madaresharghi [1]
Israel’s defense minister said on Tuesday President Bashar al-Assad was winning Syria’s war and urged the United States to weigh in as Damascus and its allies gain ground.
Avigdor Lieberman’s comments marked a reversal for Israel, where top officials had from the outset of fighting in 2011 until mid-2015 regularly predicted Assad would lose control of his country and be toppled, Reuters wrote.
“I see a long international queue lining up to woo Assad, including Western nations, including moderate Sunnis. Suddenly everyone wants to get close to Assad. This is unprecedented. Because Assad is winning, everyone is standing in line.”
In late 2015, Russia helped Assad turn the tide with a military assistance that put Moscow’s forces in the field alongside Iran and the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah – opposite terror groups.
In its decades under President Assad and his father, Syria has been an enemy of Israel, with their armies clashing in 1948, 1967, 1973 and 1982. While keeping out of the Syrian war, Tel Aviv has tried to sway world powers involved in the conflict and cautioned it could strike militarily to prevent Syrian forces and its allies entrenching further toward Israel.
“We hope the United States will be more active in the Syrian arena and the Middle East in general,” Lieberman said. “We are faced with Russians, Iranians, and also the Turks and Hezbollah, and this is no simple matter to deal with, on a daily basis.”
Lieberman did not elaborate on what actions he sought from the Donald Trump administration.
“The United States has quite a few challenges of its own, but as a trend – the more the United States will be active, the better it will be for Israel,” Lieberman said.