Syria does not need an imported conflict

By Manish Rai

After nearly six weeks of war, Israel and Hamas have agreed to a temporary ceasefire that would pause fighting for four days and make way for an exchange of captives and prisoners. But Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the truce is temporary in nature and that the war will continue after it ends. Hence, there is a high possibility that this conflict will enter into the next phase of military confrontation and can spread to immediate neighbourhoods, especially in Syria. Since the start of the conflict in Gaza the United States has conducted many rounds of airstrikes against locations in Syria it says are linked to Iranian-backed militia groups. The U.S. says these are in retaliation for numerous attacks on U.S. forces in Syria and neighbouring Iraq by Iran’s proxy forces. Israel, meanwhile, has carried out several of its own strikes inside Syria’s territory in response to rocket and mortar attacks from the country. Israel has also launched air raids on Syria’s two main airports, Damascus and Aleppo, knocking both out of service for a while. Syria is already being dragged into this conflict up to some extent. There is a high chance that Iran may use Syria as a second front against Israel in case of total defeat of its proxies in Gaza.

Iran is one of the most powerful backers of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. It first intervened in the war to help defend Dr Assad against Syrian rebels and later helped Syrian government forces against the Jihadists. Iran has taken advantage of the chaos of Syria’s war to build a substantial military infrastructure there. It has built and trained large Shiite militias with thousands of fighters and sent advisers from its powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to Syrian military bases. In the name of assisting the Syrian government, Iranians followed the strategy to make Syria into a viable front like southern Lebanon. For both offensive and defence purposes, in case another major war breaks out between its proxies and Israel. Iran pushed allied Shia militias toward the Golan Heights and moved guided rockets and rocket production into Syria to better supply Hezbollah with more accurate weaponry. Iran also installed air defence systems that can reach deep into Israel. Moreover, Iranian influence in Syria has only grown over the past two years as Russia, Assad’s other main ally, is busy with its war in Ukraine, so Iran is filling a lot of the vacuum. According to research from the independent think-tank Jusoor for Studies, Iran has 570 military bases or installations in Syria as of Mid-2023.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has warned the Assad regime not to intervene in the Hamas-Israel war or to allow attacks on Israel from Syrian soil. Also, the Syrian regime realizes very well that they lack military muscle to confront Israel and they have lots of their own problems to deal with. In addition to this, the relationship between Hamas and the Syrian regime is lukewarm. Damascus only re-established diplomatic relations with the group last year, after Hamas political leadership left Syria over its initial support for the Syrian revolution in 2012. As of now, Assad appears to have little desire to get drawn into an all-out war with Israel, particularly at a time when his forces are not even in full control of his own country. But the longer the conflict drags on, and the more various geopolitical actors test each other’s red lines, the greater the risk that the conflict will spread. Also, as a matter of fact, Iranian-backed militias operate largely autonomously from the Syrian regime and take orders directly from commanders of the IRGC of Iran.

In all practical terms, Damascus has no control over the actions of these Iranian-backed militias but Israelis won’t buy this. In case of being attacked from the Syrian territory, Israelis will attack the Syrian infrastructure and maybe civilian centers as well. It will be the people of Syria who would have to pay a heavy price for any military clash with Israel.  The Syrian civil war, now moving into its thirteenth year, has inflicted an almost unimaginable degree of devastation and loss on the Syrian people and their economy. More than half the country’s pre-conflict population (of almost 21 million) has been displaced, both internally and as refugees, mostly in neighbouring countries. The conflict has killed more than half a million people and civilian infrastructure is in tatters. Syrian people have already suffered a lot and it will be a cruelty to impose an imported foreign conflict on them. The Syrian state’s sole focus should be on leading the nation into a sustainable economic recovery. In a nutshell, as ordinary people and families in Syria continue to bear the brunt of the civil war and ongoing economic crisis. The government must put economic recovery at the top of its agenda and should go to any length to avoid being dragged into any external conflict.

(Author is a columnist for Middle-East and Af-Pak region and Editor of the geo-political news agency ViewsAround can be reached at manishraiva@gmail.com)