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Putin’s sleight of hand in Syria

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By: Peter Kirechu

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Russian Su-25 Fighter Jets taking-off in Latakia. Source: Wikimedia

On March 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly announced the withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria as UN-sponsored peace talks began in Geneva. Putin’s withdrawal–however partial–challenged the Obama administration’s long-held quagmire sentence on the Russian role inside Syria. Putin showed that a limited military campaign could preserve the regime from collapse without committing to a costly ground campaign. Taking stock of the Russian intervention thus far, current evidence suggests that Russian influence is unlikely to diminish.

In deciding to intervene militarily in Syria, Putin concluded that an Assad victory (or accommodation) would likely buttress Russian interests in the region. He secured his current advantage by capitalizing on a divided armed opposition usurped by Salafi-jihadists and what many in the international community perceive as an incoherent US strategy.

As such, an assessment on where Russia’s influence has mattered the most unveils great insights as to Putin’s end-state agenda. Putin’s Syria strategy is tightly wedded to the eventual outcome of the war, and thus a commitment to an eventual negotiated settlement. Russia intends to maintain a pliable government in Damascus; one that ensures Russian military access inside Syria as a balance to other international powers.

Forcing a Rebel “Reset” to Russia’s Advantage

When the last round of UN-sponsored peace talks on the Syrian conflict collapsed in early February, members of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) scrambled to arrest the spiraling violence through the cessation of violence agreement completed in Munich on February 11. This accord set the conditions for a tenuous peace that has so far held despite numerous violations largely attributed to the Assad regime.

Significantly, the Munich agreement attempted to force a wedge between moderate and hardline Islamist groups­–principally between the Al-Nusra Front and other close affiliates. Since Russia vowed to continue its aerial campaign in territories occupied by both hardline and moderate groups, observers suggested that the truce was perhaps designed to force division within rebel ranks. Though  evidence suggests that the ties between the Nusra Front and some of its allies such as Ahrar al-Sham­ are often fluid, the Munich agreement was a significant step towards addressing what role (if any) certain powerful Islamist groups may have in Syria’s future.

Through the Munich agreement, Putin ostensibly bound the United States in ipso facto agreement to the Russian perspective on the fractured opposition. By simply defining all opposition groups as irreconcilable terrorists, the Russian position advanced only two non-negotiable options: continued bombardment or a reprieve under ceasefire conditions; roughly 100 armed rebel groups joined the truce before implementation day on February 27. Ultimately, Russia’s discriminate targeting of the moderate opposition, combined with the regime’s collective punishment, exacted the desired concessions from the rebels and their external supporters.

Putin accurately assessed that the likelihood of the US-led coalition mounting a direct challenge to Russia’s aerial advantage was quite unlikely. Meanwhile, the regime parleyed its victories in Latakia, Deraa, and Aleppo to bolster its territorial gains in the event that the truce collapsed. Washington’s most viable relief to the beleaguered opposition rested on escalating arms provisions as an incentive for greater collaboration and unity among the rebels. This option, however, bore minimal benefit given Russian air superiority and the possibility that it would scuttle the developing ceasefire agreement.

But since the brokered ceasefire went into effect roughly one month ago violence has decreased by nearly 90 percent. This relative calm has also opened the space for peaceful protest as hundreds of thousands of local Syrians have again flowed into the streets demanding Assad’s departure. This return to peaceful assembly, however, occurs at a time when the moderate opposition is beset by dwindling prospects of an outright victory, or a favorable negotiating position in Geneva. This is precisely the outcome desired by Russia as peace talks resume: a militarily waning moderate opposition, undermined by the prominence of Salafi-jihadist groups, and thus pliable in any forthcoming settlement.

Managing Assad’s Potential Return to Intransigence

Prior to the withdrawal announcement, the regime was insulated in western Syria and the moderate opposition was increasingly battered and fractured as Assad appeared to have his way militarily. Assad’s resurgence translated into his regime’s growing intransigence on the diplomatic front. Days before talks resumed in Geneva, regime representatives revived the poisonous question of Assad’s political future, stiffening their position on Assad’s surviving role as head-of-state. Perhaps emboldened by their increasing military leverage, the representatives veered outside the primary focus of the talks, which is largely focused on developing a workable transition process.

