[Cronos]

Hi Metz, just a slight correction - Assads goons are baathists. The baath party in the Arab world started and still IS the secular alternative. Saddam, Assad, Nasser etc all looked to create some kind of pan-arab mileue that was NOT a caliphate. The alawis like the alevis in turkey are a religious group, supposedly a Shia subgroup but really more esoteric and like a cross between christianity and Islam. Their minority rule can be compared to Sunnis minority rule over Shia in Iraq. Israel and Christendom lose if either side wins. BUT if we have Assad controlling the western part of Syria he will be in continuous conflict with the Sunnis. Then the Shia and allies inpebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran fight against the Sunnis in Syria, Iraq with their Saudi and Qatari allies. THAT is the outcome we want. Let them be continuously preoccupied with killing each other and they have no time to think of killing Jews or Christians. I increasingly believe Israels posturing is a sign of their support of Syria. Incredible? Yes. Hear me out. By attacking Syria they give Assad bragging rights that the evil joos are out to gerbil and that the Sunnis are closet Zionists. That will lose al-Qaeda quite a bit of support. They won’t lose it alp of course but enough to keep the above Sunni-Shia fight on a constant boil. And THAT is a consummation deeppy to be desired. A better one would be a Christian state of Lebanon but that does not look doable sadly

[Netz]

As regards a Christian state in Lebanon, forget about it - been there, done that! The Christian “Phalange” (Jamayel family) controlled Lebanon from 1943-1976. The the Civil War broke out in 1976 and Lebanon has been seriously unstable ever since. Syria was “invited” in, in 1976 as a “peace keeper”. The PLO fled Jordan after “Black September” in Amman Jordan in 1970 and moved into southern Lebanon where they set up “FATAH-land” attacking Israelis from 1976-1982 when the Israelis had had enough, then they invaded in 1978 (Litani Operation), pulled out, then invaded again in 1982 (Peace for the Galilee Operation). The PLO was kicked all the way to Tunis. Then the Hizbollah filled the vacuum and been there ever since. “There” is all of southern Lebanon.
Methinks you are right in your assumption that the Israelis are sitting back, building up forces and passing the popcorn amongst themselves while Assad gains the upper hand with Soviet, oops, I mean Russian help with Hizbollah thrown in for good measure.

If Assad wins he will surely give the Hizbollah a free hand peering down from the Golan heights into Israel. They do this now anyway from Lebanon. THEN, Iran will have troops on the ground at Israel's borders from Lebanon and Syria. The pincer begins...add that to the whole world ignoring Iran's nuke program right now and we are looking at tiny Israel, just about sorrounded...