Considering Syria has been building up it’s Armed Forces for the last 30 years, I was surprised to read a Defence analyst saying Syria’s Army was on the verge of collapse.
Any comments about Syria’s Amred Forces people?
Syria has spent most of its arms aquisition in the past 30 years on defensive weapons... building up surface to air weapon arsenals, and anti-tank missiles to try and hold of the Israeli Army in the south mountains of Syria. They recognise that they don't have the resources to maintain a force capable of taking the war to Israel anymore. Therefore, the offensive parts of the Syrian military, its tank force and it air force, are now obsolete to the point of being practically worthless in battle against Israel.
In fact, the ease with which Israeli planes managed to effectively bomb Damascus point out how far behind Syria is, even after its recent arms aquisitions, to Israel.... Israel has the technology to attack the Syrian capital with non-stealth aircraft, and get away without harm.
In war, Syria will basically be fighting defensively, attempting to use use it infantry with modern anti-tank weapons to hold off Israel's army in the more defendable southen part of the country. If Israeli tanks break out of the mountains and onto the plains of Syria, Israeli forces will be at Damascus within a week.
Should an Israeli-Syrian war break out, the critical issue in whether or not the Arabs will be able to win will be if Egypt and Saudi Arabia join the war too - they are the only nations in the arab (or in fact Muslim) world which, combined, just about have the firepower to take on Israel in conventional battle.
During the time that Israel attacks Syria, it will be critical for Egypt to begin an attack to divert Israeli forces south and relive pressure on Syria. Saudi units would then be needed to be moved up, maybe through Jordan if possible, for the Arabs to mass sufficient might to lauch an offensive.
The second biggest problem for the Arabs (and those Muslim countries that may join in), will be defeating the Israelis on the battlefield.
The biggest problem will be that should Israel face defeat, it will almost certainly launch nuclear strikes on Damascus, Cairo, Alexandria, Beirut, Tehran, Jeddah, Riyadh, Medina, Mecca, and any other cities belonging to nations hostile to it - the so-called "Samson option" that Israeli politicians have made mention of in the past.
Mads, I agree, with your assesment but, Syria has never claimed to hold even parity with Israel that effort was always made by Egypt, because of it's size and population. Still if Syrias weaponry is primarily a "bloody nose" deterrent, there anti aircraft defense system should have put up a decent fight?
“If Syria comes under renewed Israeli attack there will be retaliation.”
This is what Boushra Kanafani, a spokeswoman for the Syrian foreign ministry, said here in Damascus.
She added that her country had the right to use all means at its disposal, to exercise its right to self-defence if it was attacked again.
Sharon’s move.
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*Originally posted by Zakk: *
Mads, I agree, with your assesment but, Syria has never claimed to hold even parity with Israel that effort was always made by Egypt, because of it's size and population. Still if Syrias weaponry is primarily a "bloody nose" deterrent, there anti aircraft defense system should have put up a decent fight?
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Given that there were no reports of Syrian radar installations being destoyred to enable this strike, one of two situations is likely.
1) The Syrians were not on wartime alert, and therefore their air defence grid was not operational in the same way that the US air defence grid was not operational on September 11th. (The least likely scenario - you'd imagine that after such a deep strike, Syrian air defence forces in the south of the county would be activated to hit the returning aircraft. Furthermore, Syria is still at war with Israel and almost certainly maintain constant air defemce radar coverage)
2) Israel, along with the rest of the world, knows exactly what air defence radars the Syrians use. They probably just have jamming equipment advanced enough on their aircraft that the Syrians were unable to locate or target the Israeli planes with any guided air defence weapons, nor accurately guide interceptor aircraft to the Israeli strike force. The Israelis almost certainly flew high enough for anti-aircraft gunfor to be useless, and probably dropped satellite guided weapons several miles away fromt he target that just glided to their destination, saving the Israelis from actually overflying Damascus, and helping them make good their escape before the Syrians actually knew that this was a bombing attack and not just an airspace incursion (as the Israelis often do)
The whole situation highlights just how poorly equipped Syria is to fight Israel. Israel was able to bypass Syrian defences and demonstrate their capability to bomb the Syrian capital with impunity.
It looks like Syria has overlooked an important lesson from World War 2 - in the modern era, the defender in war is ALWAYS at the disadvantage.
Hmmm...Thanks MS...That was great...So that's the 'Samson option'...
So what about the guerilla warfare option? Nibble Israel into oblivion by taking it out piecemeal through massive suicide attacks and actually trying to scare them off?
So, that means in order to prevent the 'Samson option' from being implemented, Israel's demise can only come about through the Palestinians themselves...
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Lajawab: *
Hmmm...Thanks MS...That was great...So that's the 'Samson option'...
So what about the guerilla warfare option? Nibble Israel into oblivion by taking it out piecemeal through massive suicide attacks and actually trying to scare them off?
So, that means in order to prevent the 'Samson option' from being implemented, Israel's demise can only come about through the Palestinians themselves...
