Wary of Post-Assad Syria, Israel ‘Uneasy’ With Inclusion in US War Debate

Israeli Officials Reportedly Okay With 'Limited' Strikes

Israeli officials have been quoted in their nation’s media as being “uneasy” about the Obama Administration’s raising the prospect of them being a potential target of chemical weapons as a justification for the Syrian War.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly admonished his cabinet to not publicly comment on the planned US war one way or the other, fearing that they’ll get sucked into a lose-lose situation by being seen as behind the US war.

Still, some officials have been commenting, and the general attitude is that Israeli officials are more or less comfortable with Obama’s public plans of extremely limited strikes that don’t impact the ongoing civil war, but are concerned about Assad losing power to the al-Qaeda-dominated Islamist rebels.

That’s a shift in Israeli attitude, as not so long ago they were hyping the idea of Assad’s ouster harming Iranian interests, but they seem to have finally given real consideration to what comes after, and it doesn’t look so good.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.