(Wall Street Journal) Tony Badran and Jonathan Schanzer - Saturday's incident was the most significant clash to date between Israel and the "Axis of Resistance" - Iran, Syria's Assad regime and Hizbullah - since Iran began deploying soldiers and proxies to Syria six years ago. Israel insists its response was limited and its intent is to contain this conflagration. The Iranians have been exploiting the chaos of the Syrian civil war to build up military assets there that target Israel, all the while sending advanced weaponry to Lebanon by way of Damascus. The Israelis have destroyed some of this hardware in Syria with one-off strikes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had paid multiple visits to Moscow hoping to convince President Vladimir Putin to curb the threatening activities of Iran and its proxies. Mr. Badran is a research fellow and Mr. Schanzer senior vice president for research of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2018-02-12 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive