Such warnings were common during Israel's occupation of south Lebanon but they have resumed following fresh Hizbollah assaults. They raise anew the alarming spectre of a wider Middle East conflict. Israel's annoyance with Syria's new young president has been heightened by disappointment that he has not proved any more likely to succumb to Israeli demands than his father, Hafez al-Assad, who died in June. The Israeli military is alarmed by Bashar al-Assad's eagerness to forge closer relations with Iraq in contrast to his father, whose hostility towards Saddam Hussein reached a peak in 1991 when he supported Operation Desert Storm. Last month Izzat Ibrahim, a member of the Revolutionary Command Council, was the most senior Iraqi official for two decades to visit Damascus.
Reports abound that Iraq is piping oil to Syria in defiance of sanctions.
But he is behaving just the opposite way. He is very extreme. He has turned very hard in the direction of the Iraqis. The renewed relationship between Syria and Iraq not only has powerful implications for the Middle East, but for the rest of the world as well. The current decline in the US stock market has investors worried as the value of their IRA and 401K retirement accounts continues to plummet.