Israel is walking on the brink and waiting to see how the enemy will respond. Will Assad hint to Tehran that it’s time to fold, or will the Iranians themselves search for an honorable exit and reduce their presence in Syria due to the increasing military pressure? Or will there be retaliation against Israel?
— Read on www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-under-cover-of-covid-19-israel-seems-to-increase-its-attacks-on-iran-in-syria-1.8820592
More evidence of Israel’s motive, means, and opportunity to Stuxnet the world with Coronavirus.
An airstrike attributed to Israel on Monday night in the Aleppo area, in northern Syria, appears to be significant; According to reports in Arab media outlets, the site that was targeted belongs to Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center.
This isn’t the first time an Israeli strike on the Syrian research center’s facilities has been reported.
Contrary to its custom in recent years, Israel seems to have lowered the media profile of its attacks a little. Air Force strikes in Syria began in 2012, early on in the country’s civil war, but greatly intensified in the second half of that decade.
The coronavirus apparently dictated a change in strategy. In March, almost no attacks were reported. But in April, the Syrian media reported attacks once or twice a week in eastern, central and southern Syria.
Israel hasn’t said much about these reports. In any case, neither the Israeli nor the foreign media are paying much attention to events in Syria; the coronavirus dominates their agenda. From Israel’s point of view, that may actually be a plus.
These attacks have caught the Iranian axis at a moment of relative weakness. Iran’s entrenchment in Syria and its aid to Hezbollah were the flagship project of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.
But in early January, the Americans assassinated Soleimani shortly after his plane landed in Baghdad.
His replacement, Gen. Esmail Ghaani, discovered that his predecessor’s shoes were a bit too big for him. Ghaani doesn’t share Soleimani’s superstar status. He’s having trouble imbuing the ranks with a fighting spirit.
Iran hasn’t yet recovered from Soleimani’s assassination and what happened both before and after it – the intensified U.S. sanctions, the erosion of public trust in the regime after it emerged that it tried to cover up its accidental downing of a passenger plane over Tehran, the harsh blow the coronavirus has dealt Iran, and the decline in oil prices as the global economy contracts.
Iran’s financial aid to Hezbollah has started to shrink due to these problems. At the same time, Lebanon is embroiled in a steadily worsening economic crisis that has also weakened the Shi’ite group.
Under cover of the coronavirus, the Netanyahu government seems to have given Israel’s military chief, Aviv Kochavi, a blank check to continue the airstrikes and even intensify them. Given the geographic dispersion of the reported attacks, this war is being waged in every theater – both at the front, i.e. the Syrian-Israeli border in the Golan Heights, where outposts Hezbollah set up via its local partners are being bombed, and at bases deep inside Syria, far from the Israeli border.
Israel is walking on the brink and waiting to see how the enemy will respond. Will Assad hint to Tehran that it’s time to fold, or will the Iranians themselves search for an honorable exit and reduce their presence in Syria due to the increasing military pressure? Or will there be retaliation against Israel?
You must be logged in to post a comment.