Israel Will Press Obama to Attack Syria
18
March, 2013
President
Obama’s upcoming visit to Israel is expected to include the usual
hectoring on attacking Iran and some pro-forma US threats to actually
do so, but likely no real policy change. Rather, Israeli officials
insist, the
real focus will be on talking
Obama into attacking Syria.
Israel
already attacked Syria once in late January, and almost immediately
thereafter it was revealed that President Obama “green-lit”
the attack, as well as any other attacks
Of
course giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a green light to
attack almost anyone is bound to please him in the near term, but
now, his aides say, he
feels “left alone” by
the green light, since it didn’t include any specific US offers to
help with the war they’ve been planning.
Israel’s
government is keen to move from the air strikes against Syria to a
more full-scale offensive, with the possibility to seizing more
Syrian territory as a “buffer zone” being raised, even though
Israel already took a buffer zone in 1973 and never gave it back.
The
hope among Israeli officials is that any Israeli offensive can
include “joint operations” with the US, which would launch rounds
of air strikes against the Syrian government’s missile caches.
President Obama’s position on Syria has come into question in
recent days, but if attacking Syria can be sold as a way for his
administration to quiet Israeli officials (temporarily) about
attacking Iran, it seems entirely possible they will do so.
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