BEIRUT – While a top Syrian government official has called Sunday’s bomb attack in a Damascus suburb a “declaration of war” by Israel, some Arab political analysts believe the intended targets were weapons — whether conventional or chemical — destined for Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah organization and not Bashar Assad’s beleaguered regime.
They say that even before the start of the Arab uprisings in 2011, Israel repeatedly warned that it will not allow hi-tech weaponry to get into the hands of Assad’s ally, Hezbollah, considered Lebanon’s strongest military power with more and better weapons that the national army.
“Israel made it clear that it would act without any hesitation to attack convoys or locations where they decide or suspect there is something that might threaten it or get into the hands of Hezbollah,” said Paul Salem, who directs the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “This is a clear Israeli policy for a long time. I think these strikes were a part of that.”
The attack, which Syrian officials argue struck a scientific research center, occurred just days after another airstrike against Syria last Friday. U.S. officials believe Israel carried out both assaults, but Israel has neither denied nor confirmed the bombings. The country also struck a convoy in Syria carrying SA-17 anti-aircraft systems en route to Lebanon in January.
Observers believe stockpiles of Iranian-made Fateh-110 missiles were heading for the border to the Shiite militia. The first bombings, 48 hours earlier, were aimed at batches of the same weapons which Netanyahu has called a “game-changer” in Lebanon’s fight against Israel.
Military analysts told the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper that the Fateh-110 has an elaborate guidance system and a range capable of reaching Tel Aviv from south Lebanon. They believe the weapon is much more sophisticated that anything Hezbollah so far possesses. It’s believed that large shipments arrived in Syria from Iran in the past three months.
Recently, Hezbollah publicly acknowledged that its fighters are battling alongside Assad’s forces. Israel, who fought an inconclusive war with the militant Shiite group seven years ago, has accused it of building up an arsenal of long-range missiles that can reach deep inside the country.
Israeli lawmakers, including Tzachi Hanegbi, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Shaul Mofaz, said their country was not meddling in Syria’s two-year civil war. Others argue that the rise of Islamists to power in Syria poses a greater threat than the Assad regime, which has maintained a stable standoff with Israel for decades.
They said that Israel must protect itself from Hezbollah, and its Shiite patron, Iran.
“For Israel, it is very important that the front group for Iran, which is in Lebanon, needs to be stopped,” Mofaz told Israeli Army Radio.
According to international law, Israel’s attacks are considered an “act of aggression” that could be taken to the U.N. Security Council. Interestingly, no one is talking about this. Israel, however, could say it was acting pre-emptively in self-defense.
Israel’s attacks won’t necessarily widen the Syrian conflict
Unlike their Western counterparts, Arab analysts, like Salem, also do not see the attacks signaling an expansion of hostilities in the region at this point.
“I don’t think that these Israeli strikes indicate a major new turn of the war inside Syria,” he said.
“Israel is not interested in getting involved in that complicated situation. Syria, Iran and Hezbollah are also not about to open a second front with Israel which would obviously make the Assad regime’s situation immediately much, much worse,” he added.
While Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mekdad has threatened retaliation, saying “Israeli aggression opens the door to all possibilities,” and that action would be taken “in our own time and way,” he knows that Israel possesses an overwhelmingly superior military capability vis-a-vis Damascus.
Salem, however, did not rule out the possibility of a smaller-scale incident in reference to Mekdad’s threat. “This is the least that any government can say. Maybe there will be some operation in some capital of the world,” he said.
“Those risks are possible but it is very unlikely that there will be acts of war from Syria or Hezbollah at this time because it will open up another front which they can ill afford,” he added.
Syria’s spillover into Lebanon
Habib Malik, an associate professor of history at the Lebanese American University, said Lebanon is suffering from a certain amount of spillover from the Syrian crisis as numbers of refugees crossing the border increase causing some instability. Sporadic fighting also has erupted between Sunni Muslims and Shiites in Lebanon, but he characterized those skirmishes as “a roller coaster ride for Lebanon rather than a decisive push over the abyss.”
Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has warned that Syria has “real friends,” including his Iranian-backed militant group that could intervene on Assad’s behalf if the need arises.
“You will not be able to take Damascus by force and you will not be able to topple the regime militarily. This is a long battle,” he said in a televised speech last week.
“Syria has real friends in the region and in the world who will not allow Syria to fall into the hands of America or Israel or the Takfiris,” a reference to followers of an al-Qaida-like extremist ideology.
Malik believes some of Nasrallah’s comments sensationalized the Syrian situation, but said other comments by the Hezbollah leader indicate the group wants stability to be maintained in Lebanon.
“Their action on the ground in Lebanon where they seem to be decidedly avoiding confrontation and not responding to provocations possibly shows that Lebanon could remain somewhat immune from catastrophic spillover from Syria,” Malik said.
“The Lebanese are very war-weary. We’ve been there, we’ve done that,” he explained. “Most people here, regardless of all their political differences, do not want to revisit the horrors of the internal civil strife,” Malik said, referring to the 1975-1990 civil war that killed 120,000 people.
Malik did warn, however, that if fighting continued indefinitely in Syria, there was a real danger of fragmentation along sectarian lines.
He said we could be witnessing in this Arab Spring era a “reassertion of ethno, religious, tribal and sectarian primordial aggregates in the region over the rather artificial political arrangements” — the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement penned by the British and French setting the boundaries of Arab states in the Levant.
If so, “Syria, Iraq and possibly Lebanon are candidates for this kind of fragmentation.”
Hezbollah’s balancing act
Of late, Hezbollah has been playing a tricky balancing act among its Lebanese supporters. A number believe the group should not be sending its best fighters to Syria, irrespective of calls to protect Shiite shrines from Sunni Muslim aggressors whether they be linked to the militant al-Nusra front, al-Qaida or more secular rebels. They say Hezbollah should focus on its prime purpose: to protect Lebanon from Israel.
“It’s been a hard sell to the Lebanese Shiites to convince them that their sons are dying in another country and not battling Israel,” Carnegie’s Salem explained.
“Now they have an easier narrative,” he said of events of late. “They say al-Qaida Sunni fanatics are leading this rebellion by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others. The Israeli bombing gives them even more justification to say: Look, the Israelis and Americans are even supporting this uprising by attacking the Assad regime.”
Salem said Hezbollah has managed to find a narrative that links their old idea that they are defending Lebanon against Israel and its U.S. backer while weaving it into the current Syrian situation.
Hezbollah is using a subtle threat to justify its position among Lebanon’s Shiite community, he said. While fighting in Syria may not be part of the group’s original program, Salem said, Hezbollah argues it is fighting “against radical Sunni jihadist elements, which if they take control, will come to get us or you” in Lebanon.