Israel Matzav

To prevent the next war in Lebanon, convince Syria to back down

With the next war with Hezbullah seemingly on the horizon, Michael Totten argues that the best way to stop it would be to 'convince' Syria to back off from its support of Hezbullah.

Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei might be undeterrable, but Syria’s Bashar Assad certainly isn’t. Turkey convinced his more ruthless late father, Hafez Assad, to cease and desist supporting the Marxist-Leninist Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) back in the 1990s, and did so without firing a shot by threatening to invade. Turkey didn’t want to invade, yet Turkey never had to. Syria, meanwhile, has continued sponsoring or even outright committing terrorism against the more “reasonable” Israelis, Iraqis, and Lebanese.

Syria is without question the junior partner in its relationship with Iran, but Tehran’s Islamic Republic regime would have a lot less power in the region — especially in Lebanon — if Assad were spooked into noncooperation. Without assistance from Syria, Hezbollah would develop serious logistics problems that might eventually render it as militarily weak as Hamas. Without support from Iran, Hezbollah would eventually run out of cash and ammunition entirely. No other government in the world would give money and guns to a totalitarian-minded Shia militia.

Hezbollah itself has been deterred from picking fights for a while, but that period seems to be winding down now that it’s better armed and equipped than ever before. Nasrallah has lately been threatening a war that will destroy Israel, “liberate” Jerusalem, and “change the face of the region.” I’d like to think he’s just throwing out “red meat” for his base, but Jonathan Spyer persuasively argues that there is “not a shred of evidence to suggest that these sentiments are intended for the printed page only” and that Hezbollah is “as tactically agile as it is strategically deluded.”

There will most likely be no resolution to the Hezbollah problem as long as the Islamic Republic regime in Iran exists in its present form, but it may yet be possible to stop Hezbollah from doing something stupid again. Terrorist and guerrilla armies are hard to deter, but rational actors like Syria aren’t, and even Khamenei himself may pressure Nasrallah to take it easy if he thinks Tehran might get hit if he doesn’t.

There are two problems here. One is that the Obama administration has given no indication that it recognizes that the way to deter Syria is (as Totten implies) for the US to let the world know that it won't stop Israel from pounding Syria in the event that Syria is attacked by Hezbullah. In fact, the Obama administration has given no indication that it has any interests in this region other than the floundering 'peace process' between Israel and the 'Palestinians.'

The second problem is that Hezbullah already has sufficient arms to do a lot of damage even if it is not resupplied. And if Hezbullah starts a war, there will be enormous pressure in Arab capitals to support it.

And that's without even considering the fact that Syria seems strongly committed to helping Hezbullah in the event of another war.

In any event, I suspect that Hezbullah will start a war, but the trigger will be an Israeli attack on Iran. The need to attack Iran's nuclear facilities is becoming imminent.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:19 PM