These developments and the timing of the Russian withdrawal suggests that Putin’s drawdown may to some level curb regime behavior in Geneva. A slight panic within the regime may prove beneficial, though the fidelity of this particular claim is hard to discern. What appears clear is that the extent of Russia’s withdrawal will remain opaque for several weeks.

A complete departure of the Russian military presence is quite unlikely since the naval base at Tartus and the air base at Hmeimim will remain operational. The Syrian battlefield has certainly served as a testing ground for Russian military hardware. And it was (and will likely remain) an excellent proving ground for Russia’s execution of a high intensity aerial and ground campaign; allowing these capabilities to recede would be a gross error in Putin’s eyes.

The Russian Approach Post-Palmyra

Evidence from Russia’s military operations inside Syria revealed the disproportionate targeting of non-Islamic State aligned rebel groups. Nonetheless, Russian air raids have provided the necessary aerial cover for government troops to advance and retake the historic city of Palmyra which was seized by the Islamic State last May. Meanwhile, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen militias has in recent months wrested away swathes of territory from the Islamic State in a push towards the group’s de-facto capital in Raqqa.

The United States is intently focused on advancing negotiations between the regime and Syria’s main opposition bloc. Such an outcome, if appropriately harnessed, also provides the elusive ground component required to decisively challenge the Islamic State throughout Syria. That Russia floated the possibility of a federal post-war Syria is quite significant, though such an outcome is contingent on an elusive agreement between all parties involved. Given the current conditions, any power-sharing agreement that sets the outlines of a grand security infrastructure will likely be led by the regime, to Russia’s benefit.

The regime’s recent progress in Palmyra opened a new offensive corridor into Deir al-Zor which may extend north into the Islamic State heartland of Raqqa as conditions warrant. Russia calculates that a regime victory in both Raqqa and Deir al-Zor will secure remnants of the regime if Assad leaves in a transition settlement, however unlikely. What remains unclear is whether the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has the manpower to effectively achieve this objective without substantial reinforcements from surrogate Shia militias from Iraq and beyond. But as Iran deepens its Syria involvement beyond the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) the regime’s manpower deficits will benefit from these reinforcements.

On the other hand, the United States will continue to face a tough challenge in galvanizing Sunni rebel resistance as regime forces move eastward. And despite the regime’s manpower shortages, Russia is likely to exploit this handicap to maintain its footprint inside Syria. That Russian commitment has slowly transitioned from fighter jet squadrons to close air support via attack helicopters suggests that Russian ground presence will continue.

In the past several days, the weeks-long ceasefire has fallen under immense pressure and mutual violations by both the regime and the armed opposition threaten to tear the deal asunder. Whether the ceasefire survives or falters, Russia’s military role inside Syria is unlikely to recede.

 

 

Peter Kirechu is Graduate Student at the Mercyhurst Institute for Intelligence Studies where he focuses on civil strife, insurgencies and counterterrorism. Mr. Kirechu was also a 2013 Boren Scholar to Jordan where he studied the security and humanitarian effects of Syria’s civil conflict. @PeterKirechu

The Question of Limited Intervention in Syria: ‘And Then What?’

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By: Alexander Decina

NATO-backed Patriot missile defence systems set up in Gaziantep, Turkey, February 4, 2013. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:U-s-service-members-stand-by-a-patriot-missile-battery-in-gaziantep-turkey.jpg
NATO-backed Patriot missile defence systems set up in Gaziantep, Turkey, February 4, 2013. Picture used under Creative Commons License.

Given the atrocities witnessed during the course of the Syrian civil war—be it the Bashar al-Assad regime’s use of barrel bombs or the depravity of the so-called Islamic State—it is hardly surprising to hear continued frustration at U.S. and Western inaction. Some have estimated the death toll to be higher than 250,000—a number that will surely increase given Russia’s intervention and the recent surge in Iranian efforts. In the United States, not only Republican candidates and policymakers, but also prominent Democratic figures including Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have called for the creation of either safe zones, a no-fly zone, or both. These options were most recently discussed in July this year, when Turkey authorised the United States to use its Incirlik airbase to launch sorties, but the Obama Administration has yet to enact such measures. While some advocates of safe or no-fly zones consider this a failure and lament the lack of U.S. leadership, these proponents fail to answer, or perhaps ask, an important question – “And then what?”

