On Tuesday, the U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan met in Washington with his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat, and the two agreed to establish a working group to address Iran’s distribution of military drones and advanced missiles to its allies. The same day, notes Elliott Abrams, a report appeared that, according to Israeli officials, Russia is providing protection to Iranian maritime arms smuggling:
Russia appears willing to assist Iran now in placing precision-guided missiles in Syria, for Syrian use but also for transfer to Hizballah. This may mean fewer Israeli attacks on land convoys, but it will also mean more attacks on locations in Syria and eventually Lebanon where such weapons are stored. [This] threat is one that Israel has been intent on diminishing to the extent possible, because such missiles could do great damage if Israel and Hizballah ever come into conflict as they did in 2006.
Israel will not decide that its efforts must cease because the shipments are now going by sea rather than land, and it will have no alternative but to hit the shipments when they arrive in Syria or Lebanon. To date, Israel has avoided such strikes at Lebanon and hit only inside Syria—but that cannot last.
The establishment of a new U.S.-Israel working group is a sensible move, if it allows Israel to keep the United States informed on what weapons are arriving in Syria—and on Israel’s general policy and intentions regarding those weapons. But it solves nothing, and cannot be a substitute for action. Working groups offer Israel no protection from precision-guided Iranian missiles that arrive in Syria and Lebanon. Only Israeli action can do that, and we can expect that we will see more of it in the coming months and years.
Read more on Pressure Points: https://www.cfr.org/blog/more-iranian-missiles-syria-problem-working-group-cannot-solve