Iran gambles, Moscow Pays in Syria

Posted: September 20th, 2018

By Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin was chief of Israeli military intelligence from 2006 to 2010 and is now the director of the Institute for National Security Studies. In 1981, as an Israeli Air Force pilot, he participated in Israel’s airstrike on Iraq’s nuclear program.

By Ari Heistein

Ari Heistein is an advisor to Israeli startups seeking to sell to the U.S. federal government, a consultant on issues relating to Yemen, and a nonresident fellow at the Counter Extremism Project. He has previously worked in business development for an Israeli cyber intelligence company and served as a research fellow and chief of staff at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin served as chief of Israeli military intelligence from 2006-2010. He is now director of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). Ari Heistein is special assistant to the Director.

OPINION — That Iran seeks to diffuse advanced weaponry to its proxies in Syria and Lebanon is no surprise, though recent Israeli efforts to stanch the flow of precise weaponry to its neighbors have had unexpected consequences. An Israeli strike on a site connected to the Iranian weapons program in Syria led Assad’s trigger happy air defense to fire indiscriminately and accidentally down a plane belonging to its partners from the Russian military along with 15 military personnel in a friendly fire incident.

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