Visiting Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel with Moshe Ya’alon and Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz
Israel’s chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz warned Monday, April 22, that Bashar Assad’s fall would not end the Syrian bloodbath but drag the country even further into tribal and ethnic warfare on the scale of Afghanistan two decades ago. Iran and Hizballah are deeply implicated in this calamity. Strangely enough, Russia backs them. Gantz was giving the annual lecture at Tel Aviv University’s National Security Institute.
Also Monday, Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, pledged action against the use of chemical weapons in Syria and promised not to allow sophisticated weapons to reach other nations or Hizballah-type organizations. The Golan border would be well guarded, he said, speaking at a joint new conference with visiting US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. “Whenever there is a problem in our region, we shall respond as we have already done,” said the minister.
Ya’alon’s comments present three striking difficulties:
1. Hizballah didn’t wait for advanced weapons to cross from Syria into Lebanon. Two heavily armed combat brigades of this Iranian-backed Shiite militia, each numbering 1,000 men, crossed instead in the opposite direction and are fighting Bashar Assad’s battles around Qusayr 35 kilometers south of Homs. They collect their weapons directly from Syrian military arsenals and arms consignments airlifted in by Iran and Russia.
