Syria -- Is this the first step towards a regional war? (1 Viewer)

[higgins]

My link

Israel jet attack just a prelude

By Victor Kotsev

The initial announcement on Wednesday that Israeli jets had bombed a target on the border between Syria and Lebanon recalled how the news of the Israeli raid on the Syrian nuclear reactor was broken. Back then, the Syrian government first said that Israeli planes had breached Syrian air space and "dropped ammunition in the desert".

Now, too, Lebanese military sources initially claimed that "12 Israeli warplanes had violated Lebanese airspace in less than 24 hours". Subsequent leaks, however, are starting to reveal a much bigger picture.

Unnamed "regional security officials" quoted by the Associated Press claimed that the target of the attack was a convoy carrying Russian SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles. Subsequently, Syrian state television reported that a "military research center" had been struck not far from the capital Damascus, killing two soldiers and injuring five. By Wednesday evening, further reports claimed that the facility in the Jermana area had been used to produce and store chemical weapons.

The influential US-based analysis firm Stratfor provided more details in a report:

Four Israeli aircraft entered Lebanese airspace around 4:30 p.m. the evening of Jan. 29, but were relieved four hours later by other aircraft. Then at 2 a.m. the next day, these aircraft were replaced by yet another group, which remained in Lebanese airspace until about 8 a.m.. The duration of the operation is significant. The Israelis clearly anticipated a target to appear in a specific window of time; bombing a fixed target would not necessitate a prolonged mission. ... The ultimate objective of the strike remains unknown. It could have been meant to take out an actual convoy of surface-to-air missile systems that challenge Israeli air superiority. Just as plausible is that it was meant as a warning to discourage Hezbollah from transferring weapons into Lebanon as the Syria crisis continues to degrade.

We can expect that more details about the raid will emerge in the coming days and weeks, and it is possible that its scope will prove more extensive than currently believed. In the case of the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, it took months before the full truth came to light.On the one hand, experts say that, based on the available information, it is unlikely Israel attacked a shipment of active chemical weapons. "The chances that someone was able to bomb a chemical weapons convoy without causing significant environmental damage is very small," said Dany Shoham, an expert on chemical and biological weapons in the Middle East at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in an interview with The Times of Israel. [1]

On the other hand, the attack on a Syrian military facility is more difficult to evaluate. The Israeli government issued several urgent warnings over the past week about the possibility of Syrian chemical weapons falling into the hands of the Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah, and for several days made preparations for a military operation. At least two Iron Dome anti-missile batteries were stationed in the northern part of Israel, and, according to reports in the Israeli press, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak cut short a foreign trip on Sunday.

On Tuesday, hours before the raid, the Israeli air force chief, General Amir Eshel, said Israel was engaged in "a campaign between wars" in which it was doing its best "to keep [our] efforts beneath the level at which war breaks out".

A consignment of advanced conventional weapons, such as the SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, could also have triggered the military response. "These are no less troubling than chemical weapons," said Giora Eiland, a former Israeli National Security advisor, in an interview with the Washington Post. "They are more widespread and not as tightly controlled by the regime, so they can fall into the hands of Hezbollah."

Experts caution that there is more to come. "The bigger problem is that this wasn't a one-time event," wrote the Israeli analyst Amos Harel in the daily Ha'aretz. "The worse Assad's position grows, the more attempts Hezbollah will make to grab whatever weapons it can get its hands on."

The international background to the operation is also significant. On Saturday, ostensibly in response to Israel's warnings and the heightened regional tensions, a top Iranian politician and diplomat said that "[an] attack on Syria is considered [an] attack on Iran and Iran's allies". Some reports in the Israeli press claim that Iran may have intentionally engineered the clash - by crossing an Israeli red line - to draw attention away from the civil war in Syria (which has so far cost more than 60,000 lives) and the Iranian nuclear program.

