Category: Israel-America’s Only Middle East Ally (DEBKA)

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu set out for President Vladimir Putin Israel’s red lines against Iran establishing a permanent, expanded military presence in Syria. This theme dominated their three-hour conversation in Sochi on Wednesday, Aug. 23. Netanyahu stiffened his warning with a veiled threat that should Iran or Hizballah cross those lines, there would be a regional war.

It was the first time that the prime minister had publicly threatened to go to war against Iran and Hizballah. After talking to Putin, he said to reporters that what is new today is Iran’s attempt to “Lebanonize Syria.” in the same way as it seized control of Lebanon through its surrogate, Hizballah. “We are looking at Tehran’s future takeover of Syria through its Shiite militias.
if that happens, “we will not remain passive,” he said – nor if Syria becomes a link in Iran’s overland corridor via Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. And we certainly can’t accept Iranians and Hizballah close to the Golan.

“We told President Putin plainly that we won’t put up with Iran using Syria as a military base for attacking Israel.

Putin, in the part of the meeting to which reporters had access, did not address Netanyahu’s remarks about Iran’s role in Syria, nor his warning of unilateral military action. The Russian president just repeated the standard Moscow line that foreign forces would not stay in Syria at the end of the war, but offered no timetable or guarantees.

The Russian leader would clearly prefer not to see an Israel war against Iran and Hizballah breaking out in Syria, DEBKAfile’s sources say, especially since Russian special forces, naval and air force contingents are deployed there – albeit not in large numbers.
At the same time, he may well find Netanyahu’s strong words useful for boosting Russia’s clout in Syria. If Tehran believes an Israeli war against its forces and Hizballah is potential, it will be in Iran’s interest to strengthen its military ties with Russia so as to gain its military and political backing.

For Putin, this would be a welcome change from the atmosphere of acrimony prevailing for some weeks between Iranian and Russian officers in Syria. Russian colonels have been posted at the most sensitive sectors in Syria, such as Aleppo, Hama, Homs and eastern Damascus. They are taking over both the military and civilian administration there and, in effect, shouldering the Iranian officers aside.
In Iraq, the Iranians seized control of the country from within, by setting up armed militias and getting them integrated in the national army, as Trojan horses. Tehran knows how to manage this ruse on the quiet, without drawing unwanted attention from the powers on the spot.

In Syria, the problem Israel facing is quite different. If Netanyahu shared sensitive intelligence wit Putin that he had not known before, he can’t help noticing that Israel’s red lines for Iran’s expansion were crossed months ago, some of them with Russian assistance.

Four instances stand out:

1. Iran and Hizballah have already set up a chain of military bases in Syria – notably in the Qalamoun Mountains on the Syrian-Lebanese border, from which missiles can be launched against Israel.

2. Iran has already won its coveted land bridge through Iraq to Syria. Bashar Assad’s army has taken over whole sections of the Syrian-Iraqi border, and opened the door for pro-Iranian Shiite militias, Hizballah and Iraqi Shiite groups to move into strategic positions on both sides of the border.

3.  Netanyahu warned of the danger of planting an extremist Shiite entity in the heart of the Sunni Muslim region. But this is already underway. On orders from Moscow, the Syrian army’s 5^th Corps is in the process of absorbing the pro-Iranian Shiite militias which fought for Assad.

The prime minister did not inform Putin of any timetable for Israeli action. But the Russian leader will take it for granted that the Israeli army will not move into Syria without a nod from the Trump administration in Washington.

For now, Putin and Trump are synchronizing their operations is Syria with better results than Netanyahu’s understanding with the US administration.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Mossad Director Yossie Cohen asserted separately on Sunday, Aug. 13, that wherever the Islamic State is thrown out, Iran moves in.

This assessment was borrowed from American evaluations of the situation in Afghanistan and Yemen. It does not work as a guiding principle for Israeli security in its immediate neighborhood – certainly not for Syria.
Cohen was correct in stating in his briefing that Iran presents Israel with its greatest peril, and that the Islamic Republic has used its 2015 nuclear accord with the six world powers as an accelerant for developing nuclear weapons.
But that does not make the situation in Syria analogous to Afghanistan, as an examination of the facts show.

ISIS was pushed out of parts of northern Syria by the Syrian army, Turkish troops, Syrian rebel groups and Kurdish militias. But neither Iranian forces, nor Hizballah or the Shiite militias, imported from Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight under Iranian officers, have moved in to take their place.
Neither have they been allowed a role in the ongoing offensive for the capture of Raqqa.  And no Iranian or Shiite presence is to be found in Tabqa, northwest of this former ISIS capital in Syria, or Al-Bab north of Aleppo. Both towns were wrested form the jihadists by other forces.

