War with Israel, suicide for Damascus
Reader comment on item: Israel and Syria going to war?

Submitted by Chris G. (United States), Jun 19, 2007 at 21:16

I seriously doubt that there is even a remote chance of war between Syria and Israel. So far there has not been a lot of incidents amongst Arabs living in the occupied Golan heights areas. Furthermore, even with the addition of the new Mig-31 fighters from Russia (finally agreed up during Assad's recent trip to Moscow), their armed forces are still using obsolete Russian tactics unless they have been getting new training from Iran or other nations.

On the ground, the vast majority of Syria's armored forces are obsolete T-55, T-62, and T-72 Russian made tanks with perhaps a few protected by ERA (likely older ERA and not the latest Russian Kontakt-5 ERA). Likewise their airforce, aside from Mig-29's and the new Mig-31's (which will take them a while to train on) is fairly obsolete and is controlled by fixed ground radar rather then mobile systems and AWACS aircraft. Another factor is that economically, they are not doing really well and simply could not afford to rebuild their military forces again. They are only barely now recovering from the losses they took in 1982 and before that in the Yom Kippur War.

The most potent defense they have are the Kornet and similar tandem-warhead ATGM's used to deadly effect by Hezbollah (supplied by Syria and Iran) in Lebanon. They also provided the RPG-7VR tandem warhead RPG-7 variant and the RPG-29 Vampire (the biggest RPG made by Russia). Both of these can do serious dammage to even a Merkava Mk4 if it is hit in the rear or side. However the IDF has now prioritized testing and installation of the new "Triumph" anti-RPG/ATGM system on their tanks which will neutralize most of this threat.

Finally, Syria seems to finally be cracking down on insurgents infiltrating across their borders. Secretary Rice has stated recently that they have made satisfactory progress in that area. Awhile back also their was a amateur terrorist attack on the US embassy there in which it seemed that it was staged by Assad with Syrian forces literally across the street from the attack. The attackers were easily killed by the Syrian Army and the Syrian media tried to portray their army as saving the Americans. It was ridiculed in the Western mediia, however what most analysts don't seem to get is that Assad and his government seem desperate for Western respect and dialogue (as well as trade). They don't want to be isolated and a war with Israel would just wipe out their economy and possibly cause enough instability to allow Islamists to topple the Baathist government setting the stage for another "Al-Qaeda playground" like Iraq has become.

So, hopefully neither Israel nor Syria is stupid enough to try and start a conflict. It would be devestating for Syria and very dangerous for Israel to have a radical Islamist party take over Syria.

On a religious issue, having Islamists come to power in Israel would also probably lead to the destruction of some of the most ancient Christian communities and churches in the world as we are seeing now in Iraq where most have fled to Syria and ancient churches are being systematically destroyed by Sunni extremists. So in a nutshell, war between Israel and Syria would be bad for everyone.

Chris G.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.