In the past 3 years, 2 countries demonstrated their reckless ability to drag the world into an all-out global war over Syria: NATO member Turkey in 2015 and US ally Israel this week. Both are responsible for shooting down a Russian military airplane legally operating in Syria:
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Indeed the past year alone, Israel has carried out illegal strikes in Syria dozens of times under the pretext of self-defense against Iran. At this stage, it is difficult, if not impossible, to sympathize with this behavior.
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Also, a significant part of Israel’s population is expats from Russia, and at least some of them cannot be happy with Israel’s reckless behavior (much like a smaller Russian expat community was in Turkey). This creates unnecessary internal divisions.
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Where does this leave us? The Kremlin’s modus operandi has been restrained and focused on the long term. Those trigger-happy for a military retaliation will not get one. However, Israel seems to favor a divided Syria engulfed in chaos, whereas Russia and Iran seek the opposite.
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In this sense, it is surprising that there hadn’t been more military incidents of this kind between Russia and Israel. The latter will have to adapt its behavior by facing the realities on the ground—that Syria is largely liberated.
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And Russia has to face the limits of its multi-vector policy in the Middle East involving regional and global players with conflicting agendas.
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End of conversation
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