Russia In Syria: Did Putin Just Clip Israel's Wings?
Seated at the Kremlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Vladimir Putin smiled and shook hands. At a follow-up media briefing, the Israeli leader announced a deal to avoid hostilities between their militaries in and around Syria.
But all the pleasantries Monday couldn’t hide the awkwardness of the new wrinkle in Russian-Israeli relations. Moscow’s decision to boost its military presence in northern Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad has posed a potential challenge to Mr. Netanyahu, who for years has had a relatively free hand to carry out strikes against arms shipments that Israel says goes from Iran, through Syria, to the Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.
If Israeli intelligence gets tipped off that Syrian forces are shipping advanced missiles to Hezbollah near where Russian troops are stationed, Netanyahu is liable to face a dilemma: should Israel attack the weapons convoy preemptively and risk injuring Russians? The coordination mechanism announced by Israel is supposed to avoid tactical “misunderstandings,” but potentially crimps Israel’s maneuvers.
“It complicates reality. It potentially limits Israel’s freedom of action,” said Ehud Eiran, a political science professor at Haifa University who focuses on national security. “The fascinating question is whether it will constrain Israel or not. Israel has been looking at Lebanon and Syria as areas where it could fly freely.”
Not since the collapse of the Soviet Union has Israel faced a potentially unfriendly superpower so close to its borders. Though Russia is no longer supporting a coalition of Arab states in direct conflict with the Jewish state as it did during the cold war, the fallout from the Russian intervention could boost the Iranian-led alliance of Shiite forces supporting Mr. Assad.
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