Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based pan-Arab nationalist newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, raised the prospect of a conflagration in which a Turkish attack on Syria would coincide with an Israeli attack on Syria's closest ally, Iran.
| Gee, wouldn't it be interesting if the rift between Israel and Turkey was nothing more than an elaborate game... |
Other newspapers renewed claims, first raised in the summer, that Turkey was on the brink of ordering its troops to create a "buffer zone" on its border with Syria as a safe haven for refugees from the crackdown on protest by President Bashar al-Assad. That could trigger a confrontation between the two former friends and allies.
| It could trigger an Israeli attack on Iran, or an Israeli quick-march on up the Golan towards Damascus. Or both... |
Although the Arab League and certainly western powers including the European Union and Nato have denied suggestions of a military intervention, Syrian opposition leaders are less adamant in their rejection of the use of armed force than hitherto.
Mr Atwan pointed to previous occasions when the Arab League has departed from its tradition of bland consensus -- when it supported the United States and its allies in driving Iraq out of Kuwait, and when it voted to approve the no-fly zone in Libya earlier this yea |