WarSclerotic

It is still premature to analyze this past week’s late night aerial strike in Syria that has been attributed, by foreign sources, to the Israel Air Force. It is not because all of the facts have yet to come to light, nor is it out of fear of Syrian or Hezbollah retaliation. The bottom line is that the events of this past week constituted a single episode with more to come in this long-running saga that chronicles the disintegration of the Syrian regime, and the drama surrounding the vast arsenal of advanced weaponry it has accumulateda in recent decades.

The close attention being paid to the Syrian theater and, by extension, the Lebanese front, has been the most important task undertaken by the Israeli intelligence and operational apparatus over the past two years. From the public’s standpoint, the major headlines have been about the Iranian nuclear program and the events in Egypt and Gaza. Syria, however, could easily have appeared at a moment’s notice. The Syrian front provided a menacing and monumental challenge, since it was difficult to anticipate what the future held and what was likely to happen if any dangerous developments appeared in real time.

Not only was there grave concern over the composition of the regime that would eventually take the place of the Assad government, but the issue that emerged as the most daunting was accounting for the whereabouts of advanced stockpiles of weapons that were sitting in the storage facilities of the Syrian military. Early this week, the media was chock full of stories which speculated over the possible leakage of chemical arms from Syria to Lebanon. The reports made clear that Israeli officials had communicated warnings to foreign governments and, indirectly, to the Syrians that such a development – the procurement of weapons of mass destruction by a terrorist organization, unprecedented in the annals of human history – would elicit an Israeli military strike that could trigger an all-out regional war.

For a moment, it seemed that these reports, which emerged following a serious of defense and security discussions, succeeded in easing tensions. On Monday, the major headlines were devoted mainly to the chemical weapons cache. By Tuesday, the newspapers were back to dealing with domestic issues.

It is hard to determine whether Israel stood down in order to deceive and lull the enemy to sleep just before an attack, as it did before Operation Pillar of Defense this past November. It is also not known if the timing of the attack was chosen for other reasons. Either way, it became clear from the slew of foreign press reports this past week that IAF warplanes struck a number of targets overnight Tuesday, including arms depots and convoys that were transporting weapons to Lebanon.

It appears that the pretext for the attack was the attempt to transport to Hezbollah components of the SA-17 anti-aircraft missile batteries. These are some of the most sophisticated armaments which the Syrian government purchased from Russia in recent years (alongside the SA-22 and SA-26 models) to curtail Israel’s aerial superiority and make it more difficult for IAF planes to freely strike at targets inside Syria. IDF officers were convinced that Syria was not the final destination for some of the advanced anti-aircraft weaponry. They believed that eventually these arms were destined to come into the possession of Hezbollah.

Given these assessments and similar intelligence reports, in 2008 the government of then-prime minister Ehud Olmert sent a sharp warning to Syria and Hezbollah in which it was made abundantly clear that Israel would react forcefully against any attempt to transfer advanced surface-to-air missiles to Lebanon. As far as we know, the threat had its intended effect, and Hezbollah refrained from arming itself with these systems on Lebanese soil. In fact, not only did the Shi’ite organization eschew anti-aircraft arms, but also missiles against gunboats as well as numerous models of Scud missiles.

Hezbollah was fearful that if it became public knowledge that it had buttressed its arsenal with advanced weaponry on this scale, it would elicit a fierce Israeli attack that could send the region on a downward spiral toward war, at the end of which the Shi’ite group would find itself weakened both politically and militarily.

It also seems that Hezbollah’s Iranian patrons were not too eager for a confrontation with Israel at the present time since they were eager to maintain the strength that they had amassed in Lebanon to either deter Israel from mounting an assault against Iran’s nuclear installations, or retaliate against such an attack.

Sympathy for jihad

This deterrence seems to have been effective until very recently. Given the instability that has wracked the Assad regime and the fear of his imminent demise, Israeli officials were becoming increasingly convinced that sophisticated weaponry was slipping away from “responsible” hands.

After years in which Israel dealt with a hostile yet level-headed adversary in Bashar Assad, a man who possessed sophisticated weaponry as a deterrent while harboring no intention of ever using it (as was evident after the bombing of the Syrian nuclear reactor secretly constructed by his government), doubts began to grow regarding his ability to hold onto these arsenals.

The apprehension was intensified even further when taking into account the possibility that these arms could find their way into the hands of Syrian rebels, some of whom make no effort to conceal their affiliation with global jihadist groups or organizations that sympathize with jihadist aims. There was also the possibility that these arms could wind up in Lebanon.

In order to head off this scenario, Israel once again warned, both secretly and publicly, that it would not stand idly by while weaponry that it believes could tilt the strategic balance changed hands. These include dangerous weapons, including chemical arms, Scud missiles, anti-aircraft and anti-naval missiles like the Chinese-manufactured Yakhont model which not only threaten Israeli naval vessels but also commercial ships that carry cargo and which are involved in offshore drilling for oil and natural gas.

The U.S. relayed similar warnings to officials in Damascus as well as in a number of European capitals, this at a time when Turkey and Jordan have also begun to undertake intensive action to make sure that sophisticated weapons do not fall into hostile hands.

