Israeli Officials Say Assad is Doomed and Will Fall Within Weeks

And this is being said while Assad is listening. What Syria does next is anybody’s guess …

By Joel Greenberg – “JERUSALEM — In a shift, Israeli officials are welcoming the prospect that Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, will be overthrown, an event Defense Minister Ehud Barak says could be weeks away.

As Assad has come under mounting pressure from a revolt at home and moves to isolate him abroad, initial wariness of speaking out publicly about the fate of his regime has given way to open speculation by officials and analysts about how long he can hold on to power, who might replace him and the possible risks of a chaotic disintegration of his rule.

‘Basically, it’s inevitable,’ Barak said in a telephone interview before flying Wednesday to Washington for meetings with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other administration officials. ‘The Assad family, through their own behavior, have lost their last drop of legitimacy and put themselves beyond the point of no return with their brutal slaughter of their own people. He has ceased to be something relevant.’

‘It might take many weeks,’ Barak added, ‘but it’s not a matter of months or years.’

In a separate interview, Moshe Ya’alon, the minister of Strategic Affairs, said: ‘It’s a matter of time and bloodshed before we will witness Assad’s departure. That is our assessment.’

Barak predicted that an eventual removal of Assad would undermine an alliance of Israel’s enemies, including militant Islamist groups backed by Iran and Syria that have fought Israel across its northern and southern borders.” Read more.

Expert: A Threatened Assad May Attack Israel – “Middle East expert Professor Eyal Zisser warned on Monday against a possible Syrian attack on Israel, if President Bashar Assad feels threatened by the anti-regime protesters. In an interview with Arutz Sheva, Zisser said that in the short term there is no reason for particular concern, because a situation which is bad for Assad is good for Israel as this means that the Syrian president is preoccupied with his internal affairs and not with attacking Israel.” Read more.

Report: Syria Arms Medium-Range Missile Arsenal with Chemical Warheads – “The Syrian regime, which has endured nine months of civil unrest spurred by the Arab Spring as it swept across the Middle East, has armed its medium-range missile arsenal with chemical warheads … Damascus armed 600 one-ton chemical warheads to use in the event of a foreign military intervention. Furthermore, President Bashar al-Assad ordered the deployment of 21 missile launchers along its border with Turkey. Syria’s medium-range missiles that can be equipped with chemical warheads have a range of up to 1,300 kilometers…” Read more.