Meanwhile, Russia - another staunch Syrian ally - is reportedly conducting "the largest [naval] exercise since the dissolution of the Soviet Union" off Syria's coast. [2]

According to reports in Ha'aretz, the United States recently placed upgraded F-22 stealth fighters in the UAE [3] and "asked Jordan and Turkey to take action if Syria uses chemical weapons". [4]

Amid the increasing disintegration of central authority in Syria and several mysterious explosions in Lebanon in the past few weeks, tensions in the Levant are at a high. It is hard to tell how likely a regional war is in the near future, but it is clear that the Israeli operation on Tuesday night was a major development.

 

[36th Chamber]

It's just one in a step of many that will be recalled as leading up to a war but nothing imminent due to the recent Israeli actions.

 

[Politician Spock]

It's been war for a while now.Too many people just don't want to admit it.

 

[matuski]

Can someone point out to me a time in the last couple-few millennia when there has NOT been a war in the "region"?

 

[Kal El]

Can someone point out to me a time in the last couple-few millennia when there has NOT been a war in the "region"?

I think the last time was when the Romans controlled the area and managed to keep everything quiet for a few decades.

 

[Johnny Bench]

 

[higgins]

Multiple messages in Israel's Syria strikes

By Victor Kotsev

A series of Israeli strikes in Syria over the last few days left more questions than answers, despite multiple leaks and speculations which accompanied them. The most urgent ones are whether or not they are just a prelude to a wider war in the Levant and what might be the timeframe for such an outbreak of violence.

For now, it appears that a larger military confrontation is not imminent, despite reports that Syria pointed missiles at Israel (after announcing that the strikes comprised a "declaration of war") and the Jewish space positioned interceptors and closed the air space in its north to civilian traffic. Reinforcing this message, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proceeded to China on Sunday evening, after several hours of consultations with officials. However, despite all speculation, little has been confirmed about the raids, which apparently took place on Friday and Sunday morning. In fact, the first round was kept secret by all those involved for about a day, when it was leaked to journalists by American officials.

It is believed that the attacks struck stores of ground-to-ground missiles which the anonymous American and Israeli officials quoted by world media claimed were about to be transferred to the Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah. There is some disagreement, however, whether these missiles were Iranian-made Fateh-110, Syrian-produced Scud-Ds, or both. Other weapons, such as advanced Russian anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, have also been mentioned as possible targets of the raid, and a similar strike in January is believed to have targeted Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft batteries.

Moreover, Israel is alleged to have tested a new air-to-ground missile, the Spice-2000, [1] and to have conducted the raids from "stand-off" distance over Lebanese air space. Analysts claim that this served both to protect the Israeli warplanes from the Syrian anti-aircraft defenses and to send a message to Iran about the Israeli capabilities.

Among the most important unanswered questions is that of the relationship between the US and Israel in this operation. One school of thought maintains that the strikes were an American message delivered by Israeli warplanes to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over the alleged use of chemical weapons against the rebels. It is impossible to strike the chemical weapons themselves without releasing large amounts of toxins into the environment, the argument goes, and this is why the Israelis took out a considerable chunk of the Syrian regime's missiles-the main delivery vehicle for the poison gases.

Besides, it is possible that, as the veteran Israeli analyst Zvi Bar'el claimed in the daily Ha'aretz, "Russia and the US have an undeclared agreement about the red lines for intervening in Syria: As long as America doesn't arm the Syrian rebels, Russia won't flaunt its military support for the regime." [2] Russia's slow public response to the strikes suggests that if US President Barack Obama used the Israeli air force to slap Assad on the wrist in order to avoid a major confrontation, it worked.

In any event, for complex reasons including worldwide consensus that Israel, as opposed to the US, has absolutely no "responsibility to protect" the Syrian rebels, this was a case where an Israeli strike would make much fewer ripples in the Middle East than an American one, and this may have suited Obama's agenda. According to a recent report in the New York Times, Obama's "red line" speech last year was an unscripted blunder, [3] and it is therefore conceivable that he would seek to repair the damage, and deter Assad from crossing any more red lines, as quietly as possible.

