Israel Helped Obama Skirt Red Line on Syria

It seems that the whole truth about Obama's decixsion not to attack Syria when that "RED LINE" had been crossed is finally coming out. What most saw as a cowardly move by Obama was actually a political move spear-headed by Israel and backed by Russia.

Oren's book, "Ally," discloses for the first time that in late August and early September 2013, Israel's then-intelligence minister, Yuval Steinitz, floated a plan for Syria to relinquish its chemical weapons to the Russian government and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received Obama's blessing to move forward with the proposal.

To be sure, Oren also writes in his memoir that Israel did not oppose U.S. airstrikes in late August 2013, saying the Jewish state saw no downside with Obama enforcing his red line and hopefully deterring Syria's ally, Iran. But at the same time, he credits Steinitz and Netanyahu with helping prepare the diplomacy that allowed Obama to climb down from the air strikes that Oren himself believed at the time were all but a certainty.

It was in this period that America came closest to directly entering the Syrian civil war. In August 2013, U.N. inspectors confirmed that Bashar al-Assad's regime attacked a rebel position in Ghouta outside of Damascus. Obama reluctantly acknowledged that the Syrian dictator had crossed the administration's red line and used chemical weapons. But after Syria and Russia agreed to a plan in which Assad would acknowledge and dispose of his chemical weapons, the threat of American airstrikes as punishment for the attack in Ghouta subsided.

As with everything in the world, there is more to it than what we are told in public. I'm not taking sides here but just pointing out the issue. What says ATS?

www.bloombergview.com...

a reply to: lostbook

That's pretty fascinating that Israel was involved in the Obama red line climb down and the handing over of chemial weapons. I suppose it suits Israel to have Assad relinquish his stockpile of weapons, while at the same time helping Assad survive US airstrikes which probably would have nailed his nation. Israel needs Assad in power, it wants him worn down and impotent as an adversary, while at the same time is preferential to a Sunni arab enemy. I always believe it's all about the Golan, a friendly hand of peace means Israel may have to relinquish the Golan, that is suicidal policy o its northern front.

a reply to: lostbook

I'm really surprised that something good actually came from Steinitz.