The phony war posturing continues

Pair of WSJ stories on the further posturing of Iran and Turkey.

Iran gives Syria radar that will do little to prevent Israeli strikes against Iran’s ally but will give Iran that much more warning time WRT Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities.  It could also improve the aiming of Hezbollah’s rockets. 

Meanwhile, Turkey says it has closed its airspace to Israel—a total non-surprise since Turkey already canceled three scheduled mil exercises with Israel after the flotilla fiasco.

This “war” will remain phony until Israel decides to strike, and then we’ll see some heating up across the board, but nothing on the scale of ’73, because nobody really wants to own anything—just restructure the regional arms balance in the short-term.

Turkey the only state in the region really pursuing a strategy worth noting, and it’s mostly economic.

Comments

[Stuart O'Neill]

Is it your opinion that without a major change that Israel will strike Iran to maintain a non-nuclear Iran?

[Tom Barnett]

I will be amazed if Israel does not strike at some point along the process. They hope to buy just enough time for Obama to be voted out of office.