“I am Yahweh. I do not change. I am why Jacob’s descendants are not destroyed.” (Malachi 3: 6)
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Ishaan Tharoor—The shadow war between Israel and Iran takes center stage:
The rumblings of an open conflict between Israel and Iran in Syria are growing louder. When President Trump launched yet another one-off missile salvo against the Syrian regime, it came on the heels of a suspected April 9 Israeli strike on an Iranian facility at a Syrian air base, which drew howls of condemnation from the regime’s patrons in Moscow and Tehran.
Though Israel didn’t acknowledge responsibility for the attack, it fit a familiar pattern. Since 2012, the Israelis are believed to have launched more than 100 strikes on suspected Iranian-linked positions in Syria. Israeli officials privately argue that these measures are necessary to prevent a permanent Iranian threat on their borders and stymie the flow of weaponry to Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.
“No matter the price, we will not allow a noose to form around us,” Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio over the weekend. But he cautioned against talk of outright hostilities. “I hope not,” he said when asked whether war was imminent. “I think that our primary role is to prevent war, and that requires concrete, real deterrence as well as readiness to act.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif made similar appeals for calm in a Sunday interview with CBS News, though he accused the Israelis of escalating “tension by violating Syrian airspace.”
“I do not believe that we are headed towards regional war. But I do believe that, unfortunately, Israel has continued its violations with international law, hoping to be able to do it with impunity because of the U.S. support and trying to find smokescreens to hide behind,” Zarif said.
Still, Zarif warned that Israel was playing a risky game. “They should expect that if they continue to violate territorial integrity of other states, there’ll be consequences,” he said. “The easiest answer would be to stop — to stop these acts of aggression, to stop these incursions.”
But the Israelis have made clear that an entrenched Iranian presence in Syria marks a new red line. They point to the new threat of Iranian drones, potentially armed with explosives, entering Israeli airspace, as well as the old threat of rockets launched from southern Lebanon. The April 9 strike, according to one account, was Israel’s first direct attack on Iranian equipment and personnel and killed a senior Iranian drone commander.
Last week, the Israeli military leaked details and satellite images of the existence of an Iranian “air force” in Syria, including civilian planes they claimed were ferrying shipments of arms. The leak was supposed to signal to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the powerful military organization that dominates Iran’s foreign policy decisions, that Israel had new targets already in sight should the Iranians or their proxies attack.
From the Iranian perspective, their presence in Syria is a legitimate defense of their beleaguered ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. And they see their capacity to threaten Israel from next door as a potential deterrent against a long-standing regional foe.
“Israeli leaders frequently threaten to bomb Iran, so having strong military proxies near Israel’s borders gives Iran some protection,” wrote Ben Hubbard and David Halbfinger of the New York Times. “If Israel attacks Iran, the thinking goes, it knows it can expect a painful response from Hezbollah in Lebanon, and perhaps from other militias now operating in Syria.”
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SnyderTalk Comment:
Tensions are escalating between Israel and Iran in Syria. As long as Iran has a military presence in Syria, this will continue.
The current situation began while Barack Obama was president. Not only did he fail to deliver on his promises to act if Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad crossed the “red line” by using chemical weapons against his own people during the Syrian Civil War, he negotiated the Iran nuclear deal that cleared the way for nuclear weapons development by Iran, and he delivered billions of dollars of cash to Iranian leaders.
While Obama talked and failed to act, he focused his attention on issues outside the Middle East. That enabled Russia and Iran to move in and fill the void. That’s today’s problem in a nutshell.
The predicament in the Middle East that President Trump faces is Obama’s legacy. That’s a fact. The problems that Obama caused have made problems in the Middle East much more difficult to solve than they should be.
China has promised to help Russia if a military confrontation between Russia and the United States develops. Making matters worse, Turkish President Erdogan can’t be trusted. Despite the fact that Turkey is NATO member, he has regional ambitions. For the past decade, he has pursued an agenda that includes hegemony in Middle East. Eventually, his ambitions will conflict with the ambitions of Russia, Iran, and China. For the time being, their ambitions converge.
That won’t last forever. Given the rapid changes taking place in the Middle East, it probably won’t last long. Eventually, their lust for control will result in serious conflicts between the ostensible allies.
Watch the TRIC nations: Turkey, Russia, Iran, and China. We are going to witness mighty acts of Yahweh as He protects the nation and the people Israel in the Promised Land.
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Isaiah 17
1 The oracle concerning Damascus. “Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city and will become a fallen ruin.
2 “The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they will be for flocks to lie down in, and there will be no one to frighten them.
3 “The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim, and sovereignty from Damascus and the remnant of Aram; they will be like the glory of the sons of Israel,” declares Yahweh Sabaoth.
4 Now in that day the glory of Jacob will fade, and the fatness of his flesh will become lean.
5 It will be even like the reaper gathering the standing grain, as his arm harvests the ears, or it will be like one gleaning ears of grain in the valley of Rephaim.
6 Yet gleanings will be left in it like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives on the topmost bough, four or five on the branches of a fruitful tree, declares Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel.
7 In that day man will have regard for his Maker and his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.
8 He will not have regard for the altars, the work of his hands, nor will he look to that which his fingers have made, even the Asherim and incense stands.
9 In that day their strong cities will be like forsaken places in the forest, or like branches which they abandoned before the sons of Israel; and the land will be a desolation.
10 For you have forgotten the Elohim of your salvation and have not remembered the rock of your refuge. Therefore you plant delightful plants and set them with vine slips of a strange god.
11 In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in, and in the morning you bring your seed to blossom; but the harvest will be a heap in a day of sickliness and incurable pain.
12 Alas, the uproar of many peoples who roar like the roaring of the seas, and the rumbling of nations who rush on like the rumbling of mighty waters!
13 The nations rumble on like the rumbling of many waters, but He will rebuke them and they will flee far away, and be chased like chaff in the mountains before the wind, or like whirling dust before a gale.
14 At evening time, behold, there is terror! Before morning they are no more. Such will be the portion of those who plunder us and the lot of those who pillage us.
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“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 22-24)
