I don’t necessarily see aggression as a bad thing. Sometimes a country needs to get agressive.
But fine. Are you asking me, for instance, whether I think that when Iran launched missiles and drones at Israel on several locations, they were justified in doing so? Sure. They w2ere justified in shooting at us, and we were justified in shooting at them. “Justification” isn’t something that only one side of a conflict can have.
So if your country, whichever it is, were to decide to launch an attack on Israeli military assets, I’m sure it could find a way to justify it. So what? It would still be a stupid and counterproductive thing to do.
Right but this is why I cut to the chase with “might makes right” because when it comes to the IDF, most appeals to self defence, when pressed, result eventually in some version of because they can.
Which I think is where your response lands too. Although you mention “justification”, it doesn’t seem you mean ethically, morally or legally.
Enough, this is a warning for hijacking yet another thread about something else with Gaza. You are also to no longer post in this thread.
You need to keep the Gaza posts in Gaza threads, this is not. Mentioning the Israeli stuff in relation to Syria is one thing, but this is another hijack.
Moderating:
@Mijin & @Alessan, this thread is not about Israel except in so far as it is about Syria.
The fact that there are no reported deaths from the bombings so far, and that the rebel leadership hasn’t reacted to them publicly, indicates to me that there have probably been some behind-the-scenes understandings reached between Israel and HTS. Time will tell, I suppose.
Syria at this moment has no functioning government. The head of the strongest of the groups that brought down Assad is looking like he will be in charge, and he is saying things that are reassuring to those with concerns over his group’s Islamist roots and past Al Quaeda ties, but there are many groups at large in Syria with individual goals against a variety of other entities in the region. Which may include even whatever government forms in Syria if they feel they deserve more. And of course inclusive of groups committed to the destruction of Israel.
A variety of those groups getting their hands on chemical weapons, missles, and other powerful equipment is, I suspect, something few in the region want to see happening.
My guess is that even the putative future Syrian leadership is quietly relieved they are taken off the playing field given they cannot secure them for themselves at this point in time. And if some Russian assets accidentally get damaged, oh well.
Of course Bibi will do more than necessary and he probably appreciates having a distraction in the news this week given his domestic trial.
Meanwhile my version above is undermined by the following report.
Weapons production facilities are also being targeted. This is more than removing assets that can be harvested by others; it is kneecapping future ability to be a threat for some time. And Russian assets being kept well away from.
The US under Biden, with a split Congress, welcomed the Finnish pipeline to the EU that replaced NordStream.
With Trump, we would have to see where his loyalty lies. My sense would be that he’ll bend over backwards for Erdogan. To the extent that he might desire to stop development, in the name of American workers, Putin, or Saudi Arabia, I’m not seeing him using Kurdish or pro-Democracy forces to achieve that aim, so glaringly hostile to Turkey’s interests.
But then there’s Congress as well. It’s hard to know what a solid Republican Congress would do in today’s climate.
In general, inaction is pretty safe, politically, so that’s the path I’d expect for both Trump and Congress. And, from a practical standpoint, oil is on its last legs. By the time the pipeline is constructed, it might all be moot anyways. This could be a project of decades, not years.
It is virtually impossible to launch missile strike destroying 300 targets including basically wiping out a navy without having some causalities. If this miracle was somehow achieved it would huge news, and could only have been done if Israel broadcast evacuation orders as to which targets they were going after. I have heard none of these things, with no mention of causalities or lack of casualties. So the most reasonable explanation is that things are so chaotic in Syria right now that nobody is has reliable numbers to report and so they aren’t reporting any numbers.
So far HTS hasn’t struck me as a “let’s all live in peace” type organization.
But let me do some regional geo political back seat driving.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The new Syrian govt, which I don’t think has been defined yet, still has to worry about ISIS, Hezbollah and Iran. Their influence has not vanished in a week. It would be nice to have friends. Even quiet friends you don’t acknowledge publicly.
USA bombing ISIS locations seem feasible to me.
Israeli actions? Not so much.
I think the geopolitical thing to do would at least try to establish an unofficial detente between the two nations in exchange for some security assistance as well as humanitarian and economic aid from “the west”.
But maybe HTS is still Al-Qaeda affiliated and I’m completely wrong.
I think the truth is somewhere between those two. It is easier, for example, to cooperate at some level with an entity with which you already share some goals.
So if HTS is interested in reducing the influence of Iran and the Hezbollah in Syria (for example, not sure if that is actually the case), and the US is interested in the same thing, they don’t have to get married to each other to help each other achieve this particular goal.
This is much more difficult if the two entities are absolutely and completely opposed on another issue. If HTS were also interested in (say) the elimination of Israel, the US would not be able to cooperate with them at all about anything. Finding out what a new and unknown entity is really after, and whether they can become any kind of reliable partner, is key. This requires very good on-the-spot intelligence (i.e. spies), a skill in which the US has not been shining (at least not in this region) in recent years.
Reopening this zombie because Israel is ramping up airstrikes across southern Syria and near to Damascus despite, still, no provocation.
And increasing the size of its “buffer zone” with the golan heights, which itself was originally a buffer zone.
Sad to see. Post-coup, there is a small window to not become a failed state and frankly I think Israel is determined to close that window.
Syria is a big country. If it fails as a state, it won’t be because Israel is holding a few villages on its southern border or is conducting a handful of airstrikes in a very limited area of the country. I know that everything bad that happens in the Middle East is Israel’s fault, but have you perhaps considered the possibility that it might not be?
Also, do we even know who Israel was bombing? Chances are that it was Hezbollah or other Iranian proxies, who are no friends to the new regime.
Invading another country, bombing multiple sites without provocation…
is there any action for which you would condemn the actions of the Israeli military?
Note that in the article, the defence minister didn’t even mention Hezbollah or Iran, instead just talked about the Syrian regime, so you just threw those in as an ad hoc rationalization.