Has Israel Allied With Russia?

From Sputnik News. A Russian source.

After successful military cooperation talks with Israel, Russia wonders: Why no word from Turkey and the United States?

On Wednesday, senior officials with both the Israeli and Russian governments met to discuss the avoidance of accidental collisions in Syrian airspace. The meeting of senior diplomats in Israel follows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last month.

According to Alexey Drobinin, minister-counselor at the Russian Embassy in Israel, the meetings proved successful.

“Russia will not take any action that will endanger Israel’s national security,” Drobinin told Israel Radio.

“We understand that Israel has national security interests and we take these into account when we formulate our regional policies,” he added. “There are over a million former Soviet citizens living in Israel and we need to take this into account.”

But while talks between Russian officials and their counterparts in the Israeli government have helped ensure peaceful cooperation during the conflict, Moscow has had a harder time conferring with Washington and Ankara.

Here my theory: Russia intends to bring peace to the Middle East. How do they intend to do that? A gas pipeline. I’ll get into that. But first some background.

You can’t understand the conflict without talking about natural gas – ([US] Armed Forces Journal):

Much of the media coverage suggests that the conflict in Syria is a civil war, in which the Alawite (Shia) Bashar al Assad regime is defending itself (and committing atrocities) against Sunni rebel factions (who are also committing atrocities). The real explanation is simpler: it is about money.

In 2009, Qatar proposed to run a natural gas pipeline through Syria and Turkey to Europe. Instead, Assad forged a pact with Iraq and Iran to run a pipeline eastward, allowing those Shia-dominated countries access to the European natural gas market while denying access to Sunni Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The latter states, it appears, are now attempting to remove Assad so they can control Syria and run their own pipeline through Turkey.

OK. Another oil war.

And some more background. Russian operations in Syria could last ‘three or four months’

There is still little clarity about how long the Russian bombing campaign in Syria will continue, although one prominent member of parliament said on Friday that campaign could be over in just a few months.

“There is always a risk of getting bogged down but in Moscow they’re talking about three to four months of operations,” Alexei Pushkov, the head of the foreign affairs committee of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house, told France’s Europe 1 radio.

How can Russia possibly lock up their efforts by Christmas?

The only way I can see that happening is that Russia has gotten all sides to agree to a pipeline through Syria. It will be an open access pipeline. Sunni can join in. Shia can join in. Israel can join in. Russia will be the controlling partner to settle disputes and provide overall military security. Israel will deliver the Saudis to the deal and the Saudis will finance the pipe. Russia will deliver the Iranians.

There will be peace in the Middle East and the US will be cut out of the deal and the region.

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Far fetched? To be sure. But the world these days is a rather strange place. It could happen.

And the best thing? We will know in a few months if I’m on the right track or just having brain farts. If I’m wrong expect a world war. If I’m right things could get quite a bit quieter.

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Update: 9 October 2015 2230z

I have a couple of more theories about the “Home by Christmas” timeline.

1. Russia is pulling out of Syria and everything else is a cover story.

2. It is a way of cowing their home grown Muslims. I have some evidence of that.
Kremlin turns opinion over Syria with U.S.-style ‘shock and awe’ media blitz

the Kremlin is borrowing U.S. government and broadcast tactics to replicate the media campaign that George W. Bush used to win American hearts and minds.

Be it in Chechnya, Georgia or Ukraine, the Russian military has traditionally been cagey about its campaigns. But in Syria, the Russian defense ministry has turned itself into a 24-hour news station, pumping out slick TV footage of cruise missile and air strikes complete with animated graphics.

From the comments:

Sherman

“The message here is ‘Look if we can launch missiles at Syria we can definitely crush any protests so don’t even think about it,’” he told Reuters.

So the whole thing may be a show for the Muslims in Russia.