Special to WorldTribune.com

JERUSALEM — Israel has been quietly concerned over the U.S. acceptance of a Russian plan that halted a proposed Western air campaign against Syria.

Officials said the sudden reversal by President Barack Obama, who pressured Israel and American Jews to support an attack on Syria, suggested that the administration was pursuing a reconciliation with Iran.

They officials said Teheran was consulted over ways for Syria to accept a diplomatic solution that would eventually end its chemical weapons program.

“Iran understands today that there is nothing backing up all the threats against it,” Israeli Regional Cooperation Minister Silvan Shalom said.

“If it is impossible to do anything against little Syria, then certainly not against big Iran.”

Officials were skeptical over whether Assad would honor his pledge to eliminate Syria’s CW stockpile. They said the United States could act toward Syria as with Iran — maintaining sanctions while stressing diplomacy.

“We do not know how the free world will act in response to the massacres
in Syria,” Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said.

Israeli Strategic Threats Minister Yuval Steinitz raised the prospect
that Washington’s agreement would embolden both Damascus and
Teheran. Steinitz, regarded as close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
suggested that Iran and Syria could conclude that the international
community would tolerate the use of weapons of mass destruction, including
nuclear.

“One day they may not only threaten to use them, but actually do so,”
Steinitz said.

Officials said Israel expected the Russian-U.S. agreement on Syria to
cancel any plan for an American military strike on the Assad regime. They
said Obama, who welcomed the Russian agreement, was given a way to evade his
pledge to respond to repeated CW attacks by Damascus.

“Israel is not involved in the Syrian civil war,” Shalom said. “But
Israel also says that the lack of a decision regarding Syria is a decision,
and in our region it will have a great deal of significance.”

  Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel: Russian plan boosts strategy for U.S.-Iran reconciliation, Moshe Ya’alon, Silvan Shalom, Yuval Steinitz