Israel-Syria military escalation is driven by mutual fear, recalling the Cold War arms race. The Cold War ended peacefully while the similar fear-induced conflicts from WWI to the Six-Day War ended up in military engagement. The difference is crucial for understanding foreign relations: fear versus crushing fear. The first response to fear is strengthening oneself. Then, if the enemy is not deterred he should be preempted; thus the Six-Day War. The prolonged state of fear, especially combined with one’s increasing strength, provokes wars; Russia and Germany plunged into the WWI.

It was entirely different with Cold War. Tens of thousands of nuclear warheads made the war prohibitively destructive; the fear of enemy was crushing. Theoretically, crushing fear can lead to desperate attack. That hardly happens in practice for whatever is crushed, cannot rebound.

Israel fears Syrian military buildup on the Golan Heights. Syria fears Israel’s military exercises near the Golan Heights and political instability in Israel. Israel fears hundreds of Syria’s mid-range missiles and tens of thousands of short-range rockets capable of showering Israel in spite of her missile defenses. Syria fears Israeli attack against its missile sites and other military installations. That cycle of mutual fear cannot be discharged by diplomatic efforts. It should be escalated beyond the other party’s tolerance. Israel should declare the immediate nuclear annihilation of Syria in response to its rocket shower on Israel.

Assad believes he can get the Golan Heights back without winning the war, just like Egypt got the Sinai though lost the war in 1973. Threat of regional destabilization will put the US pressure on Israel to cede the Golan Heights to Syria. Assad, therefore, can start a war to lose it. Olmert needs a major victorious war for his career. Iran wants a war in the Middle East to defuse attention to its nuclear program. IDF needs a war with conventional enemy to recover its reputation losses in fighting guerrillas. The stage is set for a senseless war that everyone needs.

The concept of crushing fear fully applies to the Palestinians. The British quashed Palestinian insurrection in 1930s by overwhelming retaliation which included razing of towns, mass killings, and other orthodox military measures. Instead of provoking Arab insurgents with tales of Palestinian statehood, Israel should crush the hopes of Palestinians: kill every high bureaucrat and member of the PA parliament, ban political associations, shoot suspected guerrillas, and transfer the population. Palestine with a hope is better for Israel than a hopeless Palestinian state.

Olmert and Assad perform an odd dance around the fire of peace. Both sides intermittently hint at their readiness to reach a peace deal and renounce media reports of back-channel talks, offer peace and beef up their border contingents, publicize their peace efforts and refuse open negotiations. Both accuse each other of torpedoing peace talks. Wherever Olmert offers negotiations, Assad refuses them, and vice versa.

It’s easy to sign a peace deal with Syria: take a pen and sign the agreement. The sides’ positions are clear: Syria demands the Golan Heights and Israel (Lieberman included) agreed to relinquish them. Demilitarization of the Golan Heights is a no-issue: the place is in fact demilitarized for the last forty years.

Syria’s support for Hezbollah has nothing to do with the peace deal: Hezbollah has no designs on Israel. Hezbollah evicted Israel from Lebanon and rested, except for isolated border incidents which always happen between hostile states. Hezbollah’s military build-up is purely defensive: its rockets pose no strategic threat to Israel; Hezbollah doesn’t expect to prevail against the IDF in offensive.

Syria’s support for Hamas is very limited, dwarfed by the aid Hamas receives from Egypt (at peace with Israel) and Iran. Hamas’ largest donors are not Muslims, but Jews and Christians who give money to Palestinians – Hamas’ voters.

Israel and Syria don’t sign a peace deal for a simple reason: they don’t need it. Both sides gain nothing from peace. Israel and Egypt, at peace for forty years, did not reduce their armies, established meaningful commerce, or developed popular goodwill toward one another. Egypt plays nice with Israel only because of the IDF – but so does Syria, too.

Assad would love to show his nation that he got the Golan Heights back from Israel, but the concomitant peace with the Zionist enemy will cost Assad dearly. In a similar situation, Sadat had very hard time selling peace with Israel to common Egyptians.

Nations celebrate victories, not peace deals.

The media screams of the Syrian military threat pave the way to returning the Golan Heights. Israeli public must be scared into giving away the Heights. Syrian threat, however, is non-existent.

UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights confirm that Syria does not conduct any significant military buildup. In the most unrealistic scenario of Syria attacking Israel, Syria would only aim at returning the Golan Heights. Israeli government hurries to give the land away before Syria starts fighting for it. Why? Wait and see if Syria succeeds.

