Today on I-24 News, I provided comment and analysis on the fallout of the Assad regime's collapse.
There are several simple, but often overlooked, lessons that must be learned from this event.
1) Territory captured in wartime must be retained. The unspeakably dangerous situation in which Israel would find itself had it ever relinquished the Golan heights following the Yom Kippur War of 1973 is impossible to exaggerate.
It is only due to our retention of the land captured that Israel is able to fortify its borders and overwatch events inside Syria with relative ease and certainty.
2) Any topographical advantage enjoyed by Israel must be retained at all costs.
Both of these points must be applied to the Palestinian arena, in Gaza and Judea and Samaria, and also to the Lebanon arena.
3) Israel's enemies must be kept as far away as possible from its borders. Such has been the case along the Israel-Syrian border since 1974. The absence of an organized, hostile military/militia or civilian population at the border is what has allowed Israel to move swiftly into the DMZ and establish strategic, defensive positioning and strongholds along the Syrian front.
This lesson must also be applied to the aforementioned fronts.
4) Natural geography must be studied, understood and deferred to. High ground wins the day. Distance wins the day. Strategic depth wins the day. Do not seek to mould that which is simple into something unduly complex. Israel's security establishment must continue to operate in accordance with these basic, first principles.
For those looking on, be sure to open a topographical map of the Israel-Syrian border in order to understand the story that the regional geography has to impart.
5) The Iranian axis has been massively damaged and perforated. Now Israel and its allies must unmoor it from its foundation entirely. The Iranian nuclear weapons program must be hit, destroyed and taken out of the game, by whatever combination of means will bring about that end.
6) The toppling of an exposed Iranian regime is far more complex a task than is the toppling of the Assad regime, but with Iran's proxies being rendered militarily impotent, its air-defenses exposed, its conventional forces stretched and it having been revealed to be something of a paper tiger in terms of kinetic, direct military engagement, that regime is more vulnerable today than ever before.
With will and with focus, PM Netanyahu, the Israel Defense Forces, the Israeli defense establishment and Israel's allies, should exploit that exposure, apply all due pressure and see if such a toppling might be turned into a reality - as is required.
