So read the latest dispatches from that front. Now why would Assad do that? some may ask.

But it makes perfect sense. Despite all the decades of hysterical propaganda about Greater Israel (from the Nile to The Euphrates), all the Arab rulers know that Israel has no such ambitions, and wants simply to be left alone.

And Assad knows that many of those who are most fanatically Muslim, Syrians and people who have come into Syria from outside, will now flock to the Golan, and try to figure out how to inflict as much pain on the people of Israel. After all, now there will be enemies directly to the north -- Hezbollah, and to the south -- Hamas, and now to the northweat, the "Jihadis" (as they are called) facing Israeli forces on the Golan.

If they act up, by lobbying missiles and so on,  and Israel retaliates, or pre-emptively strikes, than Israel has taken care of one problem for Assad, by wiping out a determined group of his most implacable enemies. And if they also cause Israeli casualties, that's fine for him. And ideally, any such outbreak of hostilities might, he reasons (I think in this case wrongly) that the ensuing brouhah will cause some Syrians to re-think their opposition to Assad, heroic leader of the Resistance to Israel, as his regime never tires of telling.

No doubt, over the next few days or weeks, aa rivulet becoming a mighty river of solemn and complicated and ponderous explanations will flow over us.

But tell that river to stay 'way from your door. For you already grasp what, in any case, has always been perfectly obvious.