CONTEXT  It has been ten years since the outbreak of the crisis in Syria took place and at present, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad seems to have won the civil war. 

BACKGROUND

• In 2015, before the Russian intervention, Syrian government’s area of influence had shrunken to the largely Alawite-populated region stretching from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast.
• At present, his troops now control most of Syria — except Idlib and the Kurdish territories. 
• The Kurds enjoy autonomy in the border region with Turkey, while Idlib is under control of jihadists and rebels, and some towns on the border that are held by pro-Turkey militias.

IMPLICATIONS 

• Bashar al-Assad’s victory seems to have locked Syria in a prolonged geopolitical contest. 
• The Syrian army turned around the war with help from Russia, Iran and several Iran-backed Shia militias, including the Lebanese Hezbollah. 
• They are all still in Syria, which shares a border with Israel. This means the civil war has intensified the Iran-Israel conflict.

CHANGING CALCULUS 

• When the Syrian crisis unfolded in 2011-12, Israel took a ‘wait and watch’ approach.
• It was primarily because it preferred a stable regime in Damascus to the post-revolutionary chaos.
• As a result, despite the absence of a formal peace treaty, the Israeli-Syrian border has been largely uneventful since the 1970s. 
• But when Iran deployed militias and military assets in Syria in defence of Bashar al-Assad, it changed Israel’s calculus. As both Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation of southern Lebanon and the 2006 war on Lebanon were resisted by Hezbollah. 
• At present, Hezbollah has already established a formidable presence across Israel’s northern border. 
• Hence, Israel would not like to have more Iran-backed Shia militias across the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and which has been the de facto border between the two countries ever since.

CHANGING ISRAEL TACTICS 

• Israel has changed its tactics in the wake of Syria’s changing calculus. 
• It first started helping anti-Assad rebels in the Golan region by reportedly providing cash and medical aid. 
• The plan was to create a buffer between the Golan Heights and the rest of Syria so that the pro-Iran militias could be stopped from coming face-to-face with Israeli troops. 
• Later, after the tides turned in the civil war and Iran deepened its presence in Syria, Israel started bombing Iranian positions inside Syria. 
• Since September 2015, the Syrian air space has practically been controlled by the Russians. 
• But Russia looked away when Israel stepped up its bombings and Israel has been careful not to hit Russian positions in the overcrowded Syrian battlefield.

ISRAEL THREE GOALS

Israel had three key goals: 

• disrupt Iranian supplies for Hezbollah and other Shia militias; 
• stop the militias advancing towards the de facto border; 
• weaken Iran’s presence in Syria, by continuously targeting them.

CONCLUSION

• In the last three years, Israel and Syria are engaged in carrying out dozens of aerial attacks on each other. 
• For the Syrian government, support from Iran was a lifeline. While Russia provided air power in the civil war, Iran supplied ground troops. So, Mr. Assad did nothing to prevent the sprawling Iranian influence in his country despite Israeli attacks. And Iran’s response to Israeli attacks has been only to deepen its footprints. 
• As a result, Syria has emerged as a new theatre in the Israel-Iran geopolitical contest in West Asia, which could outlive the Syrian civil war. 
• Already, the conflict has spilled from Syria into the Mediterranean and Red Sea waters where both sides target each other’s ships. 

With Israel determined to contain Iran’s growing influence in the region, at a time when the U.S. and other Western powers are reaching out to Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal which could leave it more powerful economically, the Israel-Iran contest is set to intensify further.

Reference:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/what-israel-wants-in-syria/article34408536.ece