Iran, Syria may talk a big talk, but too scared to act

        The banquet at Syrian President Bashar Assad's palace last weekend was held in the best tradition of Western state dinners, complete with white silk tablecloth, name cards at every place setting, fine china, pure silver flatware and three delicate crystal glasses for every diner. The only difference was in the choice of appetizers, a la mezes, familiar to us from our nicer Middle Eastern restaurants. The main course was not culinary, but rather political. Seated around the table were not epicureans, but the heads of the axis of evil, and on everyone's plate was, naturally, Israel. The host was the same Assad who had only recently proposed peace talks with Israel a number of times. To his right was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who proclaims the destruction of the Zionist state. To his left, Hassan Nasrallah, who wholeheartedly supports that goal. According to foreign reports, Nasrallah came disguised, with his goal, one may surmise, being the formation of a military alliance to deter Israel and/or the United States from taking steps that would harm Iran's nuclear program, which the whole world fears along with Israel. This surprising summit is certainly in Iran's interest, but it is unclear whether it is in Syria's. Assad's regime is among those Iran would like to bring down. Assad is not only not Shi'ite, he is not religious. He is a member of the Syria's ruling minority and needs to be closer to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt rather than Iran. If foreign press reports can be believed, there are good reasons to fear Israeli intelligence and its ability to infiltrate and expose the enemy. They shouldn't fear the James Bond-style hit in Dubai, but the killing of Imad Mughniyeh, which happened in the heart of Damascus. As opposed to Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who came and went openly to and from Dubai and spoke freely on the telephone with his brother in Gaza, Mughniyeh concealed his identity. If we throw in a few more mysterious actions, among them the uncovering and bombardment of the secret Syrian nuclear reactor, Assad has good reason to be concerned. As for Ahmadinejad, he has a big mouth - so big that he does not understand that the more he threatens us with a second Holocaust, the more he spurs Israel to build greater means of deterrance and increases its willingness to use them. Ronen Bergman wrote last week in Yedioth Ahronoth that former prime minister David Ben-Gurion told Yuval Ne'eman, one of the fathers of Israel's nuclear program, that his worst nightmare was that the survivors of the Holocaust in Europe, whom he had brought to Israel, would be victims of a second Holocaust here. The reasoning, Bergman wrote, which won the day when former prime minister Menachem Begin ordered the bombing of the Iraqi reactor and by which the Syrian reactor was bombed, is that a country calling for the destruction of Israel must not be given the means to do so. This is not a one-way threat. Iran might misunderstand the voices emanating from Israel. Iran's leaders might be mistaken about Israel's capabilities or exaggerate the extent of American pressure on Israel not to act against Iran. But our deterrance is based on force and the willingness to use it in the face of a threat to our survival. In the days before the 1967 Six-Day War, when our soldiers were sitting for weeks doing nothing under the burning sun, with Egypt threatening to attack, Moshe Dayan was finally appointed defense minister and everyone awaited his decision. But in his first meeting with foreign correspondents, he was ambiguous - "It's too late to act militarily and too soon to sum up diplomatic efforts." The journalist Winston Churchill (grandson of the British premier) decided he was wasting his time and that same night flew back to London, while our planes were on their way to bomb the Egyptian air force. Israel's reputation is built on deterrence. Iran, full of itself, could presume that we will not act or we will not be allowed to act. But good intelligence on their part can depend on precedents where we did act in similar circumstances. In bombing the Iraqi reactor we surprised the Americans, although they might have given their agreement in a wink and a nod. At the Damascus summit Iran's leaders are attempting to build an offensive axis against Israel and its home front. In the words of Henry Kissinger, even the paranoid have enemies. They certainly have a big mouth, but they are afraid to act. (22,52)