Iran and Israel “could easily” come to blows as a result of the ongoing Syrian civil war, a Republican foreign policy leader warned.
“It could easily set up a direct interaction between Israel and Iran,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., a House Foreign Affairs committee member, told the Washington Examiner. “We hope not — that would be not a fun thing. That would be terrible for everybody.”
Such a clash could come to pass because the Syrian civil war is unfolding in the context of a broader regional rivalry that puts Russia and Iran, which back Syrian President Bashar Assad’s embattled regime, against the United States and its allies. Russia and Iran want Assad to stay in power because his regime strengthens their militaries in the Middle East. Assad is allowing Russia to use a naval base on the Mediterranean Sea, while Iran hopes to station forces in Syria, allowing them to threaten Israel.
To achieve those goals, Iran and other pro-Assad forces have begun trying to recapture territory that the U.S.-led coalition has taken from ISIS, even at the risk of provoking American airstrikes. The Iranians, with the help of local militias that adhere to the Shia version of Islam promulgated by Iran, want to establish a “land bridge” that stretches across Iraq and Syria into Lebanon, the home of a major terrorist organization. “If a land bridge is established you’re gonna have Iranian dominance in the region for a very long time,” Kinzinger said.
Hezbollah, a terrorist group backed by Iran, operates in Lebanon with near-impunity. Iran has been providing sophisticated rockets to Hezbollah in recent years and U.S. leaders fear that support would increase if Iran achieves its foreign policy goals in Syria. Hezbollah rocket attacks provoked an Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006, so strengthening the group could lead to another confrontation even if Iran and Israel avoid a direct clash.
“It definitely can lead to an immediate — probably in the near-term future conflict between Hezbollah and Israel,” Kinzinger said of the Syria crisis. “We know that Hezbollah has a number of arms and rockets basically ready to launch against Israel and Israel’s in a position now that they may have to act. And that could be similar to 2006 — a really tough situation.
President Trump, like former President Barack Obama, has limited official U.S. goals in Syria thus far to defeating the Islamic State and preventing Assad from using chemical weapons. But even those goals haven’t insulated the U.S. military from the broader geopolitical contest. Iran and other pro-Assad forces have come dangerously close to U.S. positions, even at the risk of provoking more American airstrikes.
Even the Trump-ordered retaliation for Assad’s use of chemical weapons has links to the bigger fight. Outside analysts have argued that Assad was forced to use the sarin gas because his military didn’t have the power to hold territory taken from rebels and launch a new offensive to establish the Iranian land bridge.
“The Russian-Iranian plan is ambitious, but it retains a critical flaw: the Assad regime’s depleted manpower means that it cannot conquer one piece of territory without exposing itself somewhere else,” Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine.
Kinzinger said that Trump’s national security team shouldn’t hesitate to retaliate against chemical weapons attacks, in part because that could make it harder for Assad to help Iran control the most important swathes of Syrian territory. “If chemical weapons were meant to backfill lack of troops in a certain area, now if you take that out of their hip pocket by really meaning this a red line, that can be a tactical advantage,” he said.
