US President Barack Obama's difficulties in securing support for a strike on Syria are seen by Israeli media and analysts as a sign of the decline of American deterrence in the Middle East.
Congress will on Monday begin to debate military action proposed by Obama, who accuses Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime of perpetrating an attack with chemical weapons near Damascus last month that killed more than 1,400 people.
But for Israeli commentators, a congressional green light is far from assured.
Even France - so far the most solid voice of support for armed action from the international community - wants to wait for the UN report on the August 21 incident, before a possible strike.
"President in a trap" declared the Sunday front page of Israel Hayom, the top circulation daily considered close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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"Alone in the battle" was the headline of widely read Yediot Aharonot next to a picture of Obama with tightly pursed lips.
"The United States cannot afford to be seen as a weak and declining superpower whose red lines are not complied with," said Boaz Ganor, director of the institute for counter terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya, near Tel Aviv.
"It is essential for Obama to get the green light from Congress - not for the sake of the strike, which is likely to be merely symbolic - but in order to preserve the credibility of the American deterrent force in the Middle East," Ganor added.
Israeli officials have remained silent - at Netanyahu's orders - about a possible strike on Syria.
Israel has already taken military precautions against a spillover from Syria onto its territory in the wake of a possible US strike.
"We are watching over Israel, an island of tranquillity, quiet and security," Netanyahu said at his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, not naming Syria but only noting "the storm raging around us".
According to Yediot Aharonot's military commentator, the likelihood of US strikes against Syria is now "less than 50 per cent".
