Days after Syrian and Hezbollah forces rescues Russia pilot, Russia permits
IAF to strike Syrian & Hezbollah targets?
Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA 29 November 2015

Last week a team of Syrian and Hezbollah forces, under the orders of an
Iranian commander, rescued a downed Russian airman.

Since then Russia deployed the S-400 anti-aircraft system, such that no
operation is possible inside Syrian airspace (or for that matter Lebanese
airspace) unless Russia declines to shoot down the platform entering that
airspace.

Israel Radio reporter Eran Singer reported this morning that Lebanese
Television Al Mustaqbal reports dead and wounded Hezbollah members after an
Israel Air Force attack last night against Syrian and Hezbollah targets in
the Qalamoun area near the border with Lebanon. Israel declines to comment.

Remarkable if true.

#1. Russia allows the attacks - apparently against "game changing" weapons
on the way to Lebanon.

#2. Syria and Hezbollah are well aware that the attacks are only possible
because Russia allows them.

#3. Russia knows that Syria and Hezbollah are aware of this.

And everything continues - business as usual.

Here is a most cynical take on this based on the 18 November, 2015 remarks
by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic
Conference in Jerusalem:

“We don’t always identify these game-changing weapons when they pass Syrian
territory courtesy often of Iran and always with Hezbollah doing the
transport. And if we don’t see it, we don’t hesitate to degrade the stocks
of the Syrian Army of the same weaponry in equal measure.”

In other words: the "transaction cost" for supplying game changing weapons
to Hezbollah is that some of them are destroyed in transit and the remainder
that make it through are subject to an extra "cost" that an equal number of
the same weapons held by the Syrian Army are destroyed.

Now, if Syria or Hezbollah put a high value on the lives of their soldiers
that would be one thing. But since this is not the case, some dead martyrs
is just an additional transactions cost for getting the game changing
weapons to Lebanon.

Everybody is happy:

#1. Hezbollah deploys game changing weapons in Lebanon.

#2. Whatever weapons held by the Syrian Army that are destroyed by Israel
are simply replaced.

#3. Israelis are pleased by the foreign reports that the IAF continues to
operate in Syria.

Dear reader. You may wonder why the Israelis should be pleased if their
Prime Minister has told them that Israel has no plans to actually do
something against the game changing weapons Hezbollah deploys in Lebanon.

The answer is simple: because Israelis don't have the 2 second attention
span to actually think through the meaning of Mr. Netanyahu's remark that
“We don’t always identify these game-changing weapons when they pass Syrian
territory courtesy often of Iran and always with Hezbollah doing the
transport. And if we don’t see it, we don’t hesitate to degrade the stocks
of the Syrian Army of the same weaponry in equal measure.”

And the proof?

Because if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu thought that Israelis has the 2
second attention span to think through the significance of the remark, he
would have never said such a thing in the first place.