UN Warns of Israel-Syria Escalation
The UN secretary-general warned today that the cease-fire between Israel and Syria is in jeopardy as Austrian forces have withdrawn from the UN Disengagement Observer Force.
Austria's precipitous withdrawal of forces from the UN-mandated force monitoring the disengagement of the Israeli and Syrian armies in the Golan Heights is yet another alarming signal of the breakdown of the rules of the game that have governed not only relations between Israel and Syria for more than four decades, but also those between the two superpowers of Russia and the United States.
These rules, formulated in the aftermath of the last superpower confrontation in the region during the October 1973 war, established international support for the framework that has preserved a de facto peace between Israeli and Syrian armies on the Golan front and more broadly, set the terms of superpower competition in the region that has continued even after the end of the communist regime in the last century.
