Continuing a tactic of anticipating a US-Iran War, Israel seems to keep trying to provoke the conflict, with a Thursday morning strike in eastern Syria killing at least 19 Shi’ite militia members, declared “pro-Iranian fighters” by the Israeli press.
As with the other strikes, pro-Iranian doesn’t actually mean Iranian, as the militia members killed were confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights to be almost entirely Pakistanis. Neither the Syrian nor Israeli government has commented on the matter yet.
This is the third Israeli attack against Shi’ites in Syria in just over a week. Iran did comment on the first one, which killed mostly Iraqi and Lebanese Shi’ites, and threatened retaliation over it. They did not specify when or how they would retaliate.
Underpinning this is Israel’s public desire to have a war involving the US before Trump leaves office. Iran, however, has been keen to avoid direct military conflict with the US, and has instructed its allies to avoid any hits on US targets, and presumptively Israeli targets, until the inauguration.
What this means is something of a tug of war, where Iran is trying to keep the situation calm for the next couple of months, and Israel tries to force an escalation by picking up the peace of attacks in Syria, something they’ve been doing for years.
The big limiter on Israeli strikes in Syria isn’t Iran in the first place, it’s Russia. The Russians keep Israel out of the areas near their bases, and have at times talked them down when they feel like they risk destabilizing Syria with their attacks.
No one really benefits from such a conflict erupting, so it comes down to if Israel can drag the world into another conflagration, or if everyone keeps things relatively calm for the next two months.
Netanyahu is more than likely behind the war on Yemen.
Revenge served cold…..that lovely phrase “place and time of our choosing”. Can’t wait
Iran will be patient they are not going to be baited by Nutenyahu
False flags take care of that. Trump set the bar pretty low by saying that an American death tied to Iran will be enough of a reason for the US to retaliate. One dead American is a small price to pay for the neocons to finally realize their collective wet dream of attacking Iran is close to reality. The question is who, how and when.
Meanwhile, Pakistan publicly reiterated that it does not recognize Israel’s right to exist.
Of course any of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council could raise this gross/grotesque, murderous violation of international law in the UNSC. But of course none of them will. Just as with the past two months’ Azerbaijani-Turkish “final solution” to the Armenian issue. Wonder why that might be?
USA funds Israel. they attack sand dunes and claim victory