Despite Recent Developments, the Syria-Iran Alliance Isn’t Going Anywhere

According to reports that first appeared in the Arab press, the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad last week expelled the commander of Iranian forces in his country. The reports, if true, run contrary to much evidence that Assad is the junior partner in his alliance with the Islamic Republic. More importantly, the news has raised hopes of a possible rift between Tehran and Damascus, encouraged further by signs of reconciliation between Syria and the Persian Gulf states. David Adesnik argues that those hopes are unfounded, and that the theory of an emerging split between the longtime allies contains two logical flaws:

First, it presumes that Assad is prepared to trade the certainty of Syria’s 40-year partnership with Iran for the potential benefits of improving relations with the Gulf states. Recall, these are the very states that bankrolled the insurgents who almost brought down the regime.

Second, there is a tendency to forget that the war in Syria is far from over, with Iranian advisers and Shiite militias still playing a critical role—hence the presence in Damascus of Javad Ghaffari, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander apparently expelled last week.

The war in northwestern Syria remains bloody. . . . Assad is likely biding his time. His own ground forces are dilapidated, and Russia fights mainly from the air, so the regime still depends on Shiite militias organized and directed by Tehran to carry out its military operations. The most effective is Hizballah, but there are significant Iraqi and Afghan Shiite formations as well.

Assad has every reason to believe that his diplomatic rehabilitation will continue even if he remains as close to Tehran as ever. Arab kings and princes may come bearing gifts, but they cannot buy the loyalty that Tehran has earned.

Read more at Algemeiner

More about: Bashar al-Assad, Iran, Middle East, Syria

 

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