Safe Zones
Critics, activists, and leaders in the United States and abroad, have called for the creation of safe zones to protect civilians from the forces loyal to the Assad regime and the Islamic State. One such safe zone discussed could be up to 60 miles long and 25 miles deep into Syria along its border with Turkey. If established, the area would serve as a crucial operation centre for various elements of the Syrian opposition, ranging from those affiliated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to the more dominant and radical groups including Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, which are under the Army of Conquest umbrella. It remains to be seen who would be tasked with enforcing this safe zone. Placing U.S. or other Western troops on the ground would be highly undesirable, not only for the sending countries, but also for communities in Syria in the long run. If Turkey, which has pushed for the establishment of the safe zone, sent its own troops, this would inevitably result in clashes with the Kurdish forces in northern Syria. The Kurds have already accused Ankara of bombing the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). Alternatively, Arab countries opposed to Iranian influence could send their troops to Syria as they have in Yemen, but the last thing Syria needs is the influx of additional foreign fighters on either side of the conflict. Perhaps it would be best if Syrian groups themselves controlled the area, but such an endeavour would require far more weapons and support than the United States and the West are currently providing.

If more aid is needed for the opposition to enforce the safe zones, then which of the Syrian groups should Washington support? The administration has recently come under fire for its limited success in training and equipping Syrian rebels, yet the smaller numbers are not due to a lack of resources but rather the high vetting standards for the rebels. There are reports that the Department of Defense is lowering these standards, but this, if true, would be a dangerous move. There are numerous challenges to the vetting process, mainly stemming from the lack of information available on the individuals in question. However, even if with lower vetting thresholds the United States continues to restrict equipment provisions to FSA-affiliated groups only, this still poses substantial risks. There have been multiple reports of FSA fighters, and sometimes entire units, joining forces with Nusra. Short of this, there is also nothing to stop FSA groups from selling, if not surrendering, weapons to more extreme militias including ones they are actively fighting.

Thus, the more material support Washington supplies to any Syrian rebels, even the FSA, the higher the likelihood that those weapons and ammunition will fall into the hands of Nusra and other radical groups. Some may argue that if the FSA is strengthened, it will be less vulnerable and less susceptible to defections and loss of equipment, however this is unlikely. Considering how fragmented the FSA’s brigades are, it is hard to believe that it could stand as a cohesive entity against Nusra or the Army of Conquest, especially given that the latter groups are backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey—all of which use far less discretion than the United States. As such, these jihadist groups will surely maintain their edge over the moderate elements of FSA. With safe zones keeping the Assad regime, the regime’s backers, and the Islamic State out of large pockets of Syria—and absent strong opponents within the Syrian opposition—Nusra and groups like it will surely reap further benefits. And then what? Is tipping the scales against Assad worth bolstering Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate?

A No-Fly Zone
If a safe zone is too complicated to establish effectively, then shouldn’t the United States and its allies at least implement a no-fly zone? Protecting Syrian civilians from the indiscriminate barrel bombings of the Syrian Arab Air Force (SAAF) is indeed a worthy goal. However, even if decisions concerning Russian maneuverability within the airspace were placed aside, this measure would still have its complications. Horrific as the SAAF’s attacks are, it does more than target civilians or even the FSA. It also targets the extreme jihadist organisations mentioned earlier by attacking their leadership, stockpiles, and supply routes. Having cleared the SAAF (and perhaps Russian jets) from the skies, would the United States be prepared to pick up the mantle of neutralizing jihadist organisations that pose a legitimate threat?

It is worth remembering the case of Ansar al-Sharia, one of the Islamist militias that rose up under the cover of a NATO-enforced no-fly zone in Libya. After the September 2012 attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi (which Ansar al-Sharia is suspected of carrying out), Benghazans stormed the group’s headquarters. Ansar al-Sharia then withdrew, only to return the following year with weapons looted from Muammar al-Gaddafi’s stockpiles. In coordination with other Islamist and revolutionary militias, Ansar al-Sharia took control of Benghazi in the summer of 2014. While it has lost control of most of the city and has been weakened since last year, the group still conducts its operations and retains its stockpiles and training camps. Thus, its fighters still pose a real threat in Libya and abroad.

