On 6 Sept, Israeli aircraft did something in Syria. That much is pretty well established. But what exactly happened? Charles Krauthammer has a guess:
Circumstantial evidence points to this being an attack on some nuclear facility provided by North Korea.
Three days earlier, a freighter flying the North Korean flag docked in the Syrian port city of Tartus with a shipment of “cement.” Long way to go for cement. Within days, a top State Department official warned that “there may have been contact between Syria and some secret suppliers for nuclear equipment.” Three days later, the Sept. 19 six-party meeting on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear facilities was suddenly postponed, officially by China, almost certainly at the behest of North Korea.
Apart from the usual suspects — Syria, Iran, Libya, and Russia — only two countries registered strong protests to the Israeli strike: Turkey and North Korea. Turkey we can understand. Its military may have permitted Israel an overflight corridor without ever having told the Islamist civilian government. But North Korea? What business is this of North Korea’s? Unless it was a North Korean facility being hit.
Indeed.
Krauthammer has more thoughts on the future of the Middle East, and as usual, they are well worth reading.
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