There are many indications that the attack was carefully planned a long time in advance, and some that the US actively participated in the planning. According to a Reuters report published last month, the American-brokered Israeli apology to Turkey in March was geared precisely toward such a strike, since Israelis and Turks had played aerial brinkmanship over Syria and Lebanon on recent occasions in the past. [4]

Also the timing of a "surprise" Israeli drill in the north, which started days before the attacks, suggests that the raids had been carefully scripted, as does recent open talk by Hezbollah about a war in the next six weeks. Given the long rostrum of American and Israeli officials which visited each other's capitals lately, and the support voiced by the White House for Israel's right "to take the actions they feel are necessary to protect their people", it is hard to believe that Obama was surprised by the operation.

On the other hand, however, some analysts believe that the Israeli strikes will put pressure on the White House to get involved in Syria as well, against Obama's wishes. This is also, essentially, what US Senator John McCain told Fox News on Sunday.

Foreign Policy Magazine's managing editor, Blake Hounshell, put it eloquently in an analysis published Saturday:It is counter-intuitive that Israel would want to draw the US into Syria, if only because this would distract American attention from Iran - and, as the influential intelligence firm Stratfor argued earlier this year, may even serve Iranian interests to an extent. [6] But in the run-up to the Iranian presidential election next month, Israel's tough behavior against Tehran's most important Arab ally could influence internal Iranian politics and force the Iranian leaders to be even less accommodating in the forthcoming rounds of nuclear negotiations.

This would partly be motivated by geostrategic considerations, the argument goes: if the ayatollah regime loses Syria, it would feel an even stronger need for a nuclear deterrent to protect itself from being overthrown with foreign support.

If the nuclear negotiations with Iran, which are expected to take place after the election, fail most analysts believe that the US will be forced to attack the Islamic Republic. While it is hard to claim that Israel sought to draw the US into a war with Iran through its repeated strikes on Syria, the possibility of this happening must surely have crossed the minds of Israeli policy makers who authorized the operation.

There are credible arguments, if only circumstantial evidence so far, for why the story told by Israelis and Americans about the imminent transfer of missiles to Hezbollah holds. Among these arguments are that Assad is indebted to Hezbollah for sending a large chunk of its forces to fight on his side and that he would like to protect the missiles from possible future American strikes. The prominent Israeli military analyst Ron Ben-Yishai provided some more relevant details in a recent analysis. [7] Worryingly, the logic of these arguments still holds, meaning that attempted transfers and limited air strikes are likely to continue in the future.

But overall, a lot more uncertainties than certainties exist with regard to these raids - not least, will they help or hurt the standing of the Syrian rebels - and heavy official secrecy makes it even more difficult to separate fact from fiction. While neither Assad nor Israel seems to have an interest in the outbreak of a larger war at this stage, surprises are possible, and it will likely take some time to assess the precise impact of what is happening.

 

[higgins]

Attacks reframe the Syrian crisis
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

Israel's latest air strike against a Syrian military facility, explicitly condoned by US President Barack Obama, has been called an "act of war" by Syrian officials and, as expected, drawn strong verbal condemnation by Iran, compared to the silent response of much of the Arab world.

The strike, together with four rocket attacks on Damascus also blamed on Israel by the Syrian government, reflects a major escalation of the two-year old conflict that may result in direct Iranian military intervention in the near future.

A clue to the latter, both Ahmad Vahidi, the Iranian defenseminister, and Ahmadreza Poordastan, who heads the Iranian army, have denounced Israel's air strike, the third since January, in the strongest terms and suggested that Iran can provide "support" for the Syrian army. Unconfirmed reports indicate that Israel has hit several Fateh 110 missiles bound for Lebanon, which has complained to the United Nations over Israel's repeated violation of its air space.

Pushing the throttle on Syria is a risky proposition for Tel Aviv and has the potential to backfire in light of Iran's call on the Arab world to "take a united stand" against Israeli aggression. There are a good deal of questions about Israel's motives that are complex and rather murky, but such attacks shift the focus from the "civil war" in Syria to an inter-state conflict, thus re-mapping the entire trajectory of the conflict.