When applying the lessons of Libya to Syria, if the United States and its allies are to impose a no-fly zone, what will be their response when such measures inevitably bolster Nusra and other radical forces? Thus far, the United States has conducted strikes on Nusra concurrently with its attacks on the Islamic State, but this has not yet had a major impact on the group. If Washington were intensify these efforts and mount a serious campaign against Nusra, its fighters and leadership could either temporarily recede into the background as Ansar al-Sharia did, splinter off into new Sunni groups, or even join allied groups in the Army of Conquest umbrella that the United States is less likely to target.

And then what? If the United States were to aggressively continue targeting Nusra’s members after the group’s disbanding—an operational approach that would be wrought with imprecision and mistakes due to insufficient information—such measures would not be well received by the Sunni community in Syria and the region. Furthermore, Nusra would be able to continue building its weapons stockpiles, whether under its own name or under the auspices of other groups, and the United States would have no reliable means to prevent this.

U.S. Limitations in Syria
The creation of either a safe zone or a no-fly zone risks bolstering radical groups within the Syrian opposition by increasing their access to weapons and support. It will neither tip the scales and overwhelm Assad, nor bring an end to the conflict, but will instead contribute to prolonging it. Thus it is imperative the United States understands the very real limitations it has in addressing the Syrian civil war. Although extraordinarily difficult, instead of a limited intervention, Washington should work towards creating an environment in which Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, and other states will be willing to stem the flow of weapons and support to both the opposition and the Assad regime. This is an arduous undertaking that may indeed be impossible, but the alternative should not involve adopting a short-sighted policy that lacks a realistic end goal. Frustrating as it may be, acting for the sake of acting is a reckless approach. Thus, before attempting to alter the situation in Syria, the Obama administration, and future administrations, must ask themselves “And then what?”

Alexander Decina is a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he focuses on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. He previously worked for the Tripoli, Libya-based Sadeq Institute and for the Sustainable Democracy Center in Beirut, Lebanon.

The Jihad Caravan: a Journey to the Roots of Hatred

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By Samar Batrawi:

Jihad caravan1

Montasser AlDe’emeh and Pieter Stockmans, De Jihadkaravaan: Reis naar de Wortels van de Haat [The Jihad Caravan: a Journey to the Roots of Hatred], Tielt, Belgium: Uitgeverij Lannoo, 2015. 19,99 (e-book). Pages: 518. ISBN: 9789401427708

‘I was born and raised in Antwerp. A year and a half ago I left to go to Syria. I have not for a single second regretted burning my bridges in Belgium. You may analyse me, how I have become what I am now. But I am not returning to Belgium. In this area I am the third highest military commander of Jabhat al-Nusra. Today I celebrate the birth of my daughter. I am happy!’ [1]

We will never fully comprehend extremism in Europe and the Middle East without an appreciation of the interplay between the intimate life stories of those involved and the bigger geopolitical picture.[2] This is the main premise behind ‘De Jihadkaravaan’ (The Jihad Caravan), in which the personal stories of Dutch-speaking foreign fighters from the Netherlands and Belgium are combined with accounts of the developments in their European home countries and the countries on which the jihadist struggle often focuses, such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine.

The book engages with the ideas, hopes, and fears of the people involved in the struggles in the Middle East. It is not a strictly academic book, but this is precisely where its value lies as it helps us comprehend the human narratives behind the statistics and the headlines, and therefore helps us make sense of that vague yet incredibly relevant word that we hear so much in relation to radicalisation: ‘identity’. It approaches homegrown radicalisation in the West as a societal problem, and it calls upon everybody to become engaged in the resolution of this issue. The book is largely narrated through the eyes of Montasser AlDe’emeh, a Palestinian-Belgian who decided to travel to Syria to get to know the stories of his fellow countrymen who had decided to leave their old lives behind.

This review is aimed at making the main ideas of this book more accessible for those that do not speak Dutch, as this book not only offers an insight into the Dutch and Belgian foreign fighter issue, but it may also carry important insights for other European countries from which foreign fighters have travelled to Syria and Iraq in the past years.

