Syria says supports Hizbollah against Israel

Reuters ^ | July 14, 2006 | Reuters News Alert

[Lurker]

Time for another flyover.

This time leave some 2,000 lb. calling cards.

L

[justa-hairyape]

Nope. If Syria was going to jump in with military support, they'd keep quiet as long as possible to give them a potential surprise element.

And while you're at it, take note that Syria isn't mobilizing its Reserves.

You make excellent observations as always, but do you see the contradiction in these two statements ?

[rodguy911]

Only problem is we know that they are sitting on tons and tons of WMD's.Wonder if they are crazy enough to use them?

[Southack]

It's no contradiction. Talk is an option. Mobilization is not. Either you are mobilized or else you can't project force.

Another way of looking at the situation is through Hezbollah's eyes. If they thought that Syria had said something today that meant military cooperation, then Hezbollah would be passing out candy on the streets of Beirut right now.

They aren't.

[ohioWfan]

You're supposed to ping Southack when you refer to him......especially when you call him rude.

I'm going on the basis of what he said on this thread, and on his history of posting on many other threads. "Rude" is not a word that ever comes to mind.

[RDTF]

I wonder if we could get the mods to put this back in breaking news...we need a good new thread!

[Pox]

Syria knows that Israel will immediately see any major buildup on their border.

Syria, and also Iran, knows that their days are numbered now that the U.S. has a footprint in the M.E.

I'm of the opinion that if they are truly going to get involved, it's going to be with chemical weapons, possibly also biological. Nuclear likely won't enter the equation, but it would not surprise me too much if either had appropriated one or more devices at this point.

Moving troops into position prior to a mass attack isn't going to work for the arabs, they should understand this by now, having experienced multiple poundings from the Israelis.

It's a good idea to keep in mind historical precedents, but that does not necessarily mean that this conflict will unfold as previous ones did.

An all out war is distinctly possible, but at this point still unlikely, IMO.

[NinoFan]

I was directly responding to you about Southack so it didn't occur to me to do that, but in the future, I will certainly do that.

As for the issue of rudeness, being overly dismissive and short comes across as rude to me and I'm not the only one who feels that way. I was basing my assessment purely on what I've seen in the threads on this latest Israeli topic.

[NinoFan]

It's a VERY significant development, so I agree. I rarely label things I post as breaking news. I had accidentally double-clicked post, so I sent a message asking for the duplicate to be removed entirely, and it turned out the duplicate was removed entirely and this one was removed from breaking.

[ohioWfan]

I'll let him defend himself.

I certainly didn't see it on this thread. I saw confident opinions.........and I don't call that being 'short.' I call that being confident of one's views.

As for the subject at hand, I don't think there's much chance that Syria has the guts to get into this fight directly. They know the power of a combined Israeli/US force, and I don't think they want to be annihilated.

Iran may be another story. Their leader is completely insane.

[rodguy911]

Wouldn't be hard to do for Syria. As we know from Gen. Sada's statements(sadaams' air force gen.) Sadaam flew over several hundred plane fulls of wmd's into Damascus. Where it is now of course is anyones guess.

[Southack]

Don't sweat it. It's war. Nerves are on edge.

I didn't take it personally.

[justa-hairyape]

They aren't.

Hezbollah is just a pawn. Watching them is like watching a lineman in an attempt to figure out what is going through the coach's mind. Granted, I am sure we have some very skilled people who could probably do that, even in football. Since many suspect Iran is behind all this, Syria is also being used. We probably should not expect that they will always do what is in their best interests. Syria can be fooled just as easy as Hezbollah can.

[onyx]

Reads to me like Syria has invited itself into the frey.
I hope they're sent a welcome package.

[NinoFan]

What gets me is that this does seem to pull Syria in directly, whether they intended that to happen or not. It's basically a pre-admission that Syria is going to be supplying Hezbollah with weapons and money and the like, so it gives Israel every justification to go after them as well. That's why I think they may actually be prepared for war. If they're not, then they are idiots, because they're likely to get a war anyway because of this admission of guilt.

[NinoFan]

Yeah, things are rather tense

[Dog Gone]

I don't think Israel is ready yet to expand the conflict to include Syria. The ground invasion into Lebanon isn't even anything approaching an invasion. It's more of a search and rescue mission.

Israel didn't mobilize the ground forces for what happened on its northern border. It's been almost entirely an aerial attack. And whether Israel actually wants to conduct a full invasion of Syria is doubtful. The cost of taking Damascus would be huge.

[Gimme]

Syria was backing off. What's happened?



Probably that little Ratman from Iran made a phone call.

[RDTF]

They don't have to...Syria has 18,000 troops already in Lebanon

[justa-hairyape]

An all out war is distinctly possible, but at this point still unlikely, IMO.

Yes that is the current outlook, however this is all emanating from Tehran. Why would they do this without some other catalyst or at least some other potential outcome ? Granted, they may have simply underestimated the chutzpah of Israels new political leader.