#4 Syria is no friend to Israel or vice versa.
Pol Pot was no friend of the US - yet we funneled aid to him after the NVA invaded Cambodia. Similarly, Stalin was no friend of the US, but Operation Barbarossa led to major Lend Lease aid to the Soviets. Hafez Assad used Arab Nationalism (of which Baathism is one variant) to unite Sunni Arabs around the notion that Alawite rule over Sunnis was legitimate and perhaps even desirable. He might even have had visions of becoming, like Muhammad, the man who unified Arabia under his personal rule. The slow but inexorable advance of Sunni Islamism has exploded any hope Assad Jr might have had of keeping Arab Nationalism in Syria alive. Where neighboring Sunni Arab countries condoned Assad Sr's destruction of Hama in the 80's, they are now actively funding and equipping the Sunni Arab rebels in Syria.
From here on, he will have to seek allies among non-Sunni Arab communities and any foreign country that will help him, no-questions-asked. Israel is one of those countries. A Muslim Brotherhood government in Syria is terrible for Israel, given the possibility that Egypt and Syria could then perhaps attempt to revive the corpse of the United Arab Republic that was mummified all those years ago, except as a caliphate. |