Narratives of Displacement and Oppression

‘Belgium has pushed us away with its hypocritical laws. Muslim women could not attend school without removing their headscarf. You decided how we had to live. We chose not to sell out our religion.’[3]

There are currently approximately 200-250 Dutch and 440 Belgian foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. Belgian nationals form the largest per capita number of foreign fighters from Western Europe (of the 11.2 million total population) and the Netherlands comes in sixth (with a total population of 16.8 million).[4] To put these numbers in perspective: with a population of 64.1 million, the United Kingdom has around 500-600 foreign fighters in the region, putting it three places below the Netherlands per capita.

Though the Netherlands and Belgium are societies that differ on a number of levels, the linguistic connection between the Dutch-speaking foreign fighters from both countries has fostered an intimate connection between them. For example, the group Sharia4Holland – a radical Salafist group that was active in the Netherlands from 2010 onwards and from which several members have travelled to Syria[5] – is in fact an offshoot of the Belgian Sharia4Belgium. Belgian fighters that travelled to Syria in 2012 and 2013 have been linked to this group.[6]

Some of the Dutch and Belgian people Montasser meets in Syria are former members of these networks.[7] Those following the Dutch and Belgian fighters are familiar with this alleged connection, though it should be made clear that it is ideological rather than organisational in nature. It is doubtful that Sharia4Holland and Sharia4Belgium have played an active role in the recruitment and the arrangement of travelling to Syria.[8]

As Montasser explains, Sharia4Belgium’s and Sharia4Holland’s aim and success has been creating an awareness of a certain notion of Muslim identity among their followers.[9] This, in turn, has proven to be fertile soil for further radicalisation and incentives to action. This complicates the attempts of government and security agencies to tackle the flow of foreign fighters from their countries to Syria and Iraq, as the more straightforward method of targeting active recruiters would be an insufficient – if not largely misguided – policy in this case.

Radicalisation processes and the choice to become a foreign fighter may more often than not occur at a closed-off individual level, perhaps (but not necessarily) preceded by direct contact with an organisation such as Sharia4Holland or Sharia4Belgium. And as more and more stories have emerged of Dutch and Belgian fighters in Syria and Iraq, it has become clear that often the most evident connection to ‘networks’ in their home country and Syria is either through ideological sympathy or through friend or family connections. What seems to be key in understanding the foreign fighter contingent may therefore not be these official networks, but rather some notion of identity and belonging.

The centrality of identity is obviously manifested in the ideological and political aims of European jihadists abroad, but this book gives us a valuable insight into another component of the identity of Dutch and Belgian fighters: their intimate connection through their shared Dutch language, which they speak amongst each other. Interestingly, even though they have made it to the land that they believe will allow them to escape European oppression and free their equally oppressed Middle Eastern brothers, they speak in the language of their home countries of Belgium and the Netherlands. They refer to their world in Syria as a ‘mini Europe’.[10] The identity of these people is not merely a religious one, but it is also one of having felt out of place in – yet inevitably having been shaped by – a European context. The stories of these people may teach us more than we think about the societies from which they emerge, as they are not purely a product of Islam but also of their Dutch and Belgian experiences.

Conclusion

The Jihad Caravan concludes with a number of recommendations for us all – not merely for the policy world – as the authors view the issue of foreign fighters as a global issue which can only be addressed with everybody’s involvement. They make two particularly important recommendations:[11]

First, they make a call for people to support the Arab Spring, and to pierce through the false choice between peace and security in the Middle East. This entails recognising that the old model of international support for local dictators in the name of stability has failed, as it was part of the reason why a new form of global terror (Salafi-jihadism) has emerged. Though this implies that the Arab Spring is a uniform movement rather than – what I would argue – more of a chain of interlinked yet distinct popular uprisings, what the authors mean by their call for ‘support of the Arab Spring’ is in fact an international backing of genuine change as demanded by the people in the Middle East, unhindered by an obsession with security and stability in the region.

The observation that Salafi-jihadism emerged because of internationally backed local dictators is the subject of many studies, and questionable simply because the rise of secular Arab dictators happened in conjunction with a number of different historical developments which may have triggered the rise of Salafi-jihadism. It is therefore difficult to strictly isolate the chain of events that led to this form of global terror, but it is true that Salafi-jihadism is new in the sense that it is a phenomenon of the past few decades, though its ideological influences date back to the early days of Islam.