Syria knows it stands no chance against Israel. Balance of military power with Israel was much more favorable to Syria in the 1970s than now. Russian anti-air and anti-tank missiles which Syria acquired recently are not a critical impediment to the IDF advance. Mere five cutting-edge MiG-31 interceptors purchased from Russia won't save the day for Syria, especially since its pilots are poorly trained. Syria needs not confront Israel directly, but is better off waging peripheral wars through Hezbollah and Hamas.

Historically, Syrian aggression on Israel was only a sideshow of Egyptian operations. Today, Syria counts on Iran – but Iran failed recently to protect Lebanon. The Iranians proved themselves wise and didn’t allow Hezbollah to strike Tel Aviv with Zelzal-2 missiles. Syria can only depend on Iran’s protection when Iran goes nuclear. Though Iran assuredly won’t nuke Israel to save Syria at the cost of Tehran, Iranian nuclear blackmail won’t allow Israel to occupy Damascus and replace Asad. Nuclear Iran will allow Syria to invade the Golan Heights with only limited liability.

Iran works fast to obtain the bomb. Contrary to my analysis, American officials estimated that Iran will build a nuclear bomb not before 2011, perhaps even 2017 while Israeli experts spoke of 2009. The Iranian Interior Ministry recently vindicated my estimates with the claim that Iran has already enriched 220 lbs of uranium. The most primitively designed bomb requires about a thousand pounds of enriched uranium, and advanced tactical nukes can weight as little as 35 lbs and possibly down to ten pounds. Iran, therefore, has already enriched enough uranium for an advanced nuclear bomb or, by the most conservative estimates, produced 20% of the uranium required for a primitive nuclear charge. That quantity was achieved on only 3,300 centrifuges in two months. Iran plans to run 60,000 centrifuges. The produced uranium is certainly stored away from the possible targets of the US and Israeli strikes. Iran received nuclear weapons designs from Pakistan, North Korea, and likely from China and is ready to form the enriched uranium into warheads.

The US rejected talks with Iran by demanding that Iran ceases nuclear enrichment as a pre-condition of talks – an evidently unworkable proposition. With the EU solidly opposing Iranian nuclear program, the US and Israel seem gearing for a strike. Short of the strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, neither Olmert nor a Republican presidential candidate stands a chance in elections. Thus the review date of the sanctions against Iran set for the end of 2007 to move the wildly popular attack closer to the elections.

Syria is irrelevant. Israel needs not peace with it. The keys to the Golan Heights are at Natanz.

The Jews’ weakness and fear are the major causes of anti-Semitism. Fear provokes both because it means an absence of retaliation and because it irritates: a feared person is presumed bad, violent – and lives down to those expectations. Israel shows weakness in its indecisive fights in Lebanon and Gaza and Winograd-type self-scourging reports. Israel shows fear by imploring for peace.

Israel frets now about the war with Syria. What’s the problem? Unlike its ancient counterpart, modern Syria has repeatedly proved itself immensely inferior to Israel in military contests. Syria is afraid of invading even Lebanon, but funds Hezbollah and fringe militant groups like Fatah al Islam instead. Syria remembers well the times when IDF tanks were forty miles from Damascus. Assad understands that this time Israel – with US approval – would topple his regime. Syria is very different from Hezbollah: Syria cannot disperse among the civilians like a guerrilla group does. Assad is very different from Meshaal: Assad is formally appointed and could be removed from office. Syria could try small-scale provocations like conquering a beachhead on the Golan Heights but won’t massively launch SCUD missiles against Israeli targets for fear of retaliation. Syria has too few Russian anti-aircraft missiles, and they offer no absolute protection, anyway. Syria lacks the kind of air defense superiority Egypt had with SAM-5 missiles in 1973. Russian anti-tank missiles are good, and Syria possesses enough of them to repel the first counter-attacks, but Israel could shower Damascus with missiles instead of a ground invasion.

Syria realizes its weakness and clings to Iran as it clung to Egypt before. Egypt abandoned Syria and signed a peace treaty with Israel. Shiite Iran will all the more abandon Syria. Even a nuclear Iran won’t risk Israeli nuclear retaliation by protecting Syria.

In order to have a peace deal with Syria, Israel will have to abandon the Golan Heights. Demilitarized, they won’t be a huge strategic threat for Israel. Early warning stations will have to go, but then Israel has satellites and AWACS aircraft. Honestly, we want to keep the Golan Heights simply because we love them. The place is nice and enjoyable, compared to the moon-like Israeli landscape elsewhere – short of some places in Galilee, which is populated by Arabs so densely as to make the place scarcely useful for the Jews.

