Israel's policy in Syria has been a dismal failure. It's proxies have been crushed by the Assad government, and its attempt to drag America into the war have failed.
While Trump meaninglessly moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, he is also pulling US special forces and military instructors out of the two US-controlled enclaves in Syria, essentially because there is no point keeping them there.
Now things have taken an even more dangerous turn for the Israelis who have been trying to "persuade" Assad's Iranian allies to leave the country by minor bombing raid.
Instead of being intimidated by these bombing raids, the Iranians have responded by telling Israel that they are not only staying but also preparing to strike back for Israel's illegal bombing attacks which are against international law.
As reported by a very nervous Jerusalem Post:
The commander of the Iranian Air Force warned on Monday that Iran was prepared for a decisive war with Israel, "which will bring an end to the IDF's attacks on Syria."
"Our armed forces are prepared for a war that will bring the crushing destruction of Israel," he said, according to media reports. "We are ready for the day when we will see the end of Israel."
Earlier, the IDF announced that it had attacked military targets belonging to the Iranian Quds Force in Syria, including weapons storage sites, an Iranian intelligence site and an Iranian training camp.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that 11 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes, while Russia said that four Syrian soldiers had been killed in the airstrikes.
Syrian military air defenses destroyed more than 30 cruise missiles and guided bombs during Israeli airstrikes on Sunday, Russia's defense control center was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.
The Israelis claim that the bombing raid was in retaliation for a surface-to-surface rocket launched by Iranian forces from Syria at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Sunday (20th January), which may or may not be true.
But Netanyahu's policy of talking tough and overreacting to every minor move made by the Iranians is clearly not working.
Following airstrikes earlier this month, Netanyahu warned Iran that Israel would continue striking Syria so long as Iranian forces remain in the country.
“I'm telling you, get out of there fast," he said. "We won't stop attacking."
In response, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Mohammad Ali Jafari responded that Israel will “fear the day when Iranian precision missiles hit you and take revenge of all the blood of oppressed Muslims which you have shed.”
The Iranians' policy is to keep their military and "revolutionary" advisers in Syria to "train and empower Islamic Resistance forces and support oppressed people of the country."
Little mosquito-like attacks of the sort favoured by Israeli leader Netanyahu are unlikely to have any effect on Iran's commitments in Syria, which is why the Zionist lobby in Washington is now working hard to embroil the United States in a wider war with Iran in the hope that a war in the Gulf would tie down Iranian forces. But this is extremely unlikely to happen because Trump is not a moronic Neocon.
If the Israelis really want to kick the Iranians out of Syria, it looks like they'll just have to do it themselves. This is called "fighting your own wars." But are the Israelis even capable of that? The last time they tried a major land incursion into the territory of one of their neighbours, things didn't work out too well.
In 2006, 30,000 Israeli troops invaded Southern Lebanon, where they were met by several hundred Hezbollah fighters, who fought them to a standstill, inflicted unacceptable casualties, and forced the Israelis to turn tail. Invading Syria would be much more challenging than that.
The irony is that "Israel" was an invention of the Achaemenid Magi.
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