Despite the joint Arab-Western cooperation on the rhetorical level, Israel will in all likelihood find itself on its own on the operational level, just as it did this week. According to the information already revealed, it is reasonable to assume that intelligence about convoys moving toward Lebanon and weapons caches being emptied out necessitate immediate action.

In the short term, it is doubtful forewarning was given to a foreign element, not just due to the fear that the information would leak but also due to the knowledge that no other entity besides Israel would act to stop whatever Israel wanted to stop. A clear choice needed to be made – attack and risk inviting a fierce response, or show restraint and risk seeing the weapons swallowed up in Lebanon only to reappear in the future in another military campaign.

Assuming that it was indeed Israel that struck, as has been reported, that means that the decision to attack was the product of the realization that the spread of weapons was much more dangerous than the prospect of immediate war. In other words, it was far more preferable to run the risk of war at this juncture, when circumstances were much more in Israel’s favor, than to risk war with Hezbollah in the future after it had grown much stronger thanks to its new weapons.

One can certainly point to the international legitimacy and backing that Israel enjoyed to execute this operation. This can be attributed to the repeated warnings that the government issued through various back-channel discussions as well as the lack of sympathy worldwide for the Assad regime and the dangers posed by the spread of arms currently in the possession of his military.

It is reasonable to assume that the Israeli decision to act was based on assessments that neither Syria nor Hezbollah are interested in escalating the conflict at this stage, with each party having its own reasons.

Syrian officials are aware that not only would war with Israel fail to unite the disparate ethnic groups in their country behind their hated, battered president, but that Israel would in fact succeed in doing what the oppositionists have so far failed to do, which is remove Assad from power.

In Hezbollah, the thinking is different. On the military side, there is concern that a war would significantly eat away at its strength. On the political half of the equation, Hezbollah operatives are worried that the Lebanese people would turn against the group just before parliamentary elections scheduled to take place there in June.

Given these circumstances, one needs to take into account the threats emanating from Iran, which has warned that it would respond harshly to any Israeli move in Syria. Iranian officials have said that an attack on Syria would be akin to an attack on Iran itself. Those statements have, for the moment, proven to be empty and devoid of content. Iran has no wish to arouse a global backlash, particularly given that the international community is more preoccupied at the moment with war in Mali and the rising price of oil. Tehran certainly does not want to provide Israel an excuse to attack it.

This explains the reasoning behind the assessment that the relevant players wish to avoid a wide-scale war. Still, as of Friday morning, it is hard to predict whether Syria and Hezbollah will continue to show restraint over the blow that they absorbed. In the past, Hezbollah has opted to respond to attacks against it or its sponsors with operations that are similar in style – “an eye for an eye”. In other words, it may look to launch a military attack of its own.

From Israel’s standpoint, that means it must boost its defenses, particularly in the north, in order to thwart any attempt to kidnap or harm soldiers or civilians. Yet even if the current round passes without a response, we are still talking about an isolated incident that doesn’t come close to solving the larger problem at hand.

The Syrian military has in its possession an unconscionable 1,000 tons of chemical weapons material, thousands of advanced Scud missiles and rockets, and various other types of anti-aircraft and anti-naval missiles. These arms will continue to cause Israeli officials to lose sleep at night. Their hope is that this week’s operation bought Israel some time and boosted its deterrence. Jerusalem now hopes to use the time it gained to find alternative solutions – ranging from international intervention to the installment of a new regime in Syria that would act in a rational manner and will refrain from using or distributing highly advanced weaponry – that will spare it the need to act again.

But this may be unrealistic. Hezbollah, which is being urged by its masters in Iran, will continue to try to procure quality arms, some of which are under its control in Syrian territory. Earlier this week, it was reported that the organization built training camps near Syrian army bases in which some of the weapons are stored. This was done not only to prevent the rebels from obtaining the arms but also to facilitate their eventual transfer to Lebanon.

As Assad’s position becomes increasingly tenuous and his allies grow increasingly convinced that his days are numbered, it is a safe bet that Hezbollah will continue to act to secure the weapons it needs. Under these circumstances, Assad could use his final moments to help transfer the arms to Lebanon, not only to prevent the rebels from obtaining them but also to cement a future front that would unite the Alawite sect with Hezbollah. Having come into possession of these arms, this front would not only be able to threaten Israel from the south but also to flex its muscles against Sunni Syria from the east.

Israel will monitor these efforts, and there is a chance that they will require it to act in order to thwart its realization. This could happen very soon. Whoever thought this week that the tension in Lebanon is partially a political ploy that was designed to get the various Israeli political parties to lower their demands as they negotiate entry into the coalition, or to pave the way for Ehud Barak’s remaining at the helm of the Defense Ministry, woke up Wednesday morning to a brand new reality in the Middle East. The fact that Hassan Nasrallah erred in his assumption that Israel would refrain from a dangerous military operation just after the elections is a cause for joy.

One can only hope that Nasrallah will learn his lesson. More so, he should remember the lesson he learned in 2006, when he miscalculated Israel’s response to the cross-border raid and brought death and destruction upon Lebanon. If this lesson remains seared in his memory, then perhaps we could get by this current round of tension without any additional flare-ups in the knowledge that the next event, which will be much more complex and challenging, is already waiting just around the corner.