2023-10-27 16:51:27
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian (left) and his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Al-Meqdad, during a press conference, in Damascus, October 13, 2023. OMAR SANADIKI / AP
The fighting between Lebanese Hezbollah and the Israeli army on the border masks another front that Iran could be tempted to ignite in the event of an Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. A dormant front, which represents a strategic threat to the Jewish state and its American ally. Syria, a key link in the Shiite crescent shaped by the Islamic Republic as far as Lebanon, became, thanks to the civil war of 2011, a transit country for Iranian weapons and a refuge for militias loyal to Tehran. The latter are harassing the nine hundred American soldiers present in eastern Syria. From the Syrian southwest, they also threaten the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel, with their rocket and missile fire.
On Thursday, October 26, the United States carried out strikes against installations of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliated groups near Abu Kamal, in eastern Syria, announced the American Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin. This is a warning addressed to the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the White House, after a series of attacks against his bases in Syria and Iraq, which left twenty-one lightly injured and one died of a heart attack. Earlier, on Thursday, the Syrian regime announced that it would shut down Damascus and Aleppo airports until further notice. The day before, an Israeli strike had knocked out Aleppo airport for the fourth time since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7. That of Damascus was damaged twice by Israeli aircraft.
Israel wants to prevent arms transfers from Tehran to Syria and Lebanon, in particular precision-guided missiles, at a time when Hezbollah threatens to open a new front on its northern border. He also sends a message to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad: he would be well advised not to let himself be dragged into a war by Iran, at the risk of seeing the regime’s installations targeted. The United Arab Emirates, close to Damascus since the normalization of their relations in 2018, and to Israel, since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, sent these warning messages to Mr. Assad on October 7 , according to the site Axios.
Balancing exercise for Assad
The Syrian president nevertheless displayed his closeness with the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, in Damascus on October 13. “This is not an easy balancing act for Bashar Al-Assad. It cannot ensure its own survival without the military and financial assistance of its benefactor and guardian, Iran. But he has no interest in provoking a war with Israel,” analyzes Ali Alfoneh, expert at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. Israeli reprisals against the country’s infrastructure and regime sites would aggravate Syria’s economic slump and could further weaken the regime in the face of its opponents, in areas that still escape it, in the north and east, but also those under its control, as in Souweïda, in the south, where anger is brewing.
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