Israel, US Threatens War with Syria as Sectarian Fighting Spreads Across Region!
- Israel, US Threatens War with Syria as Sectarian Fighting Spreads across Region!
by Alex Lantier, World Socialist Web Site
Israeli and Syrian forces exchanged fire across the cease-fire line in the Golan Heights yesterday, amid rising US and Israeli threats of intervention in the US-led sectarian proxy war in Syria, which is rapidly spreading throughout the region.
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Fighting in the Golan Heights started overnight when Syrian forces fired at an Israeli vehicle that allegedly crossed into Syrian territory. Israeli forces fired rockets into Syrian territory and claimed to have destroyed the source of Syrian fire.
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The border fighting came only two days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to act “with determination” to prevent the transfer of arms from Syria to the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah. Hezbollah has now intervened in the Syrian war to support the regime of President Bashar al-Assad against the US-backed Sunni Islamist opposition.
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Netanyahu’s statement was widely interpreted as an Israeli threat to mount further unprovoked air strikes on Syria.
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Since Obama’s reelection last November and twice this month, Israeli forces have bombed targets in Syria. This month’s bombings, hitting Syrian army targets in the capital, Damascus, were timed to coincide with an offensive by the Sunni opposition on the city. This offensive has been thrown back and forced into retreat, however, due, in part, to the intervention of Hezbollah forces in areas of southern Syria adjacent to Lebanon.
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The reversals suffered by the opposition point to the minimal support it has in the Syrian population.
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There are now intensifying threats of war coming from Israel as well as calls in Washington and in European capitals for stepping up the flow of arms to opposition forces or directly intervening with air strikes or a ground invasion. Speaking yesterday at the University of Haifa, Israel Defense Forces head Lt. General Benny Gantz said: “We will not allow the Golan to become a comfortable space for Assad to operate from. If he escalates the situation on the Golan Heights, he will have to bear the consequences.”
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He implied that war could break out at any time, noting that “a day doesn’t go by” without the risk of a “sudden uncontrollable deterioration.”
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In Washington, senators Robert Menendez (Democrat of New Jersey) and Bob Corker (Republican of Tennessee) have submitted a bill titled “Syrian Transition Support Act.” It would authorize the Obama administration to “provide defense articles, defense services, and military training” to Syrian opposition forces.
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The bill bluntly spells out broader strategic calculations underlying the proxy war in Syria. It notes, “A change of government in Syria could be a significant blow to the Government of Iran and Hizballah [Hezbollah], which would lose a strong ally.”
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That is, the Syrian war is in line with US imperialism’s strategic interests: isolating Hezbollah, the main threat to Israeli military hegemony in the Near East, and Iran, the main obstacle to US hegemony in the entire Middle East and to US control of the region’s oil.
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