Moreover, and in my opinion incredibly important, is the call to stop focusing solely on Islamic State horror stories in reports about the developments in Syria and Iraq, but to also focus on the terror that largely feeds Islamic State support: that of the Assad regime which has killed around 50 civilians for each one that the Islamic State has killed to date. The Islamic State is a terrifying entity, but death and suffering at the hands of non-jihadists must not be forgotten.

The second recommendation made in the book is to create a better foundation for European Islam to flourish. The underlying thought is that homegrown Muslim extremism in Europe cannot be solved without giving new life to a European Islam. Muslim communities in Europe have suffered immensely from the radicalising and polarising effects that the rise of the Islamic State has had in the global debate on Islam, which has compounded much of the exclusion and discrimination they were already feeling. This essentially brings us back to questions of displacement and oppression – precisely those issues that are at the heart of the foreign fighter issue.

Though this book ends on a political tone, which not everybody will appreciate, the least we can take from this account is what it tells us about the deeply human nature of what we so distantly call – as I do above – ‘the foreign fighter issue’. It also reminds us of the substantial human grievances that inspire these low-level recruits, as well as the undeniable human suffering that they cause on their path to fulfilment.

Samar Batrawi is a doctoral candidate at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. She has worked for the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling in Palestine, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation in London, and the Clingendael Institute for International Relations in The Hague. Follow her at @SamarBatrawi

NOTES

[1] Quote from a Belgian foreign fighter interviewed in AlDe’emeh, M. & Stockmans, P. (2015), De Jihadkaravaan: Reis naar de Wortels van de Haat (The Jihad Caravan: a Journey to the Roots of Hatred), Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, p. 159

[2] AlDe’emeh, M. & Stockmans, P. (2015), De Jihadkaravaan: Reis naar de Wortels van de Haat (The Jihad Caravan: a Journey to the Roots of Hatred), Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, p. 12

[3] Quote from a Belgian woman in Syria interviewed in AlDe’emeh, M. & Stockmans, P. (2015), De Jihadkaravaan: Reis naar de Wortels van de Haat (The Jihad Caravan: a Journey to the Roots of Hatred), Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, p. 161

[4] Neumann, P.R. (January 2015), Foreign fighter total in Syria/Iraq now exceeds 20,000; surpasses Afghanistan conflict in the 1980s, ICSR Insight (http://icsr.info/2015/01/foreign-fighter-total-syriairaq-now-exceeds-20000-surpasses-afghanistan-conflict-1980s/)

[5] De Volkskrant (23 May 2013), ‘Nederlander Vast in Marokko om Ronselen voor Syrie’ (http://www.volkskrant.nl/dossier-burgeroorlog-in-syrie/nederlander-vast-in-marokko-om-ronselen-voor-syrie~a3447299/)

[6] De Volkskrant (24 April 2013), Sharia4Holland Speelt Rol bij Jihad-reizen (http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/sharia4holland-speelt-rol-bij-jihad-reizen~a3430968/)

[7] AlDe’emeh, M. & Stockmans, P. (2015), De Jihadkaravaan: Reis naar de Wortels van de Haat (The Jihad Caravan: a Journey to the Roots of Hatred), Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, p. 128

[8] Ibid. p. 143

[9] Ibid. pp. 136-141

[10] Ibid. p. 129

[11] Ibid. pp. 461-503

An elusive stalemate: Israel and Hezbollah along the tri-border

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By Sebastian Maier:

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Hezbollah soldiers. Photo copyright: Associated Press (published under fair use policy for intellectual non-commercial purposes)

When the Israeli Air Force on 12 January 2015 allegedly carried out a sortie against a Hezbollah military convoy in the south western Syrian district of Quneitra, news spread quickly that among the victims was a prominent figure of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force special unit, General Allah Dadi. The purported Israeli air strike on the al-Amal Farms also killed Jihad Mughniyeh, son of the late Hezbollah intelligence commander Imad Mughniyeh, who in February 2008 died in a car bomb in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Merely two weeks after, Hezbollah lived up to expectations and retaliated by ambushing Israeli military vehicles, killing two and wounding seven soldiers close to the Israeli-occupied Sheba’a Farms on the Golan Heights.