"Israel is deliberately escalating the conflict with 'green lights' from Washington in order to tip the balance in favor of Syrian rebels, who are increasingly pushed to a corner in recent weeks,'' said a Tehran University political science professor who spoke to the author on the condition of anonymity. "The Syrian army is now confronted at two fronts, stretching its resources. At the same time, by attacking Syria through Lebanon's air space, Israel is fanning the flames of sectarian tension there and hopes to undermine Hezbollah's position."

In fact, as far as Tehran is concerned, there is a triple threat stemming from the Syrian conflict. It threatens not only Syrian and Hezbollah, Iran's two traditional strategic regional allies, but also Iraq, which is increasingly rattled by internal instability and fears of a spillover from the conflict partly, due to the recent alliance of Syrian jihadists and al-Qaeda in Iraq. In turn, this has triggered serious national security conversations in Iran regarding the dangers lurking on the horizon and the nature of proper responses.

With the presidential elections in Iran only a month away, and a bulk of candidates pushing for a more moderate image of Iran abroad, it is uncomfortable to say the least for Iran to be forced in the direction of (in) direct military intervention in Syria, which could easily become Iran's "quagmire".

Tehran's preference is for a political solution to the conflict in Syria, which is why it has backed the hitherto hopeless mission of UN's special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, whose call for a halt to arms to both sides in the conflict has fallen on deaf ears. Some Tehran analysts contend in fact that Brahimi's call was gaining some traction and Israel's attack was meant to derail it, since it is in Israel' s interest to "maintain chaos" in Syria.

There is an inherent danger in such a strategy however, given the likely benefit to the radical jihadists in Syria, who are Israel's sworn enemies (see Iran softens tune on Israel, Asia Times Online, April 30, 2013). What Israel may gain tactically in the short run, it may lose strategically in the long run. Even the slightest hint of the Syrian conflict's "re-direction" toward an inter-state conflict is a plus for Damascus, which can put the Arab League on notice that they are skirting their historic responsibility toward a fellow Arab state that is put under siege by the Zionist state. At a minimum, this can drive a wedge in Arab public opinion and even influence some Syrian rebels, who consider themselves, first and foremost, nationalists.

What then lies ahead? The most likely prospect is the greater and greater "internationalization" of the theater of conflict in Syria, with Russia and Iran acting in concert to prevent Damascus's fall, while US and Saudi Arabia and other conservative Arab states continuing with their (non) lethal aid and Turkey caught in the machinations of other powers, instead of charting an independent map of action.

With tens of thousands killed, several millions turned into internal and external refugees, and the Syrian economy taking a huge hit, the bleak picture in Syria is likely to turn even bleaker in the coming months, perhaps as a result of a more frequent and sustained Israeli military intervention, tantamount to a not-so discrete "Israelization" of the conflict with the multiple side effects mentioned above .

There is a touch of irony in all of this. Israel by attacking Syria "can actually help Bashar al-Assad survive", says the Tehran professor, adding ominously that Iran is "keen on limiting its role in Syria but might soon conclude there is no alternative but to do the exact opposite." Bottom line, this is a policy dilemma for Iran that will surely beset the next administration.

 

[johnnycakes]

I read the following yesterday in the WSJ. I felt it odd that Hezbollah and most Americans probably agree on this point:

"Hezbollah has raised the stakes in Syria in recent weeks and attempted to frame the conflict there as a fight between Israel and the West, on the one hand, and an alliance of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah on the other."

Isn't this what it really is?

 

[higgins]

Link

Hezbollah and Al Qaeda Fighters Edging Closer to Full Scale Confrontation

By ALEXANDER MARQUARDT (@marquardta)
May 10, 2015

Two men dressed in camouflage stand on a patch of dirt amid rubble, Kalashnikov rifles at their sides, at the entrance to a dark hole in the dirt. The wooden screens often found in mosques lay on the ground, cast aside. The hole was the burial place of Hujr bin Uday al-Kindi, one of the prophet Mohammad's companions, widely revered by Muslims, Shiites in particular.

