Debkafile's military sources report that the first air transports carrying US special forces
are due to land at Sharm el Sheikh military airfield in southern Sinai in the
next 48 hours and go into action against the arms smugglers without
delay.
This development is strategically significant for three reasons:
1. Once the missile and arms consignments depart Iranian ports or Libyan
arms bazaars, Tehran has no direct control of their transit from point to point
through Egypt until they reach Sinai and their Gaza destination. All the same, a
US special forces operation against the Sinai segment of the Iranian smuggling
route would count as the first overt American military strike against an Iranian
military interest.
Netanyahu, Barak and Lieberman are impressed by the change the Obama
administration has undergone since the president’s reelection. Until then, he
refused to hear of any military action against Iran and insisted that Tehran
could only be confronted on the diplomatic plane.
2. President Morsi, by
opening the Sinai door to an American troop deployment for Israel’s defense,
recognizes that the US force also insures Israel against Cairo revoking or
failing to honor the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979.
3. In the face of this US-Israel-Egyptian understanding, Hamas cannot
credibly claim to have won its latest passage of arms with Israel or that it
obtained guarantees to force Israel to end the Gaza blockade.
Indeed, Gaza’s
Hamas rulers will be forced to watch as US troops in Sinai, just across its
border, break up the smuggling rings filling their arsenals and most likely
laying hands on the reserve stocks they maintain under the smugglers’ guard in
northern Sinai, out of reach of the Israel army. This means that the blockade on
Gaza has been extended and the focus of combat has switched from Gaza to the
Sinai Peninsula.
read full article:DEBKA files
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