Syria fires a dodgy missile against Israel

Everyone thought Syria had launched a missile deep into Israel aiming at the secret nuclear facility at Dimona. It was such a potentially serious attack, even though the missile missed, Israel launched a series of attacks including hitting the Syrian site from where the missile had been launched. For several hours it was a big story with potential apocalyptic headlines. But then came the other explanation which it seems both Israel and the United States eventually believed was the accurate version of the incident. According to General Frank McKenzie, commander of US Central Command and not a man to mince words, it was all a mistake, a case of total incompetence by a Syrian air-defence missile battery unit. Israel had struck at a number of Syrian sites earlier, something which happens on a reasonably regular basis, and the Syrian battery unit must have pressed all sorts of buttons and suddenly anti-aircraft missiles were flying off in all directions and one of them plummeted to the earth inside Israel not a million miles away from Dimona, where Israel "allegedly" makes nuclear bombs. McKenzie was all reassuring when he was asked about the "Syrian attack" by someone on the Senate armed services committee. Don't worry, he said, it wasn't an attack at all. Well if I was working at Dimona and I saw a large explosion in the distance I'm sure I would think an attack had been launched, so it was hardly surprising Israeli fighter jets were scrambled within minutes. Presumably that unfortunate Syrian missile battery is no more. Two lessons are learned from this incident: first, the US and Israel must be electronically watching everything that moves and listening to every word spoken at these Syrian sites to enable General McKenzie to be so definitive when questioned some hours later; and second, it's a reminder that an error or miscalculation or stupidity can lead to war. Incompetence sounds faintly reassuring in this case but what if by sheer bad luck on the part of the panicking Syrian battery commander, the missile had somehow managed to reach Dimona and caused serious damage and/or deaths? Sometimes incompetence can make you shudder.