Israel and America Thread the Needle with Iran, Hezbollah // FAI ONLINE

An Israeli Merkava Mark 4 tank drives close to livestock during an exercise in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, near the border with Syria. (Credit: Ariel Schalit, AP)

Details continued to emerge this week regarding two airstrikes in Syria which targeted a Syrian military base near Palmyra and a vehicle carrying Lebanese Hezbollah militiamen near the Israeli Golan Heights. Israel is widely believed to be responsible for both strikes, although Israeli officials rarely comment on specific operations. The vastly different ways in which the operations were conducted highlight the Israeli military’s precarious strategy of both neutralizing the threat of the Iranian regime while also avoiding war with Hezbollah - an Iranian proxy - along its northern frontier.

The operation near Palmyra in eastern Homs province appeared to be a pinpoint strike targeting the Althias “T4” military airport. Different sources claimed that senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) commanders were assassinated, or that an Iranian drone production facility was targeted, or possibly both. In any case, the strike resulted in the death of nine unidentified military personnel; three Syrians and six “foreigners”, according to Syrian state media. Satellite images clearly showed the destruction of particular structures at the airbase. The strike is the latest example of Israel’s resolve to deter the Iranian regime in Syria and to disrupt its proxies and weapons pipelines that stretch from Tehran to the Golan Heights; a resolve which includes their willingness to kill senior members of the Iranian military and IRGC who venture close enough to Israel’s border.

On the other hand, CCTV footage of the strike that destroyed a vehicle transporting members of the Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah militia showed a “warning shot” nearby which allowed the occupants to flee before a second shot decimated the vehicle. This measured tactic demonstrates Israel’s differing strategy toward Lebanese Hezbollah, compared to their Iranian benefactors, in which Israel deters by warning while also avoiding the deaths of enemy commanders, which could inadvertently trigger another Israeli-Lebanese war. Hezbollah has been building its missile arsenal into the hundreds of thousands over the last two decades since the Israel military’s withdrawal from Southern Lebanon. However, Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed greater concern about the development of guidance systems for those missiles, choosing to draw a “red line” in front of the deployment of such technology across their northern border, which would make a bombardment of Israeli cities significantly more precise - and therefore much more lethal and destructive - in any future war with Hezbollah.

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Meanwhile, the United States continued its rhetorical war with the Iranian regime this week, as both US President Trump and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hytan warned that any future provocations by Iran against US warships in the Persian Gulf would not go unanswered. President Trump announced on Twitter that he has ordered the US Navy to “destroy” any Iranian gunboats that act aggressively or dangerously around US warships. Gen. Hytan also cautioned Iran against reckless behavior on the seas, stating that the US will “come and we will come large” if Iran continues to “go down that path”. IRGC officials retorted with similar threats, should their gunboats be attacked.

The presidential tweet came one day after the IRGC successfully launched the two-stage Noor ballistic missile into space. The missile carried a satellite payload, which apparently did not deploy or achieve successful orbit above the Earth. However, US and European officials condemned the launch, pointing out that the Noor missile could be fitted with nuclear weapons that could target nations across the European, African and Asian continents. Since the breakdown of the JCPOA, or Iranian Nuclear Deal, in 2017, Iran has begun expanding and accelerating its uranium enrichment program again, hovering just below the “breakout” threshold which both Israel and the Trump Administration have regarded as a “red line” in the program. An officials in the Iranian space program recently boasted on state television that smaller and more effective missiles were under development, which could be launched from anywhere.

Despite the global coronavirus pandemic, tensions between Israel, the US and Iran continue to fester in the Middle East. It it difficult to say whether these events are building toward a full-scale regional war, or something else, but it is clear nonetheless that rising tensions will not be abated anytime soon. We ask our global partners to join us in prayer for divine wisdom to be granted to well-intentioned leaders in the Middle East, for the plots and schemes of wicked men to be exposed and thwarted, and for a hedge of protection to be placed around vulnerable populations in the region, including the Iranian people, who have suffered most of all under the repressive hand of their regime.