Originally Posted by oicur12
At a tactical level Israel has proven itself to be a capable fighting force (although the conflict with Lebanon in the eighties relied heavily on US Navy strike aircraft and the USS Missouri). Strategically though, Israel would launch military operations “off the reservation” without a knod from Washington at its own peril.
You are pulling a rabbit out of a hat there oicur.
The Israelis completely dismantled the Syrians in the Bekaa Valley before the arrival of peacekeeping forces to oversee the withdrawel of the PLO from Lebanon. The Missouri shellings, disasterous carrier borne USN strikes, and ineffective punitive French airstrikes, were retaliation for the bombings of US Marines and French troops in Beirut. The West was suckered into a civil war, complicated by Syrian & Iranian interests.
Israel has arguably the second most powerful air force in the world- couple this with the very short distances to southern Lebanon and you have a very high sortie generation. It never needed American air support in the Lebanon invasion. The airstrike you mentioned- two USN jets shotdown- it was in fact the Americans who could have used the help of the Israelis.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"- old Arab proverb. Try to understand the Middle East, before interpreting Western foreign policy in the region