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https://now.mmedia.me One small Israeli strike, one very big strategic game With its strike against senior Hezbollah and Iranian officers, Israel also sent a message to President Obama
Israel dealt Iran a painful blow on Sunday when it struck a convoy of senior Iranian and Hezbollah commanders in Quneitra in the Golan Heights. Some Israeli former security officials have explained the strike as preemptive action against an imminent attack on northern Israel. They pointed to an interview by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah three days before, in which he talked about his fighters making incursions into the Galilee in the next war with Israel. Another anonymous Israeli official claimed that the presence of a high-ranking Iranian general in the convoy was a surprise. But these details are parts of a cover story rather than a sincere explanation. The Israeli strike was the first, small move in a very big strategic game. To understand Israeli behavior, we must take into account three key factors: Iranian influence in the Levant is expanding rapidly, it is doing so with American consent; and, moreover, no one in the Middle East actually believes that the Obama administration will stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. With the real prospect of a nuclear Iran on the horizon, no Israeli government can afford to have the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) set up base in the Golan. Ultimately, this was the point Israel wanted to make — not just to Tehran, but to Washington as well. For some time now, the Assad regime has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tehran. Consequently, the Iranians have been looking to lay down military infrastructure in the Golan, and to establish it as an active front against Israel. The Iranians and Hezbollah are looking to tether the Golan to their stronghold in Lebanon, melding the two into “a single front,” as Hezbollah has begun to describe it. The presence of top-ranking Iranian and Hezbollah officers in the area underscores the importance Iran attaches to this objective. Although they lost several senior officers in the strike, the Iranians have revealed the identity of only one of them, Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi. Allahdadi had served in various IRGC brigades, and headed the 18th “Al-Ghadir” Infantry Brigade, until Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani reportedly brought him into the Force. His assignment was Lebanon and Syria. Allahdadi’s longstanding relationship with Soleimani, dating back to the Iran-Iraq War, is noteworthy. Allahdadi was, in short, Soleimani’s man in Syria. The identity of the other Iranian officers is unclear. Hezbollah scholar Shimon Shapira pointed to “an additional Iranian by the name of Assadi, who was, in all likelihood, the commander of the Iranian expeditionary forces in Syria.” Shapira thinks the other officers were probably part of an intelligence crew, “so the Iranians have to maintain secrecy.” There’s still some confusion about the identity of another rider in the convoy, one Ali Tabatabai. According to Shapira, he was an Iranian officer “responsible on behalf of the [IRGC] for the Golan front.” A source close to Hezbollah also says that Tabatabai was an Iranian commander, although it claimed he wasn’t killed in the strike. Yet other sources maintain that Tabatabai was a senior Hezbollah officer, responsible for the group’s “intervention unit.” The other senior Hezbollah commander killed in the strike, Muhammad Issa, was one of the commanders responsible for the Syria and Iraq files. He was tasked with protecting Damascus, where he also worked with Iranian-sponsored Iraqi militias. Whatever Tabatabai’s real identity, his presence alongside Allahdadi and Issa suggests that Iran and Hezbollah are working to set up specialized infantry units in the Golan to carry out operations against Israel. It’s clear, then, that Iran and Hezbollah are investing heavily in the Golan, and on multiple levels. Indeed, the presence of Jihad Mughniyeh in the convoy is telling. As the son of Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s former military commander, attaching him to the operation there would have allowed Hezbollah to integrate the Golan front into the mythology the party has woven around his father. Since 2006, Hezbollah hagiography has presented Imad Mughniyeh as the architect of the new military doctrine behind the group’s supposed “divine victory” in that year’s war with Israel. Jihad would have been the natural vessel to carry on this folklore; the great commander’s offspring, bringing his father’s tactics to the Golan and into Israel itself. But with respect to Israel, Iran and Hezbollah have two goals in the Golan. In addition to seeking a second front, they are eager to establish the principle that an attack on Israel from Syria will not alter the rules of engagement with it in Lebanon. Nasrallah hinted at this aspiration in his latest interview when he spoke of extending deterrence of Israel into the Syrian theater, so as to prevent attacks against weapons shipments and other targets in Syria. By creating an equation whereby Hezbollah legitimizes attacks against Israeli targets in the Golan without provoking devastation in Lebanon, Nasrallah will have managed to revive a variant of the pre-2006 rules of engagement, whereby Israel keeps its responses to Hezbollah attacks limited, avoiding a full-blown war. Such an arrangement is advantageous to Hezbollah. It spares it the massive devastation of war and the need to mobilize fighters engaged elsewhere, while also bolstering the perception that it has deterred Israel. When the Israelis struck the convoy they were sending a message: “We utterly reject this equation.” Recognizing that Nasrallah faces severe limits as to what he can do in response, they have called his bluff in a most humiliating manner. This message is also intended for the White House. The Obama administration’s de facto embrace of Iran and acceptance of its expanded domain in the Levant has put the US at odds with Israel’s interests. With this strike against senior Iranian officers, Israel also sent a message to President Obama: “Your accommodation with Iran will not come at our expense.” Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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