Gog and Magog? Russia Warns Israel of War Over Syria - https://www.israeltoday.co.il
What many Israelis deemed unthinkable now seems possible amid tensions over Syria.
Russia's ambassador to Syria this week issued what some saw as a veiled threat should Israel continue bombing Iranian assets in the war-torn country.
On February 6, an aerial attack on a target near Damascus killed 20 Syrian and Iranian military officials. It also caused Syrian air defenses to inadvertently fire on an airplane carrying 172 passengers. The plane managed to safely land at a nearby airport.
Israel Defense Minister Naftali Bennett later hinted that the attack was just another in a long series of Israeli strikes against Iranian assets that are admittedly in Syria for the purpose of threatening the Jewish state.
But Russian Ambassador Alexander Yefimov wasn't interested in Israeli justifications.
In an interview with Sputnik Arabic, Yefimov called the Israeli raids "provocative and very dangerous." He further cautioned that "this increases the possibility of conflict over Syria."
Since Syria is already in conflict, his warning was taken to mean that the ongoing Israeli raids could eventually result in an armed clash between the Jewish state and Russian forces in the region.
Israeli political and military officials have never been shy about referencing the biblical "War of Gog and Magog." It's something they believe is going to happen.
However, given the warm relations between Jerusalem and Moscow in recent years, many found it hard to believe the traditional interpretation that this great Gentile army would include Russia.
But, Ambassador Yefimov is not wrong about the stage being set for the kind of incident, intentional or not, that could suddenly turn friends into foes.
Israel is aware of this risk, but apparently deems the threat of Iranian hegemony to be greater than the possibility of accidentally sparking an apocalyptic showdown with Russia.
Turkey Loses First Battle over Syria to Russia - By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz - www.breakingisraelnews.com
"Thus said Hashem: Lo, I am coming to deal with you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal!" Ezekiel 38:1 (The Israel Bible�)
Turkey has backed Al Qaeda in its expansionist push to dominate Syria but the anti-Assad forces are reportedly taking "catastrophic losses" in their push to take western Syria, putting the NATO member at odds with Russia in a military mess that could pull many more nations into the conflict.
On Sunday, al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its Turkish-backed allies launched another attack on the newly-established positions of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the regime forces of President Bashar al-Assad, in the western Aleppo countryside. Aleppo is the second-largest city in Syria and a key element for control of northwestern Syria.
South Front, a military analysis website, reported that "dozens of militants and several armored vehicles took part in the large-scale offensive, that was allegedly backed by the Turkish Armed Forces. A suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (SVBIED) was also used."
Turkey is encountering difficulty in its military aspirations in Syria despite having the second-largest standing military force in NATO. This is clearly due to the direct military intervention of Russia. The Turkish-backed attack on Sunday was repelled with the help of Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) and the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) stationed in Syria to prop up the Assad regime.
South Front conjectured that the attacks were a sign of Turkish "desperation."
"The militants' repeated attacks in western Aleppo don't only reflect their desperation, but also the desperation of their main backer, Turkey. Ankara's ever-increasing support to the militants has failed to stop or even slow down the army's advance in the region, thus far."
This was the third such confrontation so far this month, as Turkey's involvement in the Syrian civil war deepens. Turkey has massed 30,000 troops and armor at the Syrian border and sent 5,000 reinforcements to bolster troops deployed in Idlib Province. Syrian troops killed eight Turkish soldiers and a civilian contractor last week and five more soldiers on Monday. Turkey has long been involved in using military influence to destabilize Assad's rule but direct confrontation between Turkish and Syrian troops is a recent and increasing development.
An agreement between Russia and Turkey in 2018 established a buffer zone at Idlib but Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a speech at his party's parliamentary group meeting last Wednesday in which he stated that he will not be limited by this agreement any longer.
"We are determined to push the regime out of the borders of the Sochi Memorandum - back behind our observation posts - by the end of February," Erdogan said. "To achieve that, we will do whatever is necessary on the ground and in the air without any hesitation and without allowing any stalling. We will not wait for the outcome of those endless meetings and will take steps to do whatever we need to do right now."
