Israel hits Damascus, Russia looks away – Indian Punchline
By M K Bhadrakuma – December 23, 2015
▻http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2015/12/23/israel-hits-damascus-russia-looks-away
The assassination of the Lebanese resistance’s war hero and Hezbollah leader Samir Kuntar in the city of Damascus on Sunday in what is believed to be an Israeli air raid took place right under the Russian nose. Yet Moscow didn’t sneeze. Ever read the famous line in Sherlock Holmes’ Silver Blaze hinging on the ‘curious incident of the dog in the night-time’ (which failed to bark)? The Russian ambivalence comes out in the Kremlin spokesman’s non-committal reaction.
Israel no doubt pushed the envelope and seems to have got away with it. On Tuesday, in good measure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoned President Vladimir Putin and reached an agreement “in particular to further coordinate anti-terrorist actions” in Syria, apart from discussing the development of cooperation between the two countries in various spheres”.
To be sure, Moscow is not unaware of the bio profile of the slain Lebanese resistance leader. The RT, in fact, featured a column depicting fairly accurately the cold-blooded logic behind the Israeli decision to eliminate Kuntar (involving an operation on Damascus which is protected by Russia’s famous S-400 missiles and, doubtless would have been approved by ‘Bibi’ himself.) The columnist held out a vague warning to Israel, “Should a similar incident occur again no doubt Russian officials will intervene to stop further Israeli planes flying above an already overcrowded sky”.(RT).
But, will the dog really bark the next time Israel comes to steal another Hezbollah race horse? The jury is out. The point is, Russia is finding itself between the rock and a hard place.
Clearly, it is averse to confronting Israel, which may not be a NATO power but enjoys seamless American protection. Yet, Hezbollah is Russia’s crucial partner in Syria. Analysts generally agree that without the Hezbollah’s help, the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad might have packed up. Moscow ought to be quietly pleased with the stellar role Hezbollah militia is performing on the ground in Syria currently in military operations such as the one around Aleppo.
But then, Russia is also not willing to stick out its neck to protect Hezbollah, although the Israeli ploy to provoke it and distract it from its Syrian campaign against the Islamic State and other extremist groups cannot be in Moscow’s interests either. Truly, the Syrian conflict is riddled with contradictions and what we are witnessing here is one of the major contradictions in the Russian strategy.
Russia would know that Israel has supported al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria fighting the Syrian regime. But, unlike with Turkey, Moscow prefers to deal with Israel wearing velvet gloves. For one thing, there are umbilical cords that tie the Russian and Israeli political elites, and, besides, on a deeper plane, Russia and Israel are on the same page vis-a-vis ‘Islamic terrorism’. (...)