Assad Speaks Out On The IAF Strike

After 3 and 1/2 week, this is the best that Assad can come up with?

Assad: IAF hit 'unused army building'

Syrian President Bashar Assad told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Monday that IAF warplanes attacked an "unused military building" in his country last month and said Damascus reserves the right to retaliate.

But Assad said his country was not about to attack Israel in response, suggesting he did not want to hurt chances at peace talks with the Jewish state.

...The BBC quoted Assad in the interview as saying the attack was on an "unused military building." The BBC did not air that part of the interview.

First of all, at this late date such a claim ranks right up there with Ahmadinejad's claim that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

Secondly, whether the IAF bombed an empty building or left without doing anything, the fact remains that Israel was able to get in and out at there own pleasure--regardless of the latest equipment Syria had purchased from Russia.

This of course is an embarrasment to Russia as well:

The Syrians had invested heavily in new Russian air defense systems, and the Israelis apparently brushed right by them. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russians have been trying to rehabilitate the reputation of their weapons. Throughout the Cold War, whenever Russian and Western (especially American) weapons met on the battlefield, the Russians lost. The Soviets tried to compete on price, but even "free" was not low enough for many countries. Using Soviet weapons came to be seen as a sure ticket to battlefield defeat.

...Russias arms customers are asking for answers, but so far the Syrian incident is being dismissed as nothing to worry about.

Neither Syria nor Russia is fooling anyone.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Syria and Russia and Bashar Assad.