Signs of Strain in the Iran-Syria-Russia Alliance

Fighting reportedly erupted last week between Hizballah and the Syrian military. If true, it is symptomatic of the growing tensions in the ad-hoc alliance among Iran and its proxies (including Hizballah), the Syrian regime, and Russia. While both Tehran and Moscow want Bashar al-Assad to remain in power, their long-term goals diverge; the Syrian president, for his part, seems to want to play his two patrons against one another. Michael Segall writes:

Iran and Hizballah are not happy about Russia’s stepped-up efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis [by means of a political settlement]. . . . At the same time, senior officials in Iran who are actively dealing with the Syrian imbroglio continue to underline the need to sustain Iran’s presence in Syria, including with regard to Iran’s national security. . . .

Hizballah, which keeps paying a heavy price—both in casualties and politically in the Lebanese arena—finds itself in a problematic situation; it is Hizballah that will be forced, under Iranian pressure, to bear the costs of the settlement in Syria with no real achievement to show for it. . . .

For Iran, the Syrian theater is getting more complicated. The possibility of losing a sphere of influence and operational activity, mainly because of growing Russian influence, is deeply troubling to Iran. Neither the domestic criticism of its ongoing involvement [in Syria] nor the high weekly toll of casualties is causing Iran to change its policy, as it regards Syria as one of its main lines of defense. This is not only because of Syria’s proximity to Israel and Lebanon, but mainly because it is the main arena of competition among Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, Iran, and Russia (with the United States watching from the sidelines) when it comes to shaping the new regional and international order in the Middle East, which is still undergoing the upheaval of the Arab Spring.

A Russian-imposed peace means that the restored regime will be a client of Vladimir Putin rather than of the Islamic Republic, and that the latter will no longer have a pretext for having its forces, or Hizballah, operating within Syria’s borders.

Read more at Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

More about: Bashar al-Assad, Hizballah, Iran, Politics & Current Affairs, Russia, Syrian civil war

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF