(Atlantic) Elliott Abrams - While we in the U.S. have been debating the nuclear deal, Iran has been acting - and Israel has been reacting. Israel has struck sites in Syria 100 times in the last five years, bombing when it saw an Iranian effort to move high-tech materiel to Hizbullah in Lebanon. Previous Israeli efforts to get Putin to stop Iran's steady expansion in the Middle East have failed, which suggests that Israel will need to do so itself, alone. If Iran does indeed plan to establish a large and permanent military footprint in Syria - complete with permanent naval and air bases and a major ground force - Israel will have fateful decisions to make. Such an Iranian presence would fundamentally change Israel's security situation. The writer, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, handled Middle East affairs at the U.S. National Security Council from 2001 to 2009.
2017-10-20 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive