Analysis: US arming Assad’s foes forces Iran to bleed resources in Syria
Analysis: US arming Assad’s foes forces Iran to bleed resources in Syria | JPost | Israel News.
WASHINGTON – In a darkening Syria, airstrips serve as the veins of the Assad government. Flying over quiet, unsupervised Iraqi airspace, Iranian craft transport undocumented weapons to their chief ally in the region on a routine basis.
To the frustration of military experts and Western officials, the Iranians release no defense budget, and certainly no inventory for covert aid.
Unlike in the United States, the Iranians don’t experience military leaks. So no one can say confidently how much the Islamic Republic is spending to keep Assad in power. But they have made no secret of their priorities: Iran will not tolerate Assad’s fall, and its leadership will do whatever is necessary to prevent it.
Over two years into the conflict, that promise has manifested itself in the form of arms, loans, hard cash and people. Gunmen and lifelong guards, from both Lebanon and Iran itself, are directly changing the outcomes of important battles with their boots on the ground.
But Iranian blood is being spilled in Syria as the conflict drains Iran’s resources. Considering the veracity of the regime’s pledge, it is safe to conclude that the longer the conflict lasts, the more Iran will exhaust itself.
Iran capitalized on a similar realpolitik in 2006 in Iraq, after Ayatollah Khamenei saw that America’s democratic project was falling apart. His preferred plan was to use political influence in a weak Iraq to elevate Shi’ite allies within the newly created democratic system. His backup plan was to bleed American resources, soldiers and willpower through the arming of insurgents with light weaponry.
A covert network was built through 2005 in the form of safe houses and couriers, and contact was made with virtually every group. But Iran activated the network only in 2006, when the idyllic, peaceful jockeying of influence gave way to harsher realities.
The United States was committed to the Iraqi project, and a terrorist hub was seeded on Iran’s doorstep. It was an opportunity for the Iranians amid a plethora of bad options.
Now, in the greater chess game that is the Middle East, tactical lessons from Iraq could be playing in reverse in Syria.
In his decision to arm Syrian rebels with light weaponry, President Barack Obama may see merit in bleeding Iran, just as Iran bled the US in Iraq, so much so that the American people are simply unwilling to shed any more of their treasure in the Middle East.
Columnist Fareed Zacharia called that consideration a “clever, effective, brutal strategy to bleed America’s enemies” on Sunday, calling other justifications for the decision to provide only light arms “like trying to get a little bit pregnant.”
“The fact that Iran and Hezbollah are sending militias, arms and money into Syria is not a sign of strength. It is a sign that they are worried that the regime might fall,” says Zacharia. “Keeping them engaged and pouring resources into Syria bleeds them. It weakens them substantially.”
But Kenneth Pollack, formerly a CIA intelligence analyst and National Security Council staffer now with the Brookings Institution, said that the US “has no clue” what the Iranians are truly providing, or what those provisions are costing the regime.
“We know that Iranian support is important to Assad, but we couldn’t quantify it, and we don’t know the extent of the support,” Pollack told The Jerusalem Post. “Typically, we find it doesn’t cost a whole lot of money to provide Kalashnikovs and RPGs. The Iranians can provide lots and lots of them, and it’s really not going to affect their bottom line.”
“As a strategy, I’m not sure it’s really going to send a political signal to Iran writ large,” says Frederic Wehrey, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who says the Iranian strategy in Iraq was to play both arsonist and fireman. “This new war can be conducted in the shadows, and the costs of it are largely hidden from the Iranian public and even parts of the Iranian political elite, because its Guards force is so compartmentalized.”
But the alternatives for the president are unclear.
A consistent bombing campaign of Syria’s key airstrips would present multiple problems for the US. The Pentagon is definitively opposed to such moves. But it would perhaps force Iran to face an even starker choice: accept steeper costs in alternative forms of delivery for weapons, or risk losing Assad to rebel forces.
“That strategy is asking people to stand in front of a moving bus to slow it down,” says Danielle Pletka, a veteran senior staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who says she would be surprised if a strategically protracted conflict was a consideration in the White House. “The immorality of that strategy would be striking.”
Indeed, the interventionists in Congress and in the president’s national security team seem to be advocating for action based on a mix of strategic and humanitarian grounds.
Driving the angst on both sides of the aisle are liberal and protectionist ideals: a desire to protect the lives of foreign peoples, and an imperative to keep American troops out of harm’s way.
That may be the key difference constricting the military options of the United States and those of its adversaries.
“Even with their own people, if they have a few hundred or even a few thousand people in Syria, you’re not bleeding Iran,” Pollack added. “Our society is very casualty sensitive, and it becomes very politically costly. It’s just not that way for the Iranians.”
WarSclerotic 
June 20, 2013 at 8:03 AM
In acord with the israeli site Rotter (in hebrew), state of the art weapons are on their way from Russia(with love) to Syria, Tartus port. This is happening as a result of USA decision to arm the rebels with advanced weapons, too. The estimations are that the russians teams on the ground will need up to one month to ”absorb” the S-300 system and to make it active. The events now in our region will develop with a totally different rhythm, because after those missiles will be in place not only that the USA air forces will be in deep problems, IAF won’t be able to act with the impunity we act today. In the face of the IAF will be the follow grave dilemma : losing the air superiority in the region with all the implications or destroying the missile battery on the ground at a proper moment; the last possibility is in the cards and it is the most plausible. Israel can’t afford to give up its aerial – live saving – superiority and considering what ”Putin will say or do”.
The most interesting thing here is that, even that the russians know what the israeli reaction will be, they still are deploying the S-300 in Syria. What that could mean? Defiance? A clever trap, for learning the assets Israel will use to neutralise this system and applying the lesson in the iranian operation?
