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Ehud Ya'ari: A Pesah Miracle
Ehud Ya'ari

The fall of Saddam Hussein has far-reaching strategic implications for Israel. It appears that miracles don't only occur at Hanukkah, but in our days, between Purim and Pesah as well. With Iraq out of the equation, one can say with certainty, there is no Arab military coalition against Israel. There is no real danger of an "eastern front."

Given that Egypt, so far as one can predict, is committed to a "cold peace" with Israel, Iraq's exit from the circle of belligerency leaves Syria alone, or to be more accurate, with only its distant ally and neighbor, Iran. And that alliance presents only a modest threat to Israel as long as Iran does not obtain nuclear capability. (Rumors of Iran being very close to an A-bomb are premature. The Iranians took advantage of the crisis in Iraq to try and bleach their own clandestine nuclear operation, by unveiling the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Indeed, they seem to have progressed beyond what was suspected. Still, it would be an exaggeration to think they are just around the corner from achieving a bomb.)

Iraq, it should be remembered, has played an important role in Arab-Israeli wars: In 1948, an Iraqi brigade came within 40 kilometers of Tel Aviv; in 1973, two Iraqi divisions fought on the Golan Heights; an Iraqi expeditionary force encamped for many years in Jordan and until 1990, the generals of the "Republican Guard" used to survey the Jordan-Israel border while Iraqi planes would carry out diagonal aerial photography recon missions. This came to a halt with the 1991 Gulf War.

The assessment of Israeli military intelligence during the late 1980s was that Saddam could dispatch no fewer than four divisions against Israel within just two or three days.

From now, it may be assumed, Iraq will be engaged in its own affairs, and what's more, under direct American management. Gradually, a process will get under way to shrink its army from its superfluously gigantic proportions, making it western-equipped and U.S.-trained. In any case, after a continuous chain of wars since the end of the 1960s -- against the Kurds, the Iranians, and the American-led coalitions -- it is to be expected that the Iraq that will rise from the ruins will have no appetite for further military adventures, whatever kind of administration takes hold in Baghdad.

In other words, there is now a real possibility that the danger of a conventional military attack against Israel has vanished, or at least been greatly reduced. I and some of my colleagues have always been convinced that Syria will never go it alone against Israel. Iran is not able to move large ground forces up to our borders. The Jordanian army is built for defensive purposes and the Sinai desert serves as a demilitarized buffer between Israel and the Egyptian army. Anyway, neither Jordan nor Egypt has any interest in a confrontation.

That, then, means a new, more comfortable strategic environment for Israel.

The same is true about Palestinian terror. Saddam's Iraq gave high priority to the funding of suicide attacks and propaganda for the "resistance" while giving personal backing to Yasser Arafat. Without Saddam, Syria and Iran again remain the only patrons of the effort to frustrate the attempts at ending the intifada. So it is not only the dream of a military alliance against Israel that has taken a serious blow, but also the vision of waging a long-term war of terror.

All that without even touching on the aspirations of Saddam's Iraq to develop weapons of mass destruction. There is still no good answer to the question of why Saddam didn't fire missiles this time against Israel, or chemical artillery shells against the American troops. But there is no doubt about where Iraq had been heading. The removal of that threat also represents a strategic blessing for Israel for many years to come.

A new "window of opportunity" is opening up, just like at the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Then Israel missed out on reaching a settlement with Syria, and chose to go with the Palestinians first. That was the mistake of four consecutive prime ministers -- Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu and Barak -- and we are still paying the price.

This time, too, I believe the chances will gradually be created for a dialogue with Syria -- though not necessarily under Bashar al-Asad -- if only the upcoming settlement with Abu Mazen and Co., contains a promise of more than just a "cease-fire." Accepting a mere cease-fire of sorts as a sufficient justification to move to a "provisional" Palestinian state will make it quite impossible to nail the Syrians to a full-fledged "peace" deal with Israel.