Prospects

"Clearly this move is a threat to us. At this stage I can't say there is an escalation. The shipments have not been sent on their way yet. And I hope that they will not be sent. If God forbid they do reach Syria, we will know what to do."
Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon

Clearly the Sunday Times of London got it wrong when they ran with a scoop that Moscow had changed its mind about supplying the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad with powerful and advanced S-300 air-defence missiles, after all. Russia loves playing its little cat-and-mouse games. Vladimir Putin no doubt enormously enjoyed seeing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu grovel a bit at Sochi, trying to convince him not to send those missiles on.

Even invoking the stability of the region, the potential for the missiles falling into the hands of terrorists; no argument persuasive enough to change his mind. Power, quite the cerebral aphrodisiac.

A top Russian official has since affirmed that his government remains committed to 'honouring' the deal; a contract had been signed and must proceed. All the arguments against proceeding are simply transparent enough fear-mongering. And in this instance the motivating force, fear, is insufficient to halt a process that has been initiated and will proceed.

Fearing the possibility that these weapons might tip the scales and turn the entire geography into a tinder-box is simply absurd. Isn't it?

Israel's concerns that Syria's already sophisticated weapons arsenal requires no additional munitions have fallen on deliberately deaf ears; there is quite simply no argument convincing enough to dissuade President Putin. Hezbollah's affairs are no concern of Russia. That Syria and Hezbollah have openly sworn to attack Israel on a number of fronts is Israel's concern and it will remain with Israel.

Should Hezbollah's haste to throw in its lost entirely with Syria destroying the rebels' advance redound on Hezbollah eventually and somehow spell its own death-knell, now that might become Russia's concern, however.

Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov, remains mute whether any of the S-300s with their striking range of up to 2000 kilometres, the capability to track and strike multiple targets simultaneously, a truly fearsome advantage, have yet been shipped. "We understand the concern and signals sent to us from different capitals. We realize that many of our partners are concerned about the issue. We have no reason to revise our stance." 

This is what can be called the blindness of implacability.

"We believe that such steps to a large extent help restrain some 'hotheads' considering a scenario to give an international dimension to this conflict", said Mr. Ryabkov.

Those hotheads obviously referring to Israel, to the United States. Certainly not to Syria, to Hezbollah or al-Nusra among the rebels. So that, Israel's prospects look grim and dim. There is the prospect that Hezbollah could take possession of the missiles, with its intention of destroying Israel.

And the other option...the prospect that should the rebels succeed in their mission of toppling Assad and seeing him flee, the missiles left behind to fall into the possession of al-Qaeda-linked Sunni terrorists, why then, they too striving to achieve their ultimate goal, the destruction of the state of Israel, would be interested in making maximum use of those missiles.