And Israel, what is it waiting for, regarding project Iran? Is Israel waiting for Hezbollah to be deep, really deep , into the Syrian ill bed? That may take too much time that IAF may not have at its disposal. And there is one more thing that certain people aren’t paying enough attention to it : if the israeli operation in Iran had took place 3-4 years ago, than all the muslim and arab world were against Israel, while Hezbollah, Hamas were all ready to attack the jewish state from very strong positions. Now, lets look at the big picture today : Hamas will not react, Hezbollah is already engaged in Syria and will have to take into consideration annihilation if will attack Israel – in fact, we think that would be suicidal for Hezbollah – and nobody, nobody will cry if Iran will be attacked. The opposite is true: Saudi Arabia and and its Gulf allies will be ecstatic if that will happen. And the more Iran will be affected, the more the Sunni world will be happier. So, these are the reasons that we think must be taken into consideration when decided to act now, or to postpone (again) the ”Project Iran” operation.
June 20, 2013 at 9:37 AM
Barring an effective no-fly zone, where are the man-portable weapons: the Mistrals, the SA-18s, the Stinger-Bs, the Javelins, RBS-70s, Starstreaks, GROMs, and IGLAs? Until/unless MANPADs reach the opposition, Bashar keeps buying Asma mink coats and the Iranians continue making deliveries . . . just like FedEx.
June 20, 2013 at 10:20 AM
Those anti aerial missiles you just wrote about are all now in the possession of the militants, Aleppo region included(yesterday Rotter report). This is exactly the reason that the summit Putin – Obama failed and the S-300 is on its way here.
June 20, 2013 at 10:23 AM
What are the chances that Netanyahu got the kill code for the S300 from Putin when he went to visit last month?
June 20, 2013 at 11:57 AM
I really don’t like to disappoint a friend, but the truth must be said: no such a thing was or came up between Putin and Bibi. Those batteries are the Russians’ baby, they invest a great deal of effort-intellectual, mostly- in the development of those systems, they think the S-300 missile system is the king of the hill, they think this will seal the Israeli(west) domination of the sky, but they are in for a big surprise.
June 20, 2013 at 1:02 PM
I like to think that they could have cut a deal…
Israel secretly agrees not to interfere in the Syrian civil war. No attacks on anything excepting shipments to Hiz. Also, no more than symbolic complaining about the Russian supplying weapons to Assad.
Let Russia and NATO slug it out. Israel sits on the side giving no more than moral support.
In return, Russia assures Israel that neither Hiz nor Assad will launch an attack in the north. To assuage Israel’s fear of the s300s Russia gives them the kill code on their promise to use them only for Israel, not NATO.
If this deal was made, don’t expect to read about it. Maybe never.
Maybe because there never was such a deal!!
Still, it’s fun to come up with such scenarios to explain the seemingly inexplicable series of contradictory signals emanating from the Syrian theater over the last few months.
June 20, 2013 at 8:24 PM
The French who built Saddam’s reactor were not unhappy with the outcome of the IDF’s bombing of his reactor.
This deal was an extremely lucrative one for the French.
In addition to the hundreds of millions Saddam paid for the reactor he ordered thousands of French cars.
Add the time when the IDF bombed the reactor Saddam had already payed everything.
The IDF took great care to minimize civilian and particulary French casualties and so the reactor was delibertely bombed on a sunday. Only one French was killed due to Saddam’s AA-fire.
And so in the end everyone except Saddam was happy.
Saddam could not accuse the French.
After all they had kept their end of the bargain.
The French had the money and were privately happy that the madman did’nt have nukes.
Israel was happy that the threat no longer existed.
The world (including the US) condemned Israel but in the end everyone was happy that Saddam had no nukes.
When the US invaded Iraq they recognized how much they owed Israel and admitted to the Istraelis how thankful they were.
If there is any ‘secret deal” I think it is one along the same lines.
The Russians deliver the S-300, get the cash, get the heck out and let Israel do its job.
They will have fullfilled their obligation to their ally while they also put up a show of Russian intransingence and power for the domestic consumption.
It won’t also hurt the reputation of the S-300 and thus the export market because at that stage the S-300 are not fully operational.
June 20, 2013 at 1:53 PM
As i said before , trow some sticks and bones between the fighting dogs and see what happens.
But for sure we end up whit a sunni brotherhood controlled middle east.
June 20, 2013 at 7:00 PM
It would be rather ironic if some extremist rebel group gets their hands on US supplied anti aircraft weapons and downs an Israel air liner.
June 20, 2013 at 8:19 PM
Unthinkable, yet possible. Obama would be a fool to turn these weapons loose. He might get the “business end” of one of these things back one day. Furthermore, commercial air travel would be completely grounded. All because one little Muzzie decided to take a shot at an American Airlines jet with his shiny new AA shoulder fired missile. That, my friends, would most certainly be the ‘shot heard around the world’.
June 20, 2013 at 7:01 PM
It’s wishful thinking to presume that Iran is being bled. Iran does not provide any soldiers, and the weapons it supplies are being paid for. It is therefor more realistic that the Syrian conflict strengthens Iran.
June 20, 2013 at 8:11 PM
Good point renbe and might I add that this is further evidence that sanctions against Iran are useless. I say this because Iran can still sell military hardware to Syria, somehow receive payment, and laugh all the way to the bank so to speak. Not sure about the soldiers, however. Haven’t severaI RG’s been observed and/or killed in Syria?
June 20, 2013 at 10:27 PM
Of course Iran didn’t send any soldiers in Syria, ”Renbe”, we all here know better: Iran is sending in Syria highly trained monkeys, IRGC monkeys who are specialised in stealing bananas, so you see, the things are not simple with Iran. Monkey business are also booming in Iran, you see, so Iran is exporting its monkey revolution all over the region.