JERUSALEM
(Reuters) - Israel’s defense minister said on Tuesday President Bashar al-Assad
was winning Syria’s civil war and urged the United States to weigh in as
Damascus’s Iranian and Hezbollah allies gain ground.
Avigdor
Lieberman’s comments marked a reversal for Israel, where top officials had from
the outset of fighting in 2011 until mid-2015 regularly predicted Assad would
lose control of his country and be toppled.
“I see a
long international queue lining up to woo Assad, include Western nations,
including moderate Sunnis. Suddenly everyone wants to get close to Assad. This
is unprecedented. Because Assad is winning, everyone is standing in line,” he
told Israel’s Walla news site.
In late
2015, Russia helped Assad turn the tide with a military intervention that put
Moscow’s forces in the field alongside Israel’s most potent foes - Iran and the
Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah - opposite Syrian rebels.
The United
States has focused its Syria operations on fighting rebel jihadis like Islamic
State - dismaying Israel, which has tried to persuade both Washington and
Moscow that Iran’s expanding clout is the greater threat.
In its
decades under Assad family rule, Syria has been an enemy of Israel, with their
armies clashing in 1948, 1967, 1973 and 1982. While largely keeping out of the
Syrian civil war, Israel has tried to sway the world powers involved in the
conflict and cautioned it could strike militarily to prevent Iran and Hezbollah
entrenching further on its northern front.
“We hope the
United States will be more active in the Syrian arena and the Middle East in
general,” Lieberman said. “We are faced with Russians, Iranians, and also the
Turks and Hezbollah, and this is no simple matter to deal with, on a daily
basis.”
Lieberman
did not elaborate on what actions he sought from the Donald Trump
administration, which Israel has been lobbying for reassurances that Iranian
and Hezbollah forces will not be allowed to deploy near its border or set up
bases within Syria.
“The United
States has quite a few challenges of its own, but as a trend - the more the
United States will be active, the better it will be for the State of Israel,”
Lieberman said.
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