The triangular relationship between North Korea, Syria and Iran continues to perplex intelligence analysts. Syria served as a conduit for the transport to Iran of an estimated £50m of missile components and technology sent by sea from North Korea. The same route may be in use for nuclear equipment.
But North Korea is at a sensitive stage of negotiations to end its nuclear programme in exchange for security guarantees and aid, leading some diplomats to cast doubt on the likelihood that Kim would cross America’s “red line” forbidding the proliferation of nuclear materials.
Christopher Hill, the State Department official representing America in the talks, said on Friday he could not confirm “intelligence-type things”, but the reports underscored the need “to make sure the North Koreans get out of the nuclear business”.
By its actions, Israel showed it is not interested in waiting for diplomacy to work where nuclear weapons are at stake.
As a bonus, the Israelis proved they could penetrate the Syrian air defence system, which is stronger than the one protecting Iranian nuclear sites.
This weekend President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran sent Ali Akbar Mehrabian, his nephew, to Syria to assess the damage. The new “axis of evil” may have lost one of its spokes.
Righty bloggers are piling in. Allison Kaplan Sommer, writing for Pajamas Media, reports tidbits from the regional media (the tracking of a North Korean ship to Syria, news from Kuwait that the Turks supplied useful intelligence to Israel) that add up to this:
Taken together, the stories have given some Israeli commentators more license to observe – without offering any further details – that this strike on Syria was a major move to preserve Israel’s deterrence abilities in the region. Without revealing details, some are declaring it a “historic event” - as significant as the attack in Iraq in 1981 or last summer’s war in Lebanon.
Power Line is interested in the American media's lack of interest, and wonders whether it is all just too much cognitive dissonance:
Bill Katz notes the absence of major interest in the raid by the American media and wonders why. "Could it be that they choke over any notion that the Bush administration's concern over WMD might be justified?"
UPDATE: The New York Sun comments on the raid in its September 12 editorial. The Sun concludes: "Things are now in motion in a war that is larger than the one about which the Democrats are caviling."
Dan Riehl: "Who's your Daddy, now, Ahmadinejad?"
Commentary
It will shock nobody that I am more or less delighted whenever the Israelis bomb Syria. That country, which remains in a state of war with Israel, has, to date, dealt far more misery in the region than it has suffered, so the giant moral scale in the sky remains a long way from balance.
That said, the Israeli raid had nothing to do with reprisal. Its purpose was to interdict and communicate. Military action is its own idiom, especially when accompanied by leaks from the unleaky and silence from the places that usually erupt in indignation and rage.
Yes, Israel has demonstrated that it can penetrate Syrian, and therefore Iranian, air defenses. If the mullahs were confused on that point, perhaps because the military in any authoritarian system is prone to optimism, they are no longer. That is a handy bit of information for the mullahs to have. Let's hope they put it to good use.
Second, the Turks have sent a message. How is it that a Kuwaiti paper reported the involvement of the Turks? That news was not broken by an investigative journalist, it was leaked. Turkey, or at least its virulently anti-Islamist military, wanted Syria and Iran to know that it will not stand by passively while they assemble arsenals of the world's most dangerous weapons.
Finally -- and this is the really loud message -- the Arab world, taken as a whole, has responded with... silence. No other Arab government complained about the raid, forcing Syria to take its protest to the United Nations alone. No mobs poured into the famous "Arab street," no flags were burned, no cars torched, and no "rage boys" screamed into television cameras. The message to Syria and Iran could not have been more clear: The Arabs are far more worried about Iran and its satellites than they are about Israel.
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