[/QUOTE]
Guerrilla warfare itself is unlike to be the solution, because Guerrillas cannot take and control land. They operate by destorying the will of the enemy to fight (as the Mujahideen did in Afghanistan against the Soviets). The moment that guerillas control land, they present a target for attack, and the moment that they mass for a conventional battle, they present a target. Israel could form a defensive cordon to effectively deal with guerrilla warfare.
If you want to use Hezbollah's resounding victory in Southern Lebanon as an example of guerillas defeating Israel, you have to consider the special circumstances.
1) Through guerilla war, they had exhausted the will of many Israeli soldiers, officers and civilians to fight over what many Israelis themselves considered as unlawfully occupied land in Southern Lebanon. The overwhelming majority of Israelis consider Israel's pre-1967 lands to be its lawful property.
2) Hezbollah's offensive that led to the victory was not a guerilla attack, but in fact a full-scale conventional military assault.
3) During that offensive, Hezbollah did not engage the Israeli army in battle. Instead, they engaged and defeated the South Lebanon Army (SLA), a force consisting primarily of Christian Arabs, but also of a minority of Shia and Sunni Arabs who joined for the pay (South Lebanon was economically impoverished)
4) By the grace of God, the Hizbullah offensive just happed to begin in a section of the SLA fortifications that was manned by Shia Muslims. These Muslims proved unwilling to open fire on their brothers, and retreated from their defences without engaging in battle. Hizbullah now punched a hole deep into the SLA lines. The remnants of the SLA, fearing rapid encirclement and destruction, plus Hizbullah retribution on their families behind the lines, panicked and were routed, attempting to grab their families and evacuate.
5) Lacking the SLA, its primary force in Lebanon, and having nothing to gain from its continued occupation of Lebanon, the Israeli forces in Lebanon destroyed their bases and withdrew to their border fortification within Israel, without seeking to fight Hizbullah.
My point is that you can't assume that Hizbullah's tactics will work on the rest of Israel (perhaps they might in the West Bank), because Israel did not seek to fight Hezbollah in that battle. Israel will not surrender land within the 1967 borders so cheaply because it views that border as representing its own land.
You can do one of two things with respect to Israel. Either sit out and wait for the demographic situation in Israel to change in favour of the arabs (20% of Israel's voters are Arabs... by 2100, at current rates this will be more than 50%). The current wave of bomings by the Palestinians, and the crippling of the Israeli economy by the Intifada (along with the death of the Palestinian economy and countless martyred by the Israeli army amongst the Palestinians), has grossly slowed Zionist immigration to Israel and is fueling Jewish emigration from Israel.
Alternatively, you can try and wage conventional war against Israel, but ensuring that you completely freeze your economy for the duration of the war by evacuating every metropolitan area and population centre in the countries fighting Israel - until Israel is fully occupied, and any nuclear missile-carrying submarines that it may posess have been located and neutralised.
Thanks MS…:k:
Dishonest broker
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/Oct-2003/12/EDITOR/op5.asp
Brian Cloughley
After Israel’s airstrike on Syria on 5 October the US president stated “I made it very clear to the [Israeli] prime minister that… Israel’s got a right to defend herself, that Israel must not feel constrained in terms of defending the homeland.” That is clear enough. Israel, so far as Bush is concerned, can do anything, literally anything, if it considers a country to be an enemy. Sharon is unconstrained and even encouraged by Bush to attack those he declares to be opposed to his country. He can continue his policy of assassination and strikes on sovereign nations without the slightest criticism from Washington.
We might as well heave the Charter of the United Nations into the same trash bin as Bush has thrown the Geneva and Hague Conventions. They have all been rendered meaningless by the US president’s embrace of imperial unilateralism and selective endorsement of international mayhem. His next comment describing his exchange of views with Sharon made a mockery of international law and, indeed, common sense, decency and any claim to espousal of moderation and balance concerning the Middle East debacle: “I said [to Sharon] that it’s very important that any action Israel takes should avoid escalation and creating higher tensions.”
There can be few actions more calculated - and in this instance coolly calculated - to heighten tension than to bomb and rocket an area 12 miles from a nation’s capital. This was not just an attack on an empty camp that had been occupied by a terrorist group many years ago (and it is irrelevant that it was disused ; the sovereignty issue is the important factor); it was an attack on international norms and conventions by which the civilised world is striving to abide. It was brazen flouting of the Charter of the United Nations. It was flagrant violation of the principle of national sovereignty. And it was condoned in every way by Washington. It was not only ridiculous for Bush to say he warned Sharon to “avoid escalation”, it was surreal to the point of dementia. He was insultingly condescending to his wider audience, and combined approval of gross illegality with an observation that was damaging and na_ve.
Last year Amre Moussa, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, said “We hope America will resume its role as an honest broker in this very serious Palestinian-Israeli problem”, and we all hoped it would. But it could do so only by exercise of sincere and transparent even-handedness, and this does not appear to be the way Bush wishes to conduct US relations with Israel/Palestine. (Or anyone, really.)