In the grand scheme of things, the reported airstrike and Hezbollah’s act of reprisal are hardly surprising. Quite the contrary, in order to understand these events, one has to look to the inception and evolvement of what has become a well-entrenched animosity taking place across one of the Middle East’s most precarious theatres: the Syria-Lebanon-Israel tri-border area.

The prelude: Hezbollah’s early years

When Israel in 1978 first staged a military incursion into southern Lebanon, few considered it a harbinger of what was to come. With the outbreak of the 1982 Lebanon War, the Israeli occupation, and Hafez al-Assad’s efforts to establish a Ba’athist Pax Syriana on its neighbouring country’s soil, Lebanon’s sectarian fractures became deeply entrenched.

While the Israelis pushed northbound into the outskirts of Beirut with the support of the South Lebanon Army (its Christian proxy), the emerging Islamic Republic of Iran came to the fore and seized an opportunity to spread Iran’s influence in the region. Iran deployed 1,500 Revolutionary Guards to Lebanon, with the strategically crucial Beqa’a Valley as their final destination. In doing so, Tehran turned this fertile land into a Shia militant hotbed, ultimately paving the way for the birth of its Lebanese surrogate, ‘the Party of God’, or Hezbollah.

With this consolidated supply route over Shia territory, ranging from Tehran through Damascus into Southern Lebanon, the foundation had been laid for Hezbollah. In the coming years it relied on this route to violently resist the Israeli occupation while pursuing its integration into Lebanese politics.[1] As a consequence, after a 15 year-long low-level war of attrition, in 2000 Israel’s prime minister Ehud Barak called for the unilateral withdrawal of troops from what had become a protracted battlefield in Southern Lebanon. It was no longer the cordon sanitaire the Israelis had originally set out to create. Playing into Hezbollah’s hands, this manoeuvre subsequently fuelled the perception that the politicians in Israel were trying to sell an obvious surrender as a strategy.

Lessons of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War

The years after the withdrawal do not represent a period of peaceful coexistence along the Lebanese border. Occasional skirmishes prevailed on the meadows of the Sheba’a Farms. Then on 12 July 2006, Hezbollah mounted a cross-border raid leading to the killing of 8 Israeli soldiers and the abduction of two reservists. This was supposed to represent a stepping stone towards securing the release of Druze Samir al-Quntar, the Lebanese former Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) member, who was imprisoned by Israel for his involvement in the 1979 Nahariya kidnapping attack. The raid by Hezbollah sparked the outbreak of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War.

Other factors that led to the War were Israel’s determination to change the rules of the strategic deadlock along the border, and Hezbollah’s increasing influence on Hamas, who in June 2006 had abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. What’s more, there were rumours that Hezbollah were on the brink of achieving first-strike capabilities.[2]

With the Israeli military campaign one week old, Ehud Barak admitted that the Israeli occupation in Lebanon may have led to the creation of Hezbollah:

‘When we entered Lebanon, there was no Hezbollah. We were accepted with perfumed rice and flowers by the Shia in the south. It was our presence there that created Hezbollah.’[3]

Soon it became clear that Israel’s military had lost its deterrent edge against an enemy who could blend irregular warfare with the weaponry and capabilities that were generally the preserve of regular armies.

As a result, in the later stages of the hostilities, Israel tried to alter the perception of Hezbollah at the receiving end by applying an iron fist policy of massive retaliation. On 22 July 2006 the Israeli Air flattened the Shia Dahiya suburb, a Hezbollah stronghold, in Beirut’s southern outskirts. Ever since, the term ‘Dahiya’ has been used to describe a strategic watershed experience for the Israeli military. The draconic air campaign was intended to be a disproportional punishment in order to restore credibility and to induce ‘a calm built on fear, not on political settlement.’[4]

Israel map

Hezbollah, however, endured the pounding by absorbing the damage, and continued their operational resistance. Indeed, it even managed to drag Israel back into waging a ground incursion into Southern Lebanon, a battlefield with negative connotations hard-wired into Israel’s military history.[5] To that end, Israel’s firepower, and Hezbollah’s ability to exploit Israel’s ‘Lebanese mud-syndrome’[6] cleared the way for a realignment of their animosity.