The men standing on top of it are members of Jabhat al-Nusra, a Sunni Muslim extremist rebel group trying to topple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad that recently swore fealty to al Qaeda's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The desecration of the shrine - and the removal of the remains - drew condemnation from the highest levels of Shiite Islam. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called it "bitter and sad," while the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon issued a statement stark warning that it "foretells a large conflict and gloomy evil."

That large conflict is what many fear is the next chapter of Syria's brutal two-year war. As it drags on, it has grown more sectarian and more likely to spill over into neighboring countries. In the immediate term, Lebanon would be foremost among them, directly pitting Hezbollah militants against al Qaeda-linked jihadists who have flocked to Syria from across the Muslim world.


Hezbollah fighters are already fighting those rebels on a relatively small scale in Syria, the group's leader confirmed last week. Several dozen are believed to have been killed in the past several months, their bodies sent back to Lebanon for burial.

Most of the action they've seen recently has been defending the Lebanese Shiites living in over 20 border villages inside Syria, notably al-Qasr, home to Lebanese Shiites and Christians which has come under attack by fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra.

The second of Hezbollah's main missions in Syria is to defend the Sayyida Zeinab shrine near Damascus (other Shiites - Iraqis - are believed to be there as well). The ornately decorated shrine is where the granddaughter of the prophet Mohammed is buried, a highly sacred place for Shiites that normally sees pilgrims visiting year-round.

In a conflict in which the phrase "red line" has been bandied about by most of its participants, Hezbollah's leader, Shiekh Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, last week seemed to draw one of his own, warning of "serious repercussions" if the shrine is attacked.

Syria's conflict is often described as a "civil war," but that is only true insofar as it has yet to spill over into another country on a large scale or draw in too many different forces. But it is the quintessential proxy war, with the Alawite (an offshoot of Shia Islam) Assad regime backed up by Shia allies Hezbollah and Iran, as well as Russia and China. The Sunni rebels are supported by the Islamist rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, as well as the U.S., France, Britain and others.

Raising tensions further are the twin air strikes carried out by Israel in Syria last on Friday and Sunday, the primary targets are believed to have been missiles heading to Hezbollah from Iran, their primary backer.

"Iran stands at the side of Syria in the face of Israeli aggression, whose aim is to damage the security of the region and weaken the axis of resistance," Iranian Foreign Minister Akhbar Salehi told Assad in a meeting in Damascus on Tuesday.

Today, Hezbollah is believed to have around 60,000 missiles, capable of hitting every part Israel. The missiles hit by Israel are believed to have been the highly-accurate Iranian-made Fatah-110s. In a televised speech on Wednesday night, Nasrallah said Syria would still give Hezbollah "game-changing weapons it has not had before."

"In the whole of Arab history, no other Arab regime has given us as much as President Bashar al-Assad's regime has," Nasrallah said.

While Israel doesn't expect direct, major retaliation, there's little doubt Hezbollah will respond somehow.

"Those who want an immediate response should look in the direction of Iran and Hezbollah," wrote the editor-in-chief of Lebanon's Al Akhbar newspaper, Ibrahim al-Amin, on Thursday. "There are enough indicators on that front to suggest that there is no escaping some kind of reply."

As the fighting grows among the regime, its ally Hezbollah and the Sunni jihadists, the U.S. had treaded cautiously to avoid inflaming the conflict to the point of boiling over. But the spillover violence could force their hand.

"America could get sucked into this because they have alliances with all of Syria's neighbors," said Tabler. "They don't want to help either side but that fighting is going to destroy Syria as we know it today."

In December, Syrian rebels burned down a Shiite mosque in northern Idlib province. Fighting between Hezbollah and Jabhat al-Nusra is being waged closer and closer to the Zeinab shrine. Shiite villages are coming under attack by militants who praise Osama bin Laden and Sunni villagers are being slaughtered by regime loyalists. Sectarian fighting has already leaked across the border into northern Lebanon. The stage has been set.

