Russia's Syria Withdrawal Removes Buffer Between Iran And Israel
Recent reports say Russia is recalling forces from Syria to support its invasion of Ukraine amid military failure and no success in capturing major objectives.
Recent reports say Russia is recalling forces from Syria to support its invasion of Ukraine amid military failure and no success in capturing major objectives.
Iran Diplomacy, a website close to the Iranian Foreign Ministry says Russian forces' withdrawal from Syria, and the possibility of Iranian forces replacing them could be an indication that Moscow is trying to keep Iran in its camp.
This comes while many Iranian observers had suggested during the past two months after the invasion of Ukraine that Iran should distance itself from Moscow and charged that Russia is using Iran as a pawn in its relations with the West and at the same time bars Iran from benefitting in the new situation of world energy markets after sanctions on Russian energy exports.
Earlier this week, Syrian President Bashar Assad's visit to Tehran was interpreted by some Iran analysts as a move to invite Iran to get involved in Syria to replace Russia in both war efforts and reconstruction projects in Syria. However, the visit by Assad could have been an attempt by Syria to balance its newly built relations with Persian Gulf states.
Other Iranian analysts have said that Moscow is taking revenge from Israel for Israeli officials' offending comments about Russia's war in Ukraine. They say Moscow is creating trouble for Tel Aviv by placing Iranian forces in larger contingents in Syria.
Iran's last ambassador to the Soviet Union and its first envoy to Russian Federation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nematollah Izadi, says all that could be true as none of these statements are mutually exclusive. These hypotheses can complement each other, he said.
Izadi added that Russia's war next door in Ukraine has overshadowed the importance of its expedition to Syria. Russia is not that active in the Caucasus region either, he said. He added that Israel has annoyed Moscow by not supporting its position on Ukraine. Tel Aviv eventually took side with Ukraine, and this gave the idea to Putin to strike a different balance at the borders with Israel.
However, Izadi observed that Russia's withdrawal from Syria has eliminated the the political and military buffer between Iran and Israel, so Israel is in a better position to attack Iranian forces, and this justifies Iran's desire to reinforce its positions in Syria. He said Iran's extended presence in Syria does not necessarily pose a new threat to Israel. This can only create a new military equilibrium in the region, Izadi said.
But Israel has been concerned since Syrian rebels were defeated in the civil war with Russian support and Iran began entrenching itself near the Israeli border. Israel has launched hundreds of air attacks against Iranian bases in Syria to prevent further entrenchment and flow of weapons to Tehran’s proxy, the Hezbollah, and other militia armed and backed by Iran.
In the ‘Worldwide Threat Assessment” report presented this week to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said Iran was probably “planning covert actions against US officials to retaliate” for Soleimani’s death “while attempting to maintain plausible deniability and minimize escalation.” General Soleimani, commander of Iran’s extra-territorial Al-Qods Force (QF), was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020.
Berrier’s report, submitted May 10, suggests Iran wants to avoid “an escalation in regional tensions or full-scale conflict” and therefore “probably calibrates its attacks to pressure adversaries and proportionally retaliate for real or perceived transgressions…”
Iran’s approach to Soleimani’s demise, Berrier argues, reflects its wider military strategy “based on deterrence and retaliation,” including “the region’s largest arsenal of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones]” and missiles, favored for cost and sometimes plausible deniability.
Iran has also gained “strategic depth,” the report says, through supporting “partner and proxy networks in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen” that facilitate attacks on US and allied interests in line with Iran’s aim of “attempting to force a US military drawdown” from the region, a goal inherited by Soleimani’s successor as QF commander Esmail Ghani.
Capable partners, fiscal pressures
The report highlights Hezbollah as Iran’s “most important and capable substate partner” whose strategic interests “rarely diverge.” It notes the 2021 first use in Iraq by Iran-allied militias of UAVs against US targets, and by Iranian forces in Syria deploying UAVs “in the most sophisticated attack against a US military base in the country to date, reportedly in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike...”
In Yemen, Iranian advisers and weapons – including in the past year the supply of the relatively advanced Shahed-136 – had enabled Ansar Allah, or Houthis, with “long-range strike capacities” whose use is on hold since mid-April with the de facto truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition.
The report suggests Iran’s military expenditure, despite a rising defense budget, had been curtailed by the fiscal consequences of US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions since 2018 impeding “Tehran’s access to traditional government funding streams, including oil exports.”
The report says little about Tehran’s nuclear program other than noting its attempts to gain “leverage” by diminishing adherence to the 2015 deal (the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which the US left in 2018 and which world powers have been struggling to revive for over a year.
Looking ahead, Berrier anticipates a year in which Iran’s response to US and allied “operations…probably would seek to demonstrate strength, reduce Western regional influence, and reestablish deterrence following repeated attacks on Iranian interests in Iran and Syria.” This would likely involve deniable attacks, including cyberoperations, while Tehran sought to avoid “escalation it expects would undermine JCPOA negotiations or impede its goal of compelling a US withdrawal from the region.”