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Tales of the New Cold War: Gunfight in Syria. PART 1 of 2. Stephen F. Cohen @NYU @Princeton eastwestaccord.com.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/opinion/the-middle-easts-coming-war.html

"...The response to the downing of the Israeli jet was intended to be a lot more violent. Israel has long maintained contingency plans for a huge offensive operation in Syria. On Saturday, the generals took them out of the drawer. But the Iranians and the Syrians, along with their Lebanese ally Hezbollah, realized that something like that was in the offing, and let it be known that they would not let it happen without responding. The Israelis heard this, but were not deterred. The Israel Defense Forces went on to a war footing.

It soon became clear, though, who is calling the shots. The Israeli bombardments of the air base had been dangerously close to Russian forces. A furious phone call on Saturday morning from President Vladimir Putin of Russia was enough to make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel cancel the plans...."