Both sides managed to seriously damage each other, which explains the relative quietude and restraint along the Israeli-Lebanese border ever since. Israel’s calculus stems from a pragmatic realization that only an escalatory response can achieve the temporary absence of violence along its borders. Hezbollah, for its part, internalized the art of blending into civilian areas and concealing its operating squads in order to hide and disperse. It decreased its own vulnerability but raised the probability of Lebanese civilians coming into the firing line.

Another front opens up: Hezbollah’s engagement in Syria

In April 2013, the Arab Spring now a distant memory, Hezbollah’s Secretary General Nasrallah made a public vow of fidelity to Assad. This came only a few days after visiting Tehran.[7] He made no secret of the fact that his fighters had gone to support the Shia-sect Alawite regime. Nasrallah, in an attempt to rally domestic support across sectarian lines, justified the deployment of his troops over the border by declaring that Hezbollah would only fight Sunni extremists, who would otherwise threaten Lebanese Shia and Christians.

The true reason for helping Assad is different: besides Tehran, Damascus still counts Hezbollah’s amongst its most important allies. If Assad were to fall, Hezbollah’s resilience in its struggle against Israel would be at stake, as would its strategic foothold in the Levant. For Assad, the involvement of Hezbollah’s troops in Syria is vital in containing a variety of anti-regime forces and the surge of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

The consequence of Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria is that the group is very busy. Another escalation with Israel and it may be forced to engage on two fronts simultaneously. This would divert and overstretch its military capabilities, and could even push Lebanon to the brink of collapse. This is exacerbated by the massive influx of Syrian refugees, who have become a huge social burden for the country.

Nasrallah, the former hero of the Arab masses, has thus embarked on a dangerous path. Celebrated for his achievement in forcing Israel’s pullout in 2000 and resisting a military incursion 6 years later, he has now risked further deepening the region’s broader Sunni-Shia divide. In addition, despite possessing an impressive rocket arsenal, it appears unlikely that Hezbollah could survive another round of Israeli escalation as long as it is caught up in the Syrian quagmire.[8]

Israel is attempting to navigate through an increasingly troublesome landscape on its northern front, and so for now it seems to be determined to adhere to a containment policy against Hezbollah. In 2013, when the risk of violence increased in the Shia Crescent, Israel sent a clear message by carrying out air strikes targeting military transport in the outskirts of Damascus, which Israel claimed to be supplying Hezbollah.

Finally, the events in January 2015 can be considered the latest reminder of a strategic stalemate along the border. The law of talion, ‘an eye for a tooth’[9], which represented the Israeli strategy during the hostilities in 2006, set the pattern for the conflict. Israel and Hezbollah now tacitly adhere to an even-tempered rationale. In the foreseeable future it will be tit-for-tat, rather than all-out war, that will characterise the ever volatile tri-border area.

Sebastian Maier graduated in January 2015 from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, with an MA in Intelligence & International Security. He lives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

NOTES

[1] Saad Ghorayeb, A., Hizbu’llah: Politics and Religion (Pluto Press London UK, 2001), pp.112,113.

[2] Norton, A.R., Hezbollah- A Shorty History (Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 2007), pp.133,134.

[3] Ibid. p.33.

[4] Rapoport, M., Flaws in Israel’s ‘punish and deter’ strategy, Middle East Eye, 10 July, 2014.

[5] Even before Hezbollah’s inception hostile actions against Israel had been carried out from Southern Lebanese soil, e.g. by armed terrorists, including 1000 Libyan and 500 Syrian volunteers. In: Gilbert, M., The Arab-Israeli Conflict- Its history in Maps ( London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984), p.77.

[6] Lieberman, E., Reconceptualizing Deterrence: Nudging Toward Rationality in Middle Eastern rivalries (Abingdon, Routledge, 2013), p.197.

[7] The Daily Star, Lebanon, Nasrallah met Khamenei in Iran, to make speech May 9, April 22, 2013.

[8] Levitt, M., Hezbollah’s Syrian Quagmire, PRISM, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, September 2014.

[9] Byman, D. L., An Eye for a Tooth: The Trouble with Israeli Deterrence,  ForeignPolicy.com, 23 July, 2014.