Had Netanyahu and Cohen noted that Iranian and Hizballah took part in some of the battles fought by Russian and Syrian army forces, they would have been correct.  However, it must be said that the pro-Iranian forces’ participation in battles against ISIS was never more than a by-product of their overriding objective, which was to preserve Bashar Assad in the presidential palace in Damascus. Today, they are closer than ever to achieving their goal in view of the crumbling resistance: the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey this month signaled they were pulling their support from the Syrian anti-Assad insurgency.

The Netanyahu government’s fundamental misconceptions on the Syria question dates back to 2012, the second year of its civil war, when Israel’s security and intelligence chiefs insisted that Bashar Assad’s days in power were numbered.

This misjudgment prevailed. It was repeated only a few months ago by Maj. Gen. Hertzi Halevy, head of AMAN (IDF military intelligence). It led to another fundamental error, which was Israel’s decision not to impede Hizballah’s entry into the Syrian war in 2013 to shore up Assad’s rule. The thinking then was that Hizballah would come out of the brutal conflict weakened and in no shape for waging war on Israel. To the contrary, Iran’s Lebanese surrogate has come out of the Syrian conflict as a hardened terrorist legion, in better shape than ever before and, moreover, rewarded for its critical support for the ruler with a say in Syria’s post-war future and the strategic asset of an anti-Israel warfront stretching out of Lebanon across into Syria.

Paradoxically, the Russian air force and special operations units are helping Syrian, Iranian and Hizballah forces to vanquish Syrian rebel and ISIS groups, while latterly US special forces began helping Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian and Hizballah forces cleanse the Syrian Lebanese border of the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front presence.

Two world powers are therefore backing the Syrian-Iranian-Hizballah lineup against the extremists. Iranian and the pro-Iranian Hizballah are being enabled to reach Israel’s borders – not as a result of the removal of ISIS but the open door provided them by the coordinated actions of two world powers.
The ratio of one enemy (Iran) replacing another (Isis) is not just an over-simplification of the situation, but a misreading.

Netanyahu certainly meant what he said Sunday that “Our policy is clear. We strongly object to the military entrenchment of Iran and its surrogates, led by Hizballah, in Syria, and we shall do what is necessary to guard Israel’s security. That is what we are doing.”

But what exactly can he do against the jeopardy to Israeli security resulting from the process underway in Syria, which is supported not just by Russia, but by Israel’s most stalwart strategic ally, the United States, and supportive Saudi Arabia?

Incoming Israeli Air force Chief Maj. Gen. Amikam Nurkin, 41, who took the command over from Amir Eshel at a ceremony on Monday, Aug. 14, plunges straight into the ongoing air campaigns Israel is waging covertly and continuously against Iranian, Hizballah and Islamic State targets.

Nurkin stressed in his first speech as new IAF commander: “The Middle East is changing before our eyes. Our missions and responsibilities are constantly expanding to meet global changes in the balance of power and rapidly mutating battlefield conditions. It is up to us to continue to find answers for future challenges and come up with new technologies. The IAF places high value on its close working ties with foreign air forces – some near and some distant – and will work hard to strengthen Israel’s position in the region and the world.”
Last week, Nurkin stressed the importance of the close cooperation between the air force and other IDF arms.

In is parting speech, Amir Eshel, who retires from five years as air force chief and 40 years of military service, commented: “Our soldiers have stood the test in recent years of thousands of operations, defensive and offensive, in five arenas. Sometimes, they served near by; sometimes thousands of kilometers from home.  They thwarted threats, destroyed rockets and downed aerial vehicles – across the Middle and farther afield,.” he said.

Eshel concluded by saying that Israel’s enemies cannot possibly envision the full quality and scope of the IAF’s strength. “If we are forced to fight, they will have a shocking surprise.”

Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, General David Goldfein attended the Israeli Air Force change of command ceremony at Tel Nof Air Base.. He awarded the Legion of Merit, (degree of Commander) to Maj. General Eshel and met with incoming  Commander Maj. Gen. Norkin.

Eshel’s tenure covered two major anti-terror operations against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip: Operation Pillar of Defense and Operation Protective Edge, as well as hundreds of sorties and covert operations beyond Israel’s borders.
The chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gady Eizenkot said: “The map of dangers is expanding and changing in form  and this obliges us to work at top speed to adapt our capabilities to the contemporary battlefield. Terrorist organizations grow stronger and are moving up to our borders. The IDF is constantly compelled to maintain an exceptionally high state of preparedness against all threats.”
DEBKAfile’s military sources take the three general’s speeches together as a reference to the covert wars in which the Israeli air force is simultaneously engaged at this time – against Iran and Hizballah – and not only in the Syrian and Lebanese arenas – and against the Islamic State. These campaigns are usually limited in scope and usually use the element of surprise and the advantage of enemies short of the sophisticated air defense weaponry for jeopardizing Israeli warplanes.

What this means, in short, is that the big challenge for testing the IAF to its limit, is still ahead.