End Of Days News
The air raid over the Jamraya military complex near Damascus Wednesday, Jan.
30, attributed to Israel by Western sources was Israeli’s first assault on the
Syrian-Hizballah military compact forged between Bashar Assad and Hassan
Nasrallah.
That was the real strategic import of the operation, which took place with
the approval of US President Barack Obama,
debkafile’s military sources report.
In every other respect, it was a surgical strike on a well-defined target,
comparable to Israel’s attack in September 2007 on the nuclear reactor North
Korea was building at El Kabir in northern Syria.
The object then was to sever
the Syrian-Iranian-North Korean nuclear link before it took physical shape and
began turning out plutonium for Iran’s nuclear program.
After its destruction, Tehran and Pyongyang decided to cut Syria out of their
nuclear plans because its proximity to Israel made any nuclear site an easy
mark.
The overriding importance of the attack on the Syrian military compound
therefore lies in its three objectives:
1. The Jamraya complex was selected because it serves the shared military
agendas of Syria, Hizballah and Iran.
The bombers struck three targets: a
Syrian chemical weapons store and laboratories; a depot holding the
sophisticated weapons Iran had sent Hizballah in the last two years - some of
which, like the SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, are termed “game changers” in a
potential clash with Israel; and a large fleet of trucks standing by to ferry
the munitions across the border into Lebanon.
Israeli threats to destroy the
weapons had so far prevented their transfer.
In a separate building at
Jamraya, Hizballah forces learned how to use the new Iranian hardware and
maintained a team of drivers ready to move the arsenal over to Lebanon. This
building was not attacked.
2. The air strike was a move toward disrupting
the cooperative military efforts of all three allies in Syria and
Lebanon;
3. Israel took its first step into the Syrian conflict.
As we
first reported in the latest
DEBKA-Net-Weekly out Friday, the operation went forward with a
green light from President Obama, after he was briefed on the plan by AMAN
(Israeli Military Intelligence) commander, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi at the White
House on Jan. 22.
Our sources also reported that another Israeli emissary,
National Security Adviser Yakov Amidror, visited Moscow at the same time to warn
Russian leaders of the coming attack in Syria.
While Russian officials voiced objections to Israeli attacking Syria, they
also apparently omitted to forewarn President Assad of what was coming and he
was taken by surprise. After the raid, President Vladimir Putin advised the
Syrian ruler to refrain from exacerbating the military situation with
Israel.
The reported Israeli strike on Jamraya had two key consequences of future
relevance:
a) President Obama’s consent for Israel and its armed forces IDF
to be the first pro-Western power to intervene in the Syrian war, after keeping
them out of involvement in the Arab Revolt raging around its borders for two
years:
b) Officials in Tehran publicly warned last week that an attack on Syria
would be deemed an attack on Iran, a message no doubt underlined through
diplomatic channels to Washington. Nonetheless, after holding the Israeli
government back for years from striking Iran’s nuclear sites, Obama approved an
attack with the potential for widening into a major Israeli-Iranian military
clash.
While the importance of keeping sophisticated missiles and poison gas out of
Hizballah hands cannot be overrated,
debkafile’s sources in Washington and Tehran reveal that what
really pushed the US president into his change of face was Iran’s withdrawal
from the secret talks he set much store by for a diplomatic resolution of the
Iranian nuclear issue.
Three further changes of major strategic importance
occurred this week.
Tehran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency in
Vienna that new, high-speed IR2m centrifuges were being installed in Natanz to
expand the 20-percent uranium enrichment taking place at the Fordo underground
facility.
The Iranian letter was posted to the IAEA the day after the two
Israeli emissaries visited Washington and Moscow.
The diplomatic channel to Tehran was symbolically shut down in Washington
last week by the resignation of Gary Samore, President Obama’s Coordinator for
Weapons of Mass Destruction, Counter-Terrorism and Arms Control.
debkafile discloses that
Samore was lead negotiator in the failed nuclear talks with Iran. His exit means
that he sees no way of curbing Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon. He has taken up
an appointment as Executive Director of Research in the Harvard Kennedy School’s
Belfer Center.
US Vice President Joe Biden provided the third key development. Asked
Saturday, Feb. 2, in Munich when Washington might hold direct talks with Tehran,
he replied dismissively: “When the Iranian leadership, the supreme leader, is
serious.”
Biden spoke for the Obama administration when he suggested that
Khamenei has not been serious to date.
All three events contributed to the US
president’s decision to let Israel have a go at the Syrian military complex,
thereby broadcasting a signal to Tehran that, in the absence of serious
negotiations, Washington is ready to expand its efforts for breaking up the
Iran-Syrian Hizballah axis, using the IDF as its hammer.
