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opinion

Daniel Douek teaches political science at Concordia University and McGill University.

After U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the United States would withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, the long-simmering rivalry between Israel and Iran boiled over across the Syrian border. Israel launched air strikes against Iranian positions in Syria, prompting Iranian forces to fire a barrage of missiles at Israeli positions on the Golan Heights, which in turn triggered Israeli air strikes against over 50 Iranian military targets, killing at least 23 Syrian and “foreign” personnel, most of whom were likely Iranian. On Thursday, a member of Iran’s Security Council warned that Iran’s “revenge will come.” Iran, which shares no common border with Israel, has sought to establish an unbroken swath of territory under its control extending across Iraq to Syria and Lebanon, which would enable Iranian forces to challenge Israel directly. But without key support from its ally, Russia, Iran seems to have overplayed its hand, and it is impossible not to see Israel’s most recent wave of strikes as a major setback for Iranian operations in Syria.

The most striking thing about Israel’s attacks on Iranian targets has been Russia’s muted reaction. Russia’s 2015 intervention in Syria changed the strategic balance decisively in favour of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. With Russian support, troops from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force and Iran’s Lebanese Shia proxy militia, Hezbollah, have methodically recaptured vital territory from the rebel groups trying to overthrow Mr. Assad. Russian-Iranian ties extend even further: Iran operates advanced Russian jets and anti-aircraft missiles, and shares air bases in Syria with Russian aircraft, while Russian bombers have flown sorties from Iranian air bases against rebel targets in Syria.

Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, Israel has carried out more than 100 air strikes on Syrian soil, mainly to prevent Iran from sending advanced weaponry via Syria’s air bases to Hezbollah.

In recent months, Israel has shifted its focus to directly striking Iranian military installations in Syria. But the Israeli Air Force has had to be wary of Russia’s ultramodern air-defence umbrella of jets and missiles over Syrian air space. In April, Russia warned that it would shoot down incoming missiles and attack their launch pads after Mr. Trump tweeted that the United States would be launching missile strikes at Syria; the U.S., along with France and Britain, ultimately limited their strikes to a handful of Syrian targets, and Russia held its fire. Following that strike, Israel launched a wave of strikes against Iranian targets in Syria, prompting Russia to fire at Israeli missiles and warn Israel not to violate Syrian air space again. So now that Israel claims to have hit virtually all of Iran’s bases and installations in Syria, Russia’s unwillingness to intervene on Iran’s behalf is especially surprising. Before Israel’s latest wave of strikes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and apparently obtained Mr. Putin’s assent to bomb a Russian ally inside Russian-controlled air space.

On Thursday, Israel’s Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan claimed that although Israel has no intention of escalating into a general war with Iran, it was determined to address Iran’s buildup in Syria before it represented “a possibly existential threat.” Without Russia’s support, Iran’s position in Syria is precarious. Though Iran has been feverishly building military installations facing the Israeli border, Iranian forces in Syria are no match for Israel, as the Israeli strikes have demonstrated. Iran’s proxy ally Hezbollah possesses 140,000 rockets aimed at Israel, including guided missiles capable of hitting strategic targets and population centres. But Hezbollah has lost an estimated 2,000 fighters in Syria in recent years and attacking Israel would trigger a ferocious response. Iran’s force of Shia militiamen from Iraq and Central Asia has been useful for controlling Syrian territory but would be little more than cannon fodder against Israel. Meanwhile, Bahrain has already expressed support for the Israeli attack, and there can be no doubt that it has also gladdened Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states wary of Iranian expansionism.

Facing this strategic disadvantage, Iran might be tempted to launch attacks on Israeli or Jewish targets abroad, as it did jointly with Hezbollah in the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires. More recently, after Israel’s 2008 assassination of Hezbollah mastermind Imad Mughniyah, a Hezbollah bombing killed seven Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. But such attacks, while spectacular, do nothing to improve Iran’s strategic predicament. Meanwhile, Iran’s government has faced growing domestic criticism for pursuing expensive military adventures abroad while the economy stagnates; this latest setback is likely to fuel those grievances. In the longer term, hardliners in the Iranian government will almost certainly resume Iran’s nuclear-weapons development program to match Israel’s nuclear arsenal. But for now, Iran’s grand vision of an overland corridor to fight Israel has been dealt a formidable blow.

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