Let us reflect on Security Council resolution 573 (1985), one of the few resolutions critical of Israel ever permitted daylight by the United States (which abstained from voting in the 14-0 decision). Inter alia it stated the Council “Condemns vigorously the act of armed aggression perpetrated by Israel against Tunisian territory in flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations, international law and norms of conduct.”
On 1 October 1985 Israeli aircraft struck the suburb of Hamman-Plage in Tunis with the aim of eradicating leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization who were living there. In the process the Israelis killed 60 people including Tunisian citizens who had nothing to do with the PLO. Israel’s justification was that three Israelis had been murdered by Palestinian terrorists in Cyprus. The world was aghast, with good reason, because Tunisia had grave domestic problems at the time, and its economic circumstances were dire. The loony leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, had just expelled 30,000 Tunisian workers from his country; there were riots over the price of staple foods; and labour unions were fomenting unrest. Tunisia appeared headed for chaos and even civil war. This meant nothing to Israel.
On the day of the Tunis airstrike President Reagan stated it was a “legitimate expression of self-defense”, precisely as did Bush about the foray into Syria. A week later Israel’s prime minister visited the White House. There could have been fewer statements and actions better designed to infuriate Palestinians and their world-wide supporters than these. US refusal to condemn an act of international terrorism was greeted with despair by the Security Council and contempt by the Arab world. And nothing has been learned in two decades - certainly not the fact that terror begets terror as sure as night follows day. Every act of violence results, at a time of each opponent’s choosing, in equal or greater reaction.
It is far from uncommon for Israeli aircraft to menace Lebanon and Syria. ** In August, for example, Israeli F-16s broke the sound barrier at tree-top height over the family house of Syria’s President Bashar Assad in Latakia, then cavorted round his country and over Lebanon. **
For any nation to have to admit it cannot act against belligerent intruders violating its airspace is indicative of inadequate defences. For a nation to have to accept sonic blasts directed at the residence of its leader is humiliating in the extreme. It is deeply offensive to national pride. The illegal incursion made every Syrian loathe and detest Israel even more, if that were possible. But why did Israel do it? What did Israel get out of this arrogant display of military supremacy other than increased hatred throughout the Arab world? Does Sharon think for a moment that his gung-ho, sound-blasting sorties would intimidate Syria? Such forays are not only juvenile and bullying but entirely stupid because they achieve nothing positive for Israel. There was, of course, no condemnation by Washington, which is regarded throughout the Middle East as complicit in these arrogant forays because the Israelis operate US-supplied aircraft equipped with US bombs and rockets.
Palestinians (and the entire Arab and Muslim world) regard Washington as biased towards Israel. It could hardly be otherwise. In April Israel invaded Palestinian cities. The US suggested it withdraw. It did not. And on 18 April Bush called Sharon “a man of peace.” Arab reaction was predictable, but could have been ameliorated by sensible, even-handed, patient diplomacy. Alas sensibility, impartiality, patience and civilised diplomacy are in short supply in the Bush administration. (But not, I hasten to make clear, among the wise and calm professionals of the State Department.) The appearance of being an honest broker in the Middle East took a nasty knock.
** Secretary of State Powell gave a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s policy conference in Washington on 30 March in which he said, among other obsequious and ingratiating statements, "I am very pleased to be sharing the stage this evening with my new Israeli colleague, Minister Silvan Shalom. The Minister is a true Israeli success story. He has distinguished himself in so many ways . . . So Mr Minister, I congratulate you again on your appointment and I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to working with you, sir. Congratulations… My friends, all of us here tonight are brought together by a deep commitment to Israel’s security, prosperity, and freedom, and to the strongest possible relationship between Israel and the United States . . . " It is understandable that the Palestinian people would feel disconcerted by such effusive support for a country whose government was at that very moment building yet more illegal settlements on their lands. **
Then Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser to Bush, said in a May interview with the Israeli paper Yediot Aharonot “I first visited Israel in 2000. I already then felt that I am returning home despite the fact that this was a place I never visited. I have a deep affinity with Israel. I have always admired the history of the State of Israel and the hardness and determination of the people that founded it… I think that we, Israel and the US, share common values. Israel is the only democracy in the region. That is also very important.” What message does that pass to the Palestinian people? At the very least they can be forgiven for thinking that the closest adviser to the US president is somewhat partial in her views.
“Man of peace”; “strongest possible relationship”; “deep affinity”; “common values”. Are these the words of an administration committed to being an honest broker in negotiations over the so-called Road Map to establishment of rapprochement in Israel/Palestine? Hardly. They are the words of a government that is provocatively and vehemently pro-Israel and cares not a fig (or a bulldozed Palestinian olive grove) for the rights and aspirations of a proud people who have been treated abysmally, violently and illegally. They are the words of a shamefully dishonest broker.
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