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Negative Consequences for Israel from Assad's Takeover at Syrian Border
(Algemeiner) Ehud Yaari interviewed by Benjamin Kerstein - Veteran Israeli journalist Ehud Yaari believes Assad's successful takeover of the area adjacent to the border with Israel is bad news for Israel. Iran, Yaari said, is by now burrowed deep into the Syrian military. "Assad doesn't have an army....There are remnants of the once-huge army that he had. And mainly what you have is an array, a myriad of all sorts of militias, many of them affiliated in one way or another with the Iranians, with Hizbullah. So when the Syrian army is going to retake the positions along the Golan line, that means that we will see these type of forces positioned there." "I think that the Syrians and Iranians are not interested in any flare-up along the border...because they have different priorities. They have to stabilize Assad's hold on Syria. It's a country which is destroyed to a great extent. They have to rebuild an army. They have to do a lot of stuff before they are seeking to engage the IDF. Therefore, I believe that we will see the Syrians...take the old positions that they had. As long as they don't shoot at us, the Israelis will remain calm." "The Iranians will increase, slowly but steadily, to get themselves not just entrenched in Syria but entrenched within the Syrian army, and this is what they are doing." "What I see is the emergence of growing Iranian proxies within the Syrian army. They will pursue the effort to upgrade the arsenal of missiles and get them much more accurate, will pursue their efforts to establish intelligence facilities, etc."