Monday, September 24, 2007

More on the 9/6/07 Israeli raid on Syria

We are now over 2 1/2 weeks after the event, and amazingly, no one from Israel has come forth with any indication as to what Israel did in its raid, of why. By Israeli standards, this is absolutely stunning.

Former U.S. Mideast Envoy Dennis Ross recently commented that Israel wanted to send several messages with this raid, most of them to Syria, and the most important of which was that the Syrians better think again if they are considering tangling with the IDF: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070924&s=ross092407.

We are all shooting in the dark when it comes to this raid, but I think that Ross' explanation is probably the most correct one. That said, and assuming that this is indeed the correct analsis, I question whether it will have the desired effect. To assume that the Syrians will analyze what happened in a logical fashion, and the react rationally, is expecting too much from an autocratic regime whose closest ally and mentor is Iran, the quintissential irrational state actor.

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