Israel is making it very clear that the next war with Hezbollah will also be a war against Syria. For years it has been an open secret that Syria was funneling arms and sophistical weapons systems to Hezbollah in Lebanon, but now Israel is on the record as saying that they consider Hezbollah to be a division of the Syrian army. So what does this mean? It means that war between Israel and Syria is now closer than it has been in decades. Just recently, Israel delivered a secret warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad that it will respond to missile attacks from Hezbollah by launching immediate retaliation against Syria itself.
No longer will Syria be able to use Hezbollah to fight proxy wars against Israel. If a repeat of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah happens, this time Israel says that it will directly strike Damascus.
In fact, a major U.K. newspaper recently published the following “off-the-record” comment from an Israeli minister….
“We’ll return Syria to the Stone Age by crippling its power stations, ports, fuel storage and every bit of strategic infrastructure if Hezbollah dare to launch ballistic missiles against us.”
What is raising tensions even further in the region are reports that Syria has been arming Hezbollah to the teeth in preparation for the coming war.
Just consider the following description by Debka of the kinds of advanced weaponry that Syria has been supplying to the terrorist organization….
“Surface-to-surface missiles able to reach as far as the Dimona reactor in southern Israel: They include Fajr-5, which has a range of 33 km, and the M-600, developed by Syria from the Fateh-110, whose range is 250 km. Both are precise, propelled by solid fuel and carry 500-kilo warheads of conventional explosives, as well as being able to deliver chemical, biological and radioactive materials. This dangerous new arsenal which tops up the 40,000 rockets Hizballah was allowed to pile up since the 2006 Lebanon war.”
The reality is that Syria and Hezbollah between them now have the capability of striking every single inch of Israeli territory with missiles.
No target is out of range anymore.
With all sides on edge in the region, even King Abdullah of Jordan is warning that the next war in the Middle East could break out as soon as this summer.
Meanwhile, there are increasing calls from world leaders for Israel to join the NPT and quit producing nuclear weapons. In fact, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem is calling on all NPT member countries to sever their diplomatic relations with Israel unless it joins the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Of course Syria would love not to have to worry about Israel’s nukes during the coming war, but that is not going to happen.
But even Barack Obama is pushing Israel on this issue. Last week Barack Obama publicly declared that he is calling upon all the nations of the world to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including Israel.
But what Barack Obama should be really concerned about is trying to figure out what to do about Iran.
It is being reported that Robert Gates, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, warned President Barack Obama in a secret “wake-up call” memo that the White House has no effective policy for dealing with a nuclear Iran.
But at the same time, the Pentagon itself does not seem to have a sense of urgency when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. Top U.S. military officials told Congress last week that it would take Iran at least a year to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. Not only that, but Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said that that a U.S. strike against Iran would go “a long way” to delaying its nuclear program but that he considered doing so his “last option” right now.
Meanwhile, top Iranian officials are running around making declarations about how advanced Iran’s nuclear program is.
Needless to say, Israel is not going to let Iran go down this path indefinitely.
But even before things with Iran come to a crisis point, war could break out between Israel and Syria.
Is the time soon coming when “Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins” (Isaiah 17:1)?
We will just have to wait and see. Certainly all sides are preparing for a devastating regional war. So let us pray for the peace of Israel and let us trust that God knows what He is doing.
