Syria: air strike hints at change in how far Israel will involve itself in conflict

The attack on a Syria-Hizbollah weapons transfer was the second this year by the Israelis. The targets and methods were similar, convoys believed to be delivering missile systems to Hizbollah's northern Lebanese heartlands, destroyed by air force jets hovering over the Lebanon-Syria border. The way the news was immediately confirmed by officials though was very different, indicating something has changed in Israel's calculations over how far to involve itself in the Syrian disaster, and perhaps America’s too. For 18 months or more, Israel tried to turn the other way over Syria. It had no love for Syria's Assad regime - it considered itself the "heart of the resistance", supporting both Hamas and Hizbollah, Israel's most immediate foes - but the Golan Heights border was one of the few with which it seemed to have little trouble. It was a miscalculation all the same. As Iran became ever more closely involved, and America and the West stood by and watched Syria fell apart, events crystallised into what Israeli officials now start to describe as a perfect strategic storm. Iran was drawn inevitably closer in, sending military advisers and, many believe, Revolutionary Guard ground forces to bolster the regime. Tehran is determined to ensure the survival of at least some sort of "resistance" rump state, a Shia-Alawite enclave that due to its natural insecurity would be far more dangerous to Israel, more beholden to Iran, than the old, complex, heterogeneous Syria was.