Russia’s military intervention in Syria is aimed at stabilizing the region and may benefit Israel more than Iran, Hezbollah, or the Assad regime, according to an article by Beirut-based journalist Nicholas Noe writing in Foreign Affairs.
What’s intriguing about Noe’s analysis is that he has close ties to Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who have argued the opposite: that Russia’s more forceful entry into the conflict will tilt the Middle East power balance in favour of Iran and its Shia allies and away from the US and Israel and their allied pro-Western regimes. Many Western commentators, fearful of that development, share this view. But Noe argues (correctly, IMO) that the intervention is aimed at halting the advance of the various Sunni militias backed by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and Turkey - creating the conditions for a peace settlement which results in some form of power-sharing between the Assad regime and the rebels. Beyond that, “Russia maintains relatively close ties with Israel, and has little interest in aiding Iran and Hezbollah’s anti-Zionist agenda”. In fact, Russia is more likely to use its influence to restrain their efforts to develop a military counter-weight to the Israelis - in which case, it will may prove to be a more effective interlocutor than than the US, which is deeply distrusted by the Iranians, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the various Shia militias in the region. Noe thinks “Israel will now be able to turn to a powerful and sympathetic contact at the center of the pro-Assad coalition should the conflict begin to pose a more severe threat to Israeli interests.” https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2015-10-03/strange-bedfellows-syria _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
