The sudden advancement of Syrian rebels against the Iranian- and Russia-backed Assad regime this past weekend seems to confirm that Israel’s recent neutralizing of Iran’s air defenses and stunning military successes against Hamas and Hezbollah were not merely tactical achievements. Rather, they are part of an unfolding strategic dynamic as well, which is demonstrating the importance of Israel to America’s national security interests in the Middle East. And it is a dynamic with significant moving parts.
Surely, it would be too much of a leap to accept that the sudden, unanticipated eruption of activity in the long dormant Syrian civil war was not prompted an important part by the confluence of these events and Russia’s continued preoccupation with Ukraine. And now to the list must also be added Iran’s humiliating failure to step up to the plate for both Hamas and Hezbollah – or to even seriously respond to Israel’s direct attack on Iranian territory. The message to Iran’s proxies and would be allies is plain and simple: “You are on your own.”
By way of context, on top of these developments, The Jerusalem Post reports that over the past year Israel has reportedly carried out some 70 air strikes in Syria to prevent Iran from bolstering Hezbollah in Lebanon. Yet Assad, loath to take on Israel alone, received no help against them from its erstwhile supporters. And this was duly noted by the rebels who undoubtedly concluded that now – a period of heightened isolation for Assad – was the time to reactivate their fight with him.
And, of course, the battered and diminished Hezbollah – the purported linchpin of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” – has been forced to enter into a ceasefire agreement with Israel after being devastated in a 13 months war with the Jewish state. Moreover, it is a fraught and instructive ceasefire arrangement.
As The New York Times reports, Hezbollah began firing on Israel in solidarity with Hamas the day after the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel and insisted that it would not stop until Israel ended the war in Gaza. It also demanded that any agreement could not allow for an oversight role for the United States.
Yet the quid pro quo demand is nowhere to be found in the agreement which leaves Israel free to pursue the destruction of Hamas. And the agreement also gives the U.S. a monitoring role in its implementation.
As The New York Times correctly concludes, Iran and Hezbollah would only have accepted such an arrangement if they were not desperate to stop the war. It is also no small thing that Israel’s air attacks against Iran plainly demonstrated that Iran’s nuclear sites were vulnerable.
Needless to say, the elephant in the room in all of this is the election of Donald Trump. While the loss of Hezbollah and Hamas military muscle, by virtue of Israeli military action, upended Iran’s business model of using proxies and diminished its international clout, the return of Donald Trump has to have stirred memories in Iran and the Gulf states generally of an implacable American president who, in his first term pursued a policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran. This, together with Israel’s resounding drubbing of the “Axis of Resistance” will hopefully persuade Saudi and other Gulf leaders that the Abraham Accords approach is still the way to go regardless of their views on Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war.
Iran remains a threat to both the United States and Israel. It is also antithetical to a peaceful Middle East. Critics of the close relationship between the U.S. and Israel should heed the lesson of the past few weeks: When Israel acts to protect its security interests, it furthers America’s interests as well.
