire.