The Assad Bridge to Somewhere

[singlepic id=99 w=320 h=240 float=left] Assad speaks of peace but promotes violence and war. He speaks of the Palestinian rights, yet, his father was more than willing to kill them at will in Lebanon. He speaks of better relations with the US, yet, his lethal factories of terror have butchered hundreds of US troops in Iraq. He speaks of “resistance”, yet, his secular personae is hardly resistant to the extremist religious Mullahs of Iran. The regime is but one contradiction after another.

What Assad does and says publicly is exactly the opposite of what he does and says privately. This may explain why the Israeli military has always supported his rule. He is a convenience that is welcomed and a nuisance that some think they can live with no matter how far he is willing to venture outside the red zone. Retrospectively, Israel is willing to act, as we have seen in its raid on his nuclear reactor in September of 2007, when it feels his nuisance.

But Assad has traveled so far beyond Israeli expectations that the internal military and security apparatuses of Israel have become divided over what to do with him.  Syria, under his weak rule, has become one big bridge whose task is to transfer arms and materials of war. This is not a bridge to nowhere, but rather one Assad built whose aim is to destroy Israel.

Consider these facts.

• All weapons, on the Assad bridge, move east to west as if Iran needs no protection.
• SCUD’s, or any other missiles, may be considered defensive in certain countries, but for Hezbollah and Syria, they are the offensive weapons of choice. Stupid Hamas was just their test-run and its leadership has yet to figure they are being strung.
• A standalone powerful radar is a defensive weapon but when used in conjunction with other offensive weaponry, it becomes part of the offensive arsenal.
• Hezbollah operates checkpoints on that bridge in the form of military bases inside Syria.
• Assad has refused access to IAEA inspectors for 3 sites whose suspected activities should be of concern to the region and the US. Yet, there has been little pressure on Assad by the White House except to dispatch the toothless cavalry of John Kerry. We are clueless of what the bridge is really transporting.
• Some of the appeasing actions of the US State Department has given Syria a Carte Blanche under which Assad continues to move materials of war on his bridge of loom and doom.

Assad believes he inherited Syria from his father. It’s all his. He also believes that as long as Israel sits strong and pretty, his inheritance will always be in danger because he thinks the US ultimate aim is to protect Israel at everyone’s expense. Little does he understand Scoop Jackson and his ideas of freedom and democracy; in his mind, Israel is to blame and no matter how unconvincing these arguments are, the man is on the mission of his life to destroy her with the full support of the Mullahs of Iran and aided by the naïveté of the White House.

The sirens keep getting off in Israel but when the sirens in Damascus start shrieking, Syria will have a chance and Israel will survive. But as long as it is quiet in Damascus, the bridge will be humming along for the next coming lethal war.

I do not believe we should wait for the Russian fleet to anchor in Tartous or a North Korean nuclear SCUD to be dispatched to Syria. At that juncture, Syria will be lost forever and Israel will not survive.