by Yaakov Lappin
Israel’s shadow war in Syria is based on the strategic objective of convincing the Islamic Republic that its investment in a war machine is going to waste.
 |
Bodies of Iranian casualties from the Syrian Civil War are returned to Kermanshah, Iran, August 2016, photo via Wikipedia
|
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,250, August 9, 2019
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Israel’s shadow war in Syria is based on the strategic objective
of convincing the Islamic Republic that its investment in a war machine
is going to waste. Iran has so far chosen to weather the strikes and
shift tactics without abandoning its Syria project.
At the start of July, media reports surfaced
regarding an alleged widespread wave of Israeli strikes on Iranian axis
targets across Syria. The reports serve as a reminder of the ongoing
shadow war that is raging between Jerusalem and Tehran, and bring into
the spotlight Israel’s long-term strategic objective.
The strikes allegedly hit Iranian and Hezbollah
weapons sites. They included development, storage, and transfer
facilities, some of which appear to have been embedded in Syrian regime
military bases. Targets around Damascus, Homs, and western Syria were
all reportedly hit, resulting in a number of casualties.
Long before the US began its policy of maximum
economic pressure on Iran, Israel had been applying its own policy of
maximum – yet low profile – prevention in Syria, and that policy
continues.
Using advanced intelligence coupled with precision
firepower, the Israeli defense establishment has prioritized the
objective of disrupting the construction of an Iranian war machine in
Syria. Israel has also acted on many occasions to prevent Iran from
using Syria as a transit and production zone for advanced weapons, such
as guided missiles, for the benefit of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
This effort involves tracking flights, weapons
factories, suspicious ground convoys, and an array of Iranian weapons
production and smuggling activities throughout the Middle East.
According to reports, Israel’s War Between Wars
campaign has also included strikes against Iranian efforts to build a
land corridor linking Iraq to Syria for the purpose of transferring
weapons and Iranian-backed militias.
The reports of alleged Israeli strikes represent
the tip of a very large iceberg. For every reported preventive action by
Israel, it can be assumed that there are many more that go unreported
and remain unknown to the general public.
Israel is determined not to allow Iran to build
offensive drone bases, missile factories, and proxy terror networks with
which to threaten its citizens, and the Israel Air Force operates at a
high tempo around the clock to monitor and disrupt emerging threats.
Israel’s overall strategic objective in these
strikes was spelled out by Mossad Director Yossi Cohen hours after the
alleged July 1 attack, when he stated at the Herzliya Conference, “I
believe that Iran will reach the conclusion that it is just not worth
it.”
This statement reflects the wider Israeli goal,
which is not limited to just physically stopping Iran’s force build-up
in Syria. Rather, Israel’s goal is getting Supreme Leader Khamenei, the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Quds Force to reach the
conclusion that they will not be able to slip offensive capabilities
into Syria without Israel’s noticing and taking action where it feels it
is necessary.
Hundreds of Israeli strikes in recent years were
designed to push Iran into changing its course and scaling back its
Syria project. It is hoped that the net result of the strikes will be
that Iran is forced to perform a cost-benefit analysis and conclude that
its investments in Syria are going to waste.
Iran’s response so far has been to play
cat-and-mouse with Israel: It temporarily tones down its activities
before turning the volume back up and shifting the focus of its force
build-up activities away from southern Syria, near the Israeli border
and Damascus, and toward the deep central Syrian desert.
Cohen confirmed this in his speech, saying that
Mossad has witnessed the Iranians and Hezbollah building bases further
north in Syria.
This likely includes Iranian attempts to use the
T4 airbase in central Syria as an alternative to Damascus’s
international airport for smuggling and storing advanced weapons before
distributing them onward to Syria and Lebanon.
“They mistakenly think it will be harder to reach,” Cohen said during his speech.
In recent weeks, Israel has attempted to
complement its military steps with added diplomatic pressure on Iran to
roll back its activities in Syria. This came in the form of a
significant trilateral meeting, held in Jerusalem on June 24, which saw
national security advisers from Russia, the US, and Israel meet to
discuss Syria.
The results of this effort remain unclear.
Publicly, at least, Russian national security advisor Nikolai Patrushev
indicated that Moscow is in no hurry to disband its alliance with Iran
in Syria, which has seen the two countries coordinate air and ground
operations to secure the brutal regime of Bashar Assad.
“Iran has been and will be an ally and partner of
ours, with which we have [been] gradually developing ties for quite some
time, both bilaterally and multilaterally,” Patrushev said during the
conference. “Any attempts to make Tehran look like the main threat to
global security, to put it in the same basket as ISIS or any other
terror group, are unacceptable. Iran has been contributing a lot to the
fight against terrorism in Syria, helping to stabilize the situation. We
call upon our partners to exercise restraint and to take efforts to
alleviate the concerns and tensions. Efforts should be made to decrease
tensions between Israel and Iran.”
Moscow’s public stance appears to suggest that
while Russia is open to pressuring Iran to stay away from the Israeli
border, it either cannot or will not act to oust the Iranians and their
proxies from Syria. Iran’s presence is still needed to stabilize the
Assad regime, and the Iranians still have a strategic role to play in
Russia’s long-term Syrian project, despite the clear fractures and
tensions that are emerging between Moscow and Tehran due to a divergence
of interests in Syria.
Iran, for its part, is working to counteract
Israel’s attempts to recruit Russia against the Iranian axis. In recent
days, a member of the Iranian Majlis National Security and Foreign
Policy Committee stated that despite Russian-Israeli ties, Tehran has
been able to maximize the utility of the “Russian card” in its
activities in Syria, according to a report by the Meir Amit Intelligence
and Terrorism Information Center.
Israeli-Iranian competition over Russian influence
looks set to continue, placing Moscow in the position of arbitrator in
Syria – which suits Russia’s objective of returning to great power
status in the Middle East.
Iran’s overall response, therefore, has been to
try and weather the Israeli strikes and be flexible in its approach to
building up a force in Syria, without abandoning its ambition of turning
the country into an extension of the Hezbollah-Lebanese front against
Israel.
In the face of increasing American economic
sanctions pressure, Iran could seek to activate proxies or assets in
Syria to target Israel. Iran appears to have already tried such a
provocation on June 1, when two rockets were fired at Mount Hermon from
Syria. The Israeli retaliation targeted Assad regime artillery guns, an
air defense battery, and observation posts.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights, the attack left three Syrian soldiers and seven “foreign
fighters” – Iranian and Hezbollah personnel – dead.
The Israeli-Iranian struggle in Syria looks set to continue. Both sides seek to recruit Russia against the other.
Crucially, Israel has shown its determination to
activate military force to keep Iran in check in Syria. This
determination was expressed by PM Netanyahu on July 14 during a visit to
the IDF National Defense College. “At the moment, the only military in
the world that is fighting Iran is the Israeli military,” he said.
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-strategy-syria/
Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter
No comments:
Post a Comment