Since it's relevant to yesterday's Iran post, I'm posting this document:
The Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa recently reported that Iran has delivered missiles to Hizbullah in Lebanon via Syria, and that Iran and Syria are cooperating closely in missile development and deployment. The following are excerpts of the article:
"Two cargo aircraft landed on the morning of Wednesday, August 4, 2004, at one of the Syrian military airfields in north Damascus. There to greet the planes were Iranian Ambassador to Syria Riza Baqiri and Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Mas'ud Idris."
Al-Siyassa also reported that "several Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers had arrived the previous day from their headquarters at a Hizbullah military camp near the town of Qasrbana in al-Buqa' in order to unload a significant number of surface-to-surface missiles."
According to information received from the Syrian opposition in London on Saturday, August 14, the missiles "are of the most recent and improved Iranian model, with a 250- to 350-kilometer range, with which it is possible to hit any target in Israel." The sources also reported to Al-Siyassa that the two deliveries comprised 220 missiles "that Iran had not so far supplied to any foreign entity…
"Over Thursday and Friday [August 12-13], the missiles were transported in civilian Syrian and Lebanese trucks to three Hizbullah military bases" in the regions of Jenta and Yahfufa near the Syrian border, as well as to southern Ba'albek.
The Syrian opposition said that according to information they claim to have received from a senior source in the Syrian military in Damascus, "the alert level of the Syrian missile corps, deployed mostly in the North and East of the country [i.e., Syria], has been raised to high after commanders in military intelligence and in the Ba'th party in Damascus received information about the possibility that the Israeli Air Force would attack the nuclear reactors in Iran via Jordanian, Iraqi, and Turkish skies."
It was also stated that in the event of such an Israeli attack, "Hizbullah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon overseeing the deployment and maintenance of thousands of missiles of various ranges would fire these missiles at cities in the Hebrew state, which could expand the aerial attacks on the nuclear, chemical, and biological installations and uranium-enrichment plants in Iran, such that the attack would also include Syria and Lebanon." In the same article, Al-Siyassa reported that a "Syrian military source told the Syrian opposition in London that an Iranian military delegation specializing in missiles had accompanied the two deliveries to Syria, in order to oversee the deployment of the missiles in the various regions in Lebanon."
The newspaper also quoted the source as saying that Iranian-Syrian missile cooperation is "the closest cooperation in the history of the two countries' strategic relations, since Iranian scientists working on developing the Shihab missiles in Tehran had gone to Syria at the beginning of the year [2004] to participate in the development of missile artillery based on the same source on which Iran relies – that is, North Korea."
So much for Israel driving a wedge between Iran and Syria.
As far as other reports on the renewed Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah nexus in Lebanon, Haaretz's take on this is, well . . . kinda scary:
It is not possible Lebanon's prime minister and military chiefs don't know these rockets have arrived, and if they are stored in the Beirut area. This is a major logistic operation requiring planes or sea transport to Lebanese ports. Some of the rockets have been transported by land from Syria and others flown from Iran to Damascus airport.
All through the years that the rocket deployment has been building in Lebanon, Israel did not hit any convoy transporting them. The rockets requires numerous storage depots that could have been hit from the air and by other means.
The rockets in Lebanon should not be viewed as merely a Hezbollah array. It is an Iran-Syria-Hezbollah.
The threat to Israel that was building up for such a long time is therefore a threat from Syria and Iran, operated by a Lebanese proxy. It has a strategic aspect because of the range of the rockets, and it is clear that if it is exercised, this could not be considered a serious border incident, but a shot in an all-out war. This is known in Syria - and especially well known in Lebanon.
Since the United Nations since the '70s has basically been pro-Arab, apart from the United States, Israel would hardly feel that turning in that direction would be helpful. However, if they started making a racket about this at the UN now, it will be that much harder for the General Assembly to act *schocked...absolutely shocked* if the Israelis ultimately start hitting missile depots in Lebanon.
US efforts against Hezbollah, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans over the years, remain murky. So far it has been a matter of diplomatic pressure and trying to shutdown financial support networks, but there are reports that the DOD has been formulating some Special Ops strike options in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, a sort of safe haven for the group. The US's efforts to influence Lebanon's political leadership remain filtered through the Lebanonese government's dependence on Syria as well as Syria's military occupation of much of the country.
Currently, the situation between Israel, Lebanon and Syria has the status of a low-intensity border conflict. The dynamics of such a conflict are that the likelihood of any categorical victory are so remote that it is in the interest of all parties to contain the violence and keep it from escalating. Thus, there are tit-for-tat shootings, missile strikes or bombings, reprisal air strikes and mutual campaigns of political propaganda. Ultimately, such conflicts have less to do with one's sworn enemy than with influencing one's own domestic constituencies. Thus, such conflicts have their own manner of rationality to them, one of fairly understood rules and proportionality.
However, it is a mistake to think that the political dynamic of such a conflict is inherently stable, even if the conflict itself demonstrates stability over time. What I mean is that when the underlying political dynamic of a low-intensity conflict changes, that means understanding the conflict in terms of its past rationality is a mistake.
It would seem that such a shift in political dynamic has taken place. Remember that Hezbollah ultimately responds to Iran, and if Iran has recalculated its strategic goals, its intentions for Hezbollah may have changed. Thus, expecting Hezbollah--Iran's creature--to continue operating as usual is misguided if Iran perceives there to be a new political dynamic in effect. It seems clear that given the direct threat to its territory from both Israel and the United States, and given Iran's fairly bellicose public response on the diplomatic front, and given Iran's injection of short-range missiles into Lebanon, that it is therefore inappropriate to continue thinking of the low-intensity conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon as localized.
It never was localized, of course, but before it hasn't been important enough to let it get out of control. Now, however, Iran needs to be able to open up a second front on Israel in the event of an attack on Iran. If Israel intends to keep open its option of attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, it will then need to deal directly with this threat on its flank. Therefore measuring that threat by the past standard of a contained, low-intensity conflict standard (and thus judging Israel's response by the old standards of proportionality) is wrong.
