Republished from Land Destroyer Report
Continued airstrikes carried out by Israeli warplanes in Syria presents - at face value - an obvious and persistent threat to Syria. In a wider context, the threat runs much deeper and extends to Syria's allies in Tehran.
Israel has been an eager participant in the US-led proxy war on Syria beginning in 2011. It has provided safe-haven and support for Western-backed militants along and within its borders. It has also at various junctures carried out airstrikes in Syria in a bid to impede Damascus' ability to reestablish peace and stability within Syria's borders.
And according to US policy papers written before and after the beginning of the 2011 proxy war against Syria - Washington had long ago slated Israel a role in undermining and aiding in the overthrow of the Syrian government - and admittedly as part of a wider strategy to isolate and eventually target Iran.
The most likely current goal is to continue ratcheting up tensions with Iran - a nation that has committed significant resources and manpower toward the goal of stabilizing Syria and ending the highly destructive conflict.
As tensions continue to rise across the region, Israel and its backers in Washington will likely seek a pretext for Israel to strike Iran directly - a plan US policymakers had devised as early as 2009 - in the hopes Iran would retaliate and provide a wider pretext still for the US itself to intervene.
US policymakers had noted that an Israeli-led first strike on Iran would be complicated by its problematic relationship with all the nations its warplanes would need to fly over in order to carry out the attack.
But recently - efforts have been underway to "repair" those relations, paving the way - or in this case - opening the skies for - the long-planned Israeli strikes.
Articles like the New York Times', "Morocco Joins List of Arab Nations to Begin Normalizing Relations With Israel," would take note of this process and how nations like Morocco, Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates have all begun this process - and how these first few nations would help make it easier for others - like Saudi Arabia - to follow suit.
In reality - these nations have all been cooperative in abetting US foreign policy in the region - with animosity created merely for the purpose of managing public perception in each respective nation.Folding Israel into Washington's united front against Iran alongside Arab nations whose public rhetoric depicted Israel as a sworn enemy illustrates just how desperate Washington and its allies have become in their efforts to reassert themselves in the region.
The Long History of Israel's Slated Role
A 1983 document - part of a deluge of recently declassified papers released to the public - signed by former CIA officer Graham Fuller titled, "Bringing Real Muscle to Bear Against Syria" (PDF), states (their emphasis):
Syria at present has a hammerlock on US interests both in Lebanon and in the Gulf -- through closure of Iraq's pipeline thereby threatening Iraqi internationalization of the [Iran-Iraq] war. The US should consider sharply escalating the pressures against Assad [Sr.] through covertly orchestrating simultaneous military threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq, Israel and Turkey.
The report also states:
If Israel were to increase tensions against Syria simultaneously with an Iraqi initiative, the pressures on Assad would escalate rapidly. A Turkish move would psychologically press him further.
In 2009, US corporate-financier funded policy think tank, the Brookings Institution, would publish a lengthy paper titled, "Which Path to Persia?: Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran" (PDF), in which, once again, the use of Israel as an apparently "unilateral aggressor" was discussed in detail.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
