Assad Threatens To Attack Israel if NATO Attacks Syria
Courtesy of RIA Novosti, "Syria's Assad Threatens to Attack Israel," ( http://en.ria.ru/world/20111005/167398661.html ).
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has threatened to attack Israel in the event of any Western military intervention in his country's domestic affairs, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Now, the fundamental reason why this is insane is that Israel has absolutely no control over the actions of other Western nations. Bashar, in making this threat, is revealing that he really believes that the Jews secretly control all the other countries of the Western world. This is also a good illustration of why conspiracy theories are dangerously disempowering (see "Dangerously Disempowering Effect of Conspiracy Theories," http://jordan179.livejournal.com/11681.html): Assad is essentially now giving Israel a reason to want to overthrow him, when Israel might well have otherwise been neutral or favored his retention.
"If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than 6 hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv," Assad said at a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Tuesday.
And no doubt, during those "6 hours," Israel will be watching helplessly? Furthermore, Syria has neither Weapons of Mass Destruction nor Precision-Guided Munitions, which means that Assad's "hundreds of rockets and missiles" would do only relatively minor damage, while the same could not be said of the Israeli responses.
Assad also vowed to call on the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah for support.
Oh no, not the fearsome Hezbollah! No doubt all Assad's enemies tremble in terror at the mere thought of their involvement.
"All these events will happen in three hours, but in the second three hours, Iran will attack U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf and American and European interests will be targeted simultaneously," he said.
... which would give us not only the excuse but practically the responsibility to destroy Iran's Air Force and Navy. So far, this scenario seems to be made of win for the West. One hilarious thing is that this is being reported by an Iranian news agency.
In reality, if Assad did this he would be signing his own death warrant. Israel would respond to such a massive attack as the war that it was, and proceed to take apart Syria's Armed Forces. America and Europe could not be counted on to restrain the Israeli advance, and Assad, facing both a domestic insurgency and an Israeli invasion, would fall. If the Iranians were stupid enough to join in, they too would suffer a stomping: even Obama would be unable to resist the political pressure to at least smash their strategic, aerial and naval forces. It would be a great outcome for the West, as it would do much to end European anti-Semitism and unite the West against the radical Muslim Powers.
The interesting question is why Assad believes this to be a credible and useful threat to make, given that he is under a lot of political pressure right now and can't really afford to be making idle threats -- or worse, threats that will tend to bring more enemies down on him. I've already mentioned the possibility that he really believes that "the Jews run the world," and hence that threatening Israel can keep "the world" off his back. Two more points should be made.
(1) Israel is here reaping the rewards of decades of self-restraint. In any and all of the many earlier instances in which Syrian-backed forces bombarded Israel, the Israelis should have bombarded Syria. Instead, Israel chose to limit the war to Southern Lebanon. In consequence, Assad imagines that he could get away with a much larger and more intense bombardment: this is improbable, but it shows how failure to defend oneself from a small-scale threat can lead to one facing a much larger-scale threat.
(2) America is here reaping the rewards of electing Obama. Assad thinks that he can deter Obama with the threat of starting a war which would militarily mean Assad's inevitable destruction. The only reason why Assad believes this is that he sees Obama as a wimp who will back down in the crunch. This is in direct consequence of Obama's inept and cowardly diplomacy of his first year in office, in which he alienated friends and sucked up to enemies. Now, those enemies are showing Obama just how well that sort of approach works.
I'm actually kind of glad that Assad has made this threat. By doing so he's given us a good reason to attack him; by threatening Israel, he's given Israel a good reason to pre-empt his strike. If Assad actually does attack Israel, then Israel has a chance to establish a precedent by treating it as a war rather than a mere "incident," and prosecuting it to victory: the outcome of such a war would be a salutary lesson to the Arab Frontline States as to the folly of attacking Israel.