"When Hezbollah and Israel are both actively fighting in the same third country," writes Ramy Khoury, a professor of international affairs at the American University of Beirut, "and Iran and the United States are both actively warning about their determination to act to protect their allies and their interests in that same third country, it is time to make another pot of coffee and make sure you have plenty of fresh batteries at home for your transistor radio."

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

[SIZE=24pt]Rebel Coalition Seizes Major Syrian City [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]BEIRUT, Lebanon — A coalition of Islamist insurgents, including a branch of Al Qaeda, seized most of the northern Syrian city of Idlib on Saturday after four days of heavy fighting. It was an unusually dramatic front-line shift in a four-year war that has long appeared to be at a stalemate even as it grows more bloody and complex.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]If the insurgents cement their hold on Idlib — as they appeared to be doing in videos that showed them in control of government buildings in the city’s center — it would be only the second time during the war that the government has entirely lost control of a provincial capital, after the loss of Raqqa two years ago.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]The northeastern city of Raqqa was seized by fighters that included members of the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s branch in Syria. It was a victory celebrated at the time even by more moderate opponents of President Bashar al-Assad[/SIZE] but it later proved to be disastrous for the opposition.

[SIZE=12pt]The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh, soon took over the city and used it as a base to expand its extremist rule. The group not only terrorized many Raqqa residents but dealt a strategic blow to the opposition, as global powers came to see it as a security threat and made stopping it a higher priority than ousting Mr. Assad.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]So while some Idlib residents celebrated Saturday, cheering as fighters ripped down posters of Mr. Assad or embracing insurgent relatives who returned to the city for the first time in years, others streamed out of the city, with convoys of loaded cars and trucks blocking roads.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]The Syrian American Medical Society estimated that 100,000 more people could be displaced by the fighting in Idlib, which is already crammed with people displaced from elsewhere.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Given the dire experience of other cities during the war, there is a formidable list of ways things could go wrong.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]The government could unleash a new campaign of aerial bombing, the tactic it has used in insurgent-held areas of Aleppo and in the Damascus suburbs. Insurgents could take revenge on pro-government residents. Or Nusra, seeking to compete with the Islamic State, could attempt to declare an emirate, its answer to ISIS’s self-declared caliphate.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Nusra and the other groups that participated in the takeover oppose ISIS, but Nusra and others have their own records of extremism and brutality. The operation, which fighters said was planned for months, was directed, they said, by a new organization formed for the battle, called Jaish al-Fatah. Under it were Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, an ultraconservative group, and other Islamist groups. In previous joint operations Nusra, which includes foreign fighters and Syrians, has influence greater than its numbers because it is willing to use suicide bombers.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Ahmad Kara Ali, a spokesman for Ahrar Al-Sham, said in an interview that his group would not allow any other group to “monopolize power” in Idlib. “We are counting on the awareness of the Syrians and the rebels not to let any of the parties to repeat the experience of Daesh,” he said.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]But he acknowledged that the group had no guarantees from Nusra that it would not attempt a takeover, adding: “We have no guarantees from any faction. We don’t eliminate any scenario.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Videos from Idlib after the battle showed men waving the black flag used by Nusra and other jihadist groups. “Crush them, we crush them, the Assad family, we crush them,” a crowd shouted as one man waved a sword. “All the people are happy.”[/SIZE]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/world/middleeast/rebel-coalition-seizes-major-syrian-city.html?_r=0

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

This is an interesting graphic, Syria at night:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/12/world/middleeast/syria-civil-war-after-four-years-map.html

It shows much of Syria blackened out.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Can someone point out to me a time in the last couple-few millennia when there has NOT been a war in the "region"?

1913

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Russia's state-sponsored Vesti:"Per Sykes–Picot, Constantinople (Istanbul) and the Turkish Straits should be Russian"

Russia's state-sponsored Vesti: "Western Armenia and Mount Ararat should belong to Russia as well."

http://turkey.liveuamap.com/en/2016/22-may-russias-statesponsored-vestiper-sykespicot-constantinople