Israel stepping up the onslaught on Iran Shereshevskiy's analysis

Israel has dramatically expanded air strikes on Iranian-linked targets in Syria. The strikes were carried out on March 7, 12, 22, 30, and 31, as well as on April 2. The attacks targeted regime airfields, military bases affiliated with the Lebanese pro-Iranian Hezbollah group, and Iranian officers. The deaths of some high-ranking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers have also been acknowledged by the Iranians themselves, something they rarely do.

"We will not allow the Iranians and Hezbollah to harm us. We have not allowed it in the past, we won’t allow it now, or anytime in the future. When necessary – we will push them out of Syria to where they belong – and that is Iran,” said Yoav Gallant, head of the Israeli Defence Ministry.

It seems nothing unusual going on. Israel has been bombing Syria for years. Iran and its allies, including Hezbollah, have been aiding the Assad regime for years. Not disinterestedly, of course. They seek to turn Syria into a satellite of Iran, a country dominated by Iranian military, political and economic influence. Syria has long been part of the Shiite crescent, Iran's sphere of influence that stretches through Iraq and, in fact, Syria, into Lebanon (dominated by Hezbollah), ensuring Iranian geopolitical power over the space from Tehran to the Mediterranean. Israel, for which Iran is the main strategic and military adversary, wants to prevent this by destroying, through air force attacks, the bases of the Iranians and their allies in Syria. In Israel, this military campaign is called the "War Between the Wars".

It would seem nothing new. And yet it is not. What calls attention to itself is the fact that the Israeli air raids have intensified. What is the reason for that?

One explanation is a link to a recent incident in Megiddo. On March 6, a gunman armed with various weapons, including a powerful Claymore mine, infiltrated Israel from Lebanon, planted an explosive device at the intersection and detonated it, thereby attacking a car. Such sophisticated operations and the use of appropriate explosive devices are usually carried out by Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, Israel and Hezbollah have a tacit agreement - the former usually does not attack party targets in Lebanon, while the latter does not invade or fire on Israeli territory. Both sides know that a large-scale mutual confrontation could be quite costly, and so they behave cautiously. The Israeli military operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 was a failure, according to the Israelis themselves, whereas Hezbollah sustained heavy losses during the fighting with the IDF. Therefore, attacks and mutual intimidation are not usually launched from Lebanon or within Lebanese territory. But there are exceptions.

Perhaps the Israelis decided that this time Hezbollah had crossed the red line. However, not wanting war with it and with Lebanon at the moment, they chose another way to retaliate by launching massive attacks on the organisation's facilities and its Iranian sponsors in Syria, conscious that such attacks, for all their power, do not violate Hezbollah's red lines or lead to a rapid escalation.

Perhaps so, but this explanation is insufficient because it fails to take into account the wider context. The increasing intensity of Israeli air raids on Syria, as well as Hezbollah's operation in Megiddo, are taking place against the backdrop of a dramatically escalating confrontation between Iran and Israel.

Iran, according to experts, is 12 days away from making a breakthrough to develop the components for a nuclear weapon. It will take 6 to 24 months to integrate it with a missile warhead. And while we do not know whether Iran intends to build a nuclear weapon or wants to remain a threshold state, its capability to make a bomb is growing steadily and may have already reached a tipping point.

This increases the likelihood of an Israeli and/or US attack on Iranian military-industrial and nuclear facilities. For both countries, especially for Israel, Iran's development of nuclear weapons is unacceptable and there is a consensus among all major political forces in the country on this issue.

Thus, the likelihood of Israeli massive bombings of Iran is increasing. In the next six months or a year, it will be particularly high. The recent Israeli drone raid on a military-industrial facility in the Iranian city of Isfahan must also be seen in this context.

Iran, for its part, is preparing for an escalation. It intends to buy the latest Russian Su-35 aircraft, belonging to the 4++ generation and probably able to withstand the Israeli air force; it also intends to buy Russian S-400 air defence systems. At the same time, it is preparing the conditions for asymmetric strikes against Israel using Lebanese and Palestinian fighters.

Well-informed Israeli political-military analyst Jonathan Speier, of the Institute for Strategy and Security in Jerusalem, points out that a series of meetings between senior Hezbollah officials and representatives of the Iranian-sponsored Palestinian armed organisations Hamas and Islamic Jihad took place recently. The meeting indicates a desire by these groups to coordinate their operations against Israel.

On the other hand, Robert Inlaqesh, a journalist and political analyst who wrote in May 2022 on the pro-Hezbollah media site al-Mayadeen, described the expected new developments in the following words: "The tactics used by the armed groups, such as the slow disclosure of the capabilities of new weapons, strikes everywhere in the territories of 1948, the temporary blocking of Israeli airports and control over the course of the battle - all this would show the entire region the weakness of Tel Aviv."

Thus, the intensification of Israeli raids on Iranian-affiliated targets in Syria must be seen within the overall context of heightened Iranian-Israeli tensions. Both sides are conducting a kind of battlefield reconnaissance while building military capabilities and demonstrating to each other their ability to strike.