Hopefully, this time next year may see Assad enriching Syrian soil as his carcass returns his valuable elements to nature, and the negative value of his personality-pattern will have long since dissipated into death, enriching Syria in a whole more important fashion!
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has threatened to attack Israel in the event of any Western military intervention in his country's domestic affairs, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Now, the fundamental reason why this is insane is that Israel has absolutely no control over the actions of other Western nations. Bashar, in making this threat, is revealing that he really believes that the Jews secretly control all the other countries of the Western world. This is also a good illustration of why conspiracy theories are dangerously disempowering (see "Dangerously Disempowering Effect of Conspiracy Theories," http://jordan179.livejournal.com/11681.html): Assad is essentially now giving Israel a reason to want to overthrow him, when Israel might well have otherwise been neutral or favored his retention.
"If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than 6 hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv," Assad said at a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Tuesday.
And no doubt, during those "6 hours," Israel will be watching helplessly? Furthermore, Syria has neither Weapons of Mass Destruction nor Precision-Guided Munitions, which means that Assad's "hundreds of rockets and missiles" would do only relatively minor damage, while the same could not be said of the Israeli responses.
Assad also vowed to call on the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah for support.
Oh no, not the fearsome Hezbollah! No doubt all Assad's enemies tremble in terror at the mere thought of their involvement.
"All these events will happen in three hours, but in the second three hours, Iran will attack U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf and American and European interests will be targeted simultaneously," he said.
... which would give us not only the excuse but practically the responsibility to destroy Iran's Air Force and Navy. So far, this scenario seems to be made of win for the West. One hilarious thing is that this is being reported by an Iranian news agency.
In reality, if Assad did this he would be signing his own death warrant. Israel would respond to such a massive attack as the war that it was, and proceed to take apart Syria's Armed Forces. America and Europe could not be counted on to restrain the Israeli advance, and Assad, facing both a domestic insurgency and an Israeli invasion, would fall. If the Iranians were stupid enough to join in, they too would suffer a stomping: even Obama would be unable to resist the political pressure to at least smash their strategic, aerial and naval forces. It would be a great outcome for the West, as it would do much to end European anti-Semitism and unite the West against the radical Muslim Powers.
The interesting question is why Assad believes this to be a credible and useful threat to make, given that he is under a lot of political pressure right now and can't really afford to be making idle threats -- or worse, threats that will tend to bring more enemies down on him. I've already mentioned the possibility that he really believes that "the Jews run the world," and hence that threatening Israel can keep "the world" off his back. Two more points should be made.
(1) Israel is here reaping the rewards of decades of self-restraint. In any and all of the many earlier instances in which Syrian-backed forces bombarded Israel, the Israelis should have bombarded Syria. Instead, Israel chose to limit the war to Southern Lebanon. In consequence, Assad imagines that he could get away with a much larger and more intense bombardment: this is improbable, but it shows how failure to defend oneself from a small-scale threat can lead to one facing a much larger-scale threat.
(2) America is here reaping the rewards of electing Obama. Assad thinks that he can deter Obama with the threat of starting a war which would militarily mean Assad's inevitable destruction. The only reason why Assad believes this is that he sees Obama as a wimp who will back down in the crunch. This is in direct consequence of Obama's inept and cowardly diplomacy of his first year in office, in which he alienated friends and sucked up to enemies. Now, those enemies are showing Obama just how well that sort of approach works.
I'm actually kind of glad that Assad has made this threat. By doing so he's given us a good reason to attack him; by threatening Israel, he's given Israel a good reason to pre-empt his strike. If Assad actually does attack Israel, then Israel has a chance to establish a precedent by treating it as a war rather than a mere "incident," and prosecuting it to victory: the outcome of such a war would be a salutary lesson to the Arab Frontline States as to the folly of attacking Israel.
Hopefully, this time next year may see Assad enriching Syrian soil as his carcass returns his valuable elements to nature, and the negative value of his personality-pattern will have long since dissipated into death, enriching Syria in a whole more important fashion!