Turkish representatives traveled to Moscow on Monday to discuss the situation in Idlib.
President Trump discussed the situation in Syria with Erdogan on Saturday and a White House spokesman told the press on Sunday that the U.S. objected to Russia's support of the Assad regime.
"President Trump conveyed the United States' desire to see an end to Russia's support for the Assad regime's atrocities and for a political resolution to the Syrian conflict," Deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere said at the press conference. "President Trump also reiterated that continued foreign interference in Libya would only serve to worsen the situation."
The dire situation has much graver humanitarian implications than Turkey's frustrated geopolitical aspirations. About 700,000 people have fled their homes in Idlib since December, the United Nations said Tuesday. The region is currently experiencing an extreme winter cold snap and there have been reports of children freezing to death in the tent cities.
Turkey intends to occupy the region of northwestern Syria by resettling more than one million Syrian refugees who are currently in Turkey.
Russia, Turkey, Iran reassert glory of past empires in today's Middle East - Jack Cohen -
The three countries see the Arab countries as weak and exploitable, and two of them, seek to reassert their former spheres of control there.
Three countries - Russia, Turkey and Iran - are currently trying to reassert their former influence and glory, harking back to the power and greatness of the former Czarist/Soviet, Ottoman and Persian empires, respectively. In many ways these three imperial states, led by autocratic leaders - President Vladimir Putin, President Recep Erdogan, and Ayatollah Khamenei, respectively - are similar and have found it convenient to collaborate in some matters. But, in most ways these leaders and their putative empires are very competitive.
The difference between these three intended empires and the USA is very stark. While the US is really the only superpower, President Donald Trump has enunciated a policy of withdrawal from the Middle East, the main area of big power conflicts, even though his mantra is "Make America Great Again." In this policy he continues that of his predecessor, Barack Obama, who also had a policy of retraction from the Middle East. By contrast, Russia, Turkey and Iran are all in an expansionist phase, particularly in that region.
They see the Arab countries as weak and exploitable, and two of them, Iran and Turkey, seek to reassert their former spheres of control there. Russia, it is said, has always sought a warm water port in the Mediterranean Sea, and in fact Obama's incompetence gifted that to Putin.
When he declared his red line over the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons, and then instead allowed Putin to come into Syria to mediate the removal of those weapons from Assad, he released a monster. Putin got his port at Latakia and then an airfield, and then participated in the fighting with Assad's regime and saved it from the brink of defeat and brought it to victory, at the cost of millions of lives. Syria is now effectively a vassal state of Russia, and Putin will decide its fate.
Iran has also been active in Syria, through its Quds Force of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), whose former leader, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, was assassinated by the US.
There is a relationship between Assad, who comes from the Alawite minority in Syria, and the Shia from Iran. But we should see that as an ideological excuse to justify Iranian expansionism into the Arab world.
Although they would be loath to admit it, Shi'ism is a cloak for the reassertion of Iranian power in the region formerly part of the Persian Empire. Its influence now extends to Yemen, where Iran supports the Houthi rebels; Iraq, where it controls the Popular Mobilization Forces; and Lebanon, where Hezbollah is its dependent proxy.
Turkey under Erdogan has been veering away from the democratic Westernized Turkey that Kemal Ataturk foresaw, toward a Sunni religious format. In doing so, he has taken on the dubious role of reconstituting the Ottoman Empire. He has entered the Syrian morass, defeated the Kurdish forces and occupied a 30-kilometer stretch of Syrian territory where he claims he intends to settle some of the millions of Syrian evacuees in his country.
He controls northern Cyprus, and his latest move is into Libya, where he has agreed to support the supposedly legitimate government in Benghazi in exchange for oil exploitation rights in the Mediterranean. Meanwhile Russia is supporting the insurgent army of Gen. Khalifa Haftar, who controls Tripoli and much of Libya.
The reduction of American presence and power in the Middle East, coupled with a reluctance to use that power, has resulted in the proverbial power vacuum. This has enticed these three states to exercise their own expansionist dreams, fueling their own versions of "Make X Great Again," where X=Russia, Turkey and Iran. How these imperial designs and competitions will play out remains to be seen.
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