An offshoot of the Iraqi branch of Hizballah, the Harakat al-Nujaba militia has fought against Islamic State in Iraq and in support of the Assad regime in Syria—always operating directly under the command of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The militia recently announced the formation of a “Golan Liberation Brigade.” Amir Toumaj explains what this might portend:

While it is not uncommon for entities to name themselves after areas they aim to “liberate,” the militia’s spokesman has said that the unit could assist the Syrian regime in taking the Golan Heights. . . . [But first, the] unit would likely participate in an offensive to capture territory from the Syrian opposition in the part of the Golan still controlled by Syria before moving on to the much taller order of dislodging the Israelis across the border. This week’s announcement reflects Tehran’s priorities in southern Syria since finally taking the fiercely contested city of Aleppo late last year. . . . [R]eaffirming an ideological commitment to fighting Israel signals defiance to a global audience amid a reportedly converging American-Arab-Israeli military alliance against Tehran. . . . Harakat al-Nujaba also released a video promoting the Golan unit that showed fighters marching in columns and carrying a banner reading, “Israel will be destroyed.”. . .

The combined forces of the Syrian regime and the IRGC-led militias are no match for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and this disparity is expected to hold for the foreseeable future. Israel could also adopt a more proactive approach in Syria to foil IRGC encroachment in the Golan, for example by coordinating with Syrian rebels positioned in the area. The Syrian Golan’s flat geography furthermore denies the IRGC suitable terrain to replicate the southern-Lebanon model of concealing rocket launch sites dispersed across a widespread area, making it easier for the IDF to search and destroy weapons systems. For years, the IDF has been fortifying positions in the rocky plateau of Golan to face greater capabilities than the IRGC and its allies can muster.

Yet the claim to retake Israeli Golan underscores Harakat al-Nujaba’s ideological commitment to the IRGC’s and Ayatollah Khamenei’s declared goal of destroying Israel. . . . [For the time being,] IRGC’s primary goals in southern Syria are to crush Syrian opposition forces and to build the capability to open another front against Israel. The IRGC hopes a viable Golan foothold would serve as a deterrent against Israel and the U.S. that could be activated in a future conflict, such as another Israel-Hizballah war.

To Mathias Döpfner, a German and the publisher of the online magazine Politico, the war between Israel and Iran

is a central front in a global contest in which the forces of tyranny and violence in recent years have been gaining ground against the forces of freedom, which too often are demoralized and divided. In a world full of bad actors, Iran is the most aggressive and dangerous totalitarian force of our time.

But Israel is only the first target. Once Israel falls, Europe and America will be the focus. . . . It is therefore surprising that Israel is not being celebrated worldwide for its historic, extremely precise, and necessary strike against Iranian nuclear-weapons facilities and for the targeted killing of leading terrorists, but that the public response is dominated by anti-Israel propaganda. The intelligence and precision of Israel’s actions are not admired but are instead used here and there to perpetuate blatantly anti-Semitic stereotypes.

If Israel does not achieve its goals—destruction of the nuclear facilities, maximum weakening of the terrorist regime, and, ideally, the removal of the mullahs—the world will quickly look very different. China will seize this historic opportunity to annex Taiwan sooner than expected. Largely without resistance. . . . That is why America and Europe, in their own interests alone, must stand united with Israel and do everything in their power to ensure that this historic liberation is achieved.