Judaism opposes symbols and pushes Jews to comprehend transcendent truths. The Israeli government lusts after symbols. A peace treaty is one such symbol. A peace treaty is no more a peace than a statue is a god. For the price of the lovely Golan Heights, Israel can have a peace treaty with Syria. Possibly, Syria would diminish its support for Hamas – though not for Hezbollah which furthers Syrian interests in Lebanon. But even Egypt under a very reasonable Mubarak spirals up an arms race with Israel and tacitly supports Palestinian terrorists by allowing unhindered cooperation with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Regardless of any peace treaty with Syria, Israel won’t be able to reduce her army; after the peace agreement with Egypt, the IDF has actually grown. Syria is irrelevant for Israel economically. The Syrians are the most ancient Jew-haters and won’t embrace their Israeli neighbors.

There can be no peace with Syria.

In its opposition to America and the Jews, the United Europe embraces Islamic thugs. European Union's Javier Solana made friendly visits to three terrorist states: terrorist sponsor Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah-run Lebanon, and Syria the Hamas host. Solana promised Syria the utmost help in returning the Golan Heights – annexed by Israel in repelling Syrian aggression and critical to Israeli security. The EU is much more equivocal about the Kuril Islands annexed by Russia from Japan after the WWII, German lands annexed by Russia and Poland, or Alsace-Lorraine annexed by France. Morality is alien to politics, but especially to European politics. Hereditary anti-Semites gleefully side with Arabs against the Jews, especially the politically weak Jews.

Solana's case is easy: Israel only needs to voice her support for the Basque people. If the Golans are rightfully Syrian, then the Basque country belongs to Basques. If the EU helps Syria, Israel has every reason to help Basques with save haven, training, and the UN representation. America played that tactics with Iraqi Kurds. Supporting separatists is a common way to pressure a state into more amenable policy. Don't allow the EU to kick Israel around.

John Kerry has indicted himself. He declared that the US must deal with its enemies and met Assad. Kerry consciously met an enemy of his country. That is treason.

Dealing with the devil is not only immoral but also useless, far beyond the skills of ordinary politicians. America dealt with the Shah, Saddam, Fahd, Arafat, and lost every time, earning popular hatred in the process. The US refused to negotiate with the Nazis but talked with the Soviets; what’s the difference? One talks to strong, politically tolerable enemies; destroy the rest. Assad is weak. Is he tolerable? Only if the US tolerates his support of the Iraqi insurgents, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

America is not at war with Syria but in direct confrontation short of belligerency; sanctions are sometimes the last measure before war. America clashes with Syria on a host of issues. Kerry’s olive branch, offered to Syria in defiance of government policy, amounts to betrayal and criminal collaboration with enemy.

What could Kerry offer Assad? Pressure on Israel to return the strategically important Golan Heights. An international role for the Syrian regime despite its support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Aid? Weapons?

Kerry’s attempt at peacemaking is pathetic: a person with no knowledge of military or regional realities, lacking power or expertise, what could he do? Kerry is only making PR for Assad.

The original Balfour Declaration earmarked Jordan for Israel. Later, the British carved the Transjordan from Israel for a friendly Arab princeling. Jordan is sparsely populated, economically non-viable, and politically unstable. The monarchy will fall - as they have throughout the world - and democratic elections will bring the Palestinian majority to power. Israel will have a poor, fundamentalist, vengeful state on its border. The failed state of Iraq will supply arms and guerrillas. Israel has troubles with Palestine now; Jordan will become a really big Palestine.

Israel could deport Jordanian Arabs a hundred kilometers to Iraq whose weak government would be unable to counter the relocation. Population transfer is hard. Dealing with an aggressive Palestinian Jordan thirty years from now willf be much harder.

Christian-Muslim Lebanon is a state of wolves and - well, not exactly sheep. The two inherently hostile religious groups cannot live together. Catholics and Protestants fought civil wars in Europe, and Christians and Muslims will fight in Lebanon. Dismantling that state would be a favor to its inhabitants.

Israel needs a buffer zone in the north. Lebanese Christians want their own state - an extremely welcome development for Israel, otherwise the lone non-Muslim entity in the Middle East. Syria rightly considers North Lebanon Syrian territory.

Expansionist Syria is Israel’s natural ally. Israel and Syria share the goal of correcting the colonial powers’ geographical errors. Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq are not viable states. The sooner they are taken off the map, the less blood spilled there.

[Former Mossad chief and leftist MK Danny Yatom calls for negotiations with Syria.]

