Israel’s Role as Catalyst for Toppling Assad Regime

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Syria has, since the outbreak of civil war in 2011, been a plaything of greater powers.  During the initial protests, the downtrodden Sunni majority was arrayed against the Alawite elites.  Later, ISIS and al Qaeda stepped in funded by billions from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  They imposed their merciless sectarian Islamist rule on wide swaths of Syrian territory. The Kurds in northeastern Syria also formed their own militias and rose up demanding their own political autonomy.  Turkey was a sworn Kurdish enemy, so it sponsored its own opposition Islamist forces and carved out a buffer zone in northern Syria to defend against attacks by Kurdish forces.

Hezbollah, Iran and Russia were the Syrian government’s chief backers.  Hezbollah poured tens of thousands of its fighters onto the battlefield, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards offered training and Russia provided air cover.  Together, they eventually drove al Qaeda and ISIS out of their strongholds and much of the territory returned to government control.

Syria was critical to both Iran and Hezbollah because it served as a transshipment corridor for the former’s missiles shipped to Lebanon.  They formed a large part of the Shia militia’s aerial arsenal, which has been fired at northern Israel since 10/7.

Israel too tried to carve out its own zone of influence in Syria’s south, allying itself with an al Qaeda offshoot, Al Nusra  It supplied these Islamists with weapons and training, and propped them up as a buffer against Hezbollah–just as it had created the South Lebanese army as a buffer against the PLO and Shia militias–Amal and later, Hezbollah.

Israel benefits enormously from a fractured Syrian state.  As long as its enemies squabble amongst themselves, they aren’t uniting to fight against Israel or its ongoing occupation of Palestine. It needs these warring parties to be at each other’s throats.  It needs Syria to be divided along a sectarian lines with little or no central control.

There were no Israeli boots on the ground in the Syria civil war as there were in Lebanon in 1982.  Nevertheless, it managed to wreak enormous damage via hundreds of airstrikes against Syrian, Hezbollah and Iranian assets within the country. Of course, the has been far eclipsed by the catastrophic attacks on Lebanon in the past two months, wiping out entire Beirut neighborhoods and southern Lebanese villages.

All hell breaks out

That brings us to last week, when all hell broke loose in Syria’s north.  A hitherto little known al Qaeda breakaway group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), launched a major offensive in the country’s north.  It has wrested its second-largest city, Aleppo, from government control and is now marching toward another major population center, Hama.  Who its sponsors are isn’t clear, but it appears that Turkey has the most to gain from this new offensive.  The well-equipped and armed fighters indicate a major state actor likely stands behind them.

Why now?  Why has the fighting started now?  What are the considerations of the various parties?

One possible scenario: Turkey is in a constant struggle against Kurdish separatists in its own country and Syria.  As I wrote, it has long supported opposition forces and its own military carved out a buffer zone in northern Syria in order to suppress any possible assault against its own territory by its Kurdish enemies.

The Turks have watched since 10/7 as Israel decimated first Hamas and more recently Hezbollah.  This severely weakened Iran, which was the patron of both groups.  Also, Israel launched a massive strike in Damascus which destroyed an Iranian diplomatic building and assassinated a senior IRG commander.  Then it assassinated Hamas senior leader, Ismail Haniyeh inside an IRG guesthouse in Tehran.

This was clearly a message to the Iranians. Israel would exploit the war in Gaza and take the war to Iranian territory.  With the status quo shattered, it would strike savage blows it would not have considered before 10/7, when Iran was in the ascendancy.  Bibi Netanyahu knew the Iranians would strike back. They did when they launched their own ballistic missiles at Israel. However, the operation was carefully telegraphed so that the latter and its western allies could intercept most of them before they struck.

This in turn enabled Israel to launch its own missile and air assault which dismantled Iran’s air defenses and damaged its nuclear infrastructure as well; though the Biden administration publicly announced that Israel had agreed not to do so. This suggested a narrative in which the president lobbied the Israelis to restrain their attack; thus avoiding further escalation leading a major regional war.  The truth appears different, as Netanyahu later announced Israel had ignored US wishes, thus sticking a finger in Biden’s eye a week before the US presidential election.  Israel is now the ascendant power in the region. It has brought low almost all its enemies. No one stands in its way.

It is also one of the most hated regimes in the region and the world. But with its victim mentality it seems to thrive on such hate, acting with total impunity; never being held accountable for its crimes. Victimization allows it to commit genocide with the sociopathic conviction that it must do so to defend itself.

Israel’s interest in regional war

Netanyahu’s geo-strategic agenda may be even broader than laying low his enemies and reaping the rewards of their disarray. He seems intent on provoking a regional war.  He certainly dared to do so when he considered a massive air attack on Iran, after it fired missiles at Israel.  Frankly, I believed he would launch a full-scale assault that would inevitably have drawn much of the region into it.  However, he mostly acceded to US pressure and mounted a scaled-back version.

But the sheer number of parties with stakes in Syria, who compete or battle with each other, almost guarantees conflict with repercussions beyond it.  With Turkey, Russia, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq and Syrians themselves mixing it up, the least spark could turn into a raging conflagration.  Especially considering people like Netanyahu enjoy playing with matches.

Turkey knew almost immediately after 10/7 that removing Hezbollah as a powerful ally of the Assad regime significantly weakened government forces.  Israel’s then-defense minister had also telegraphed Israel’s intent to take the war to Hezbollah almost immediately after the Hamas attack. In fact, he urged Netanyahu not to attack Hamas first. But instead to take out a more powerful adversary, Hezbollah. The prime minister, lobbied by the US, turned his sights to Gaza first.

After Israel had achieved most of its military objectives there, it turned its sights on Hezbollah. It has endured months of punishing air strikes, a cyberattack severely wounding thousands of its fighters, and assassination of much of its military leadership.

Turkey’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his Islamist rebel allies watched closely as Israel toppled the delicate equilibrium that had existed for the past few years.  As Israel decimated Hezbollah and Iranian assets, they calculated that neither of Assad’s allies (including Russia as well, which is bogged down in its war against Ukraine) had the capacity or will to prop up the Syrian leader, as they had during the past decade. It offered a perfect opportunity to advance their own interests, and perhaps even topple the government entirely.

Israel has played its hand nicely. It was the initial catalyst that may have ended the Assad regime.  But it did so without participating directly. That’s why few in the global media have pointed the finger at Israel.

If the Syrian rebels topple the Syria leader, the question is: what comes after?  There will certainly be a scramble among all the disparate rebel factions.  Much of that will center on competing sectarian interests and territorial aims. Will a renewed civil war break out? Will an ascendant HTS take power?  If so, will it be amenable to Israeli interests?  Will it end the close ties with Iran?  Will it cut ties with Hezbollah?  You can bet that Israeli intelligence officers are eyeing developments closely and eagerly seeking access to the group’s leader.

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