Talk to Syria? About what? To return the strategically important Golan Heights is to commit military suicide. Beside, Syria doesn’t need them; their occupation does not prevent peace. Assad formulated his demands to Israel: a Palestinian state, a partitioned Jerusalem, and the return of the descendants of Arab refugees. He also implied that Israel and the US should stop treating terrorists as terrorists, and Syria as a terrorist state. No basis for negotiation. Assad is comfortable with the current situation. He needs talks only to boost his political position in the Arab world and rescue Syria from being an international outcast. For Assad, talks with Israel are a way to break Syria’s diplomatic isolation.

If, however, Israel attacks weak Syria because it hosts Hamas and aids Hezbollah, peace could ensue. With Israeli bombers over Damascus, Syria would have to agree to a peace treaty.

Other than an attack on Syria, a do-nothing policy is best. Israel doesn’t need economic cooperation with backward Syria. No peace treaty will let Israel disarm, since Syria would break the treaty if Israel became weak. A century of non-belligerence would be a better basis for peace than a paper peace treaty.

Neither should Israel conduct incessant negotiations with the Palestinians. Israel must act according to her enemies’ mentality: a strong power dispersing favors and blows. Set the terms for the Palestinians. If they do not comply, bomb them. Protracted negotiations and intermittent ceasefires allow the Palestinians to re-arm and dig in. Arms are trafficked into Palestine? Bomb the security offices. Rockets fired on Sderot? Clear the no-pass zone along the border with Israel and shoot anything that moves. An Israeli soldier is kidnapped? Shell Palestinian towns randomly until he is returned. So long as Israel owns a gun, she does not need to negotiate with a pen.

Syrian dictator Assad proved himself smart in a recent BBC interview. With characteristically Arab evasiveness he condemned all attacks “against the civilians and the innocent in Iraq.” Implied, there are no attacks specifically against civilians but against enemy collaborators. Muslims understood and applauded. Westerners misunderstood and applauded, too.

Assad is prepared for talks with Israel but only through an “impartial arbiter.” Implied, no such arbiter exists, so no talks. Why an arbiter? Because Assad wants concessions he knows Israel won’t accept, so someone must pressure her. Quite a basis for negotiations. In fact, there’s not much to discuss. Beside relatively minor border rectifications, Syria wants nothing from Israel. Rather, Syria uses the usual Arab excuses for continued belligerence with Israel: partition of Jerusalem between Jews and the Palestinian non-nation, flooding Israel with fourth-generation descendants of the 1948 refugees, and perhaps some reparations from victorious Israel to the losing Arab aggressors. Syria doesn’t require an arbiter to discuss more relevant things: that since the Jews left Syria, it’s time for the Arabs to leave Israel, compensation for the property persecuted and escaping Jews left in Syria, and reparations for the several wars with Israel Syria started and lost.

Assad is practical and grieves over the Israeli doctrine of preemption. Obviously, he recollects the 1967 war. Just why Assad is worried about preemption? Preemption is not aggression but removes a clear and present danger. Assad wants to be able to assemble his forces at Israeli border in the safety of his sovereign protection, and then what? Send them home? More likely, strike at 60-mile wide Israel.

Assad calls on all parties to implement the UN resolutions. The problem is, all parties understand them differently, and neither party cares about them anyway.

According to Assad, the US accuses Syria of supporting terrorism to absolve America of the responsibility. Implied, the US oppresses poor Muslims (perhaps by paying too much for oil), and Hezbollah thrives on popular resentment, not on Syrian aid.

Assad offers Western leaders an example of practicality: “As long as Hezbollah is popular among the people, you have to deal with them.” So much for liberal claims that Hezbollah holds the poor Lebanese population hostage. Assad, a shrewd dictator with a keen sense of mob sentiment, is right: political platforms don’t matter, popularity does. The West, on the contrary, has a penchant for supporting ostensibly liberal but totally unknown guys, such as Karzai, and ignoring popular groups with hostile views, such as Hamas.

Assad refuses to cut ties with Iran and Hezbollah. He realizes that accommodation is a product of force, not of goodwill, weakness, and perpetual concessions.

Assad is in a better strategic position than Israel or the American government. Since Syria is already an outcast, he has nothing to lose and can expect only to gain. Syria’s allies—Iran and Hezbollah—are winning. Assad is not subject to re-election and can plan long-term.

Assad is a new type of ruler: knowledgeable, polite, ostensibly soft and liberal, but strong. He calls flouting public opinion a mistake. Young top managers of that type are seen in Arab companies. Assad is the first ruler of that new generation. He’s much more dangerous than his extraverted father.