Israel wants seat at table amid call to end Syria war

Bloomberg

As world powers seek an endgame to Syria’s six-year war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a seat at the table.
Israel says Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah are working to entrench themselves militarily in neighboring Syria, where they’re backing Syrian government troops, and it’s rattled that a recent truce deal brokered by Russia and the US doesn’t block that. Israel’s fear that Tehran is establishing launchpads in Syria for future attacks against the Jewish state was expected to dominate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s talks on Wednesday with President Vladimir Putin in Russia.
Netanyahu, on the eve of his visit, said he will speak to Putin about “Iran’s accelerated attempt to establish a military presence in Syria.” Iranian aggression “has not lessened in the wake of the nuclear agreement” Iran reached with world powers in 2015, and poses a problem not only for Israel but for the entire Middle East, the Israeli leader said.
Complicated alliances in the Syrian war make Netanyahu’s mission a tough one. Israel could escalate the pinpoint strikes against Iran and Hezbollah it has already carried out during the war if it isn’t satisfied that Putin and US President Donald Trump are taking its security concerns into account. Moshe Ya’alon, who served as Israel’s defense minister during part of the war, said Israel may be forced to act militarily if Iran isn’t expelled.
“We had the expectation that a deal between Trump and Putin would deal with the Iranian threat on our border,” Ya’alon said in an interview in Tel Aviv. “It’s clear that if there is no solution, in the end we might have to take action ourselves.”
Netanyahu sets off for Russia after a delegation led by the chief of the Mossad spy agency came back from Washington earlier this month with no announcement of progress toward meeting Israel’s demands. But Russia, whose military intervention turned the tide in favor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, may not support the demand for a complete Iranian withdrawal: Iran is one of the co-sponsors of Moscow’s peace efforts in Syria, and Russia is unlikely to antagonize it.
Israel — which waged the loudest campaign against the Iran nuclear deal — accuses the Shiite-led Islamic Republic of building military bases in Syria and carving out a land corridor to transfer arms and fighters from Tehran to Beirut. It also says Iran is building precise-munition factories in Lebanon, Hezbollah’s base.
“There should be no arrangement that allows Iran and its proxies to base themselves militarily in Syria,” said Chagai Tzuriel, director-general of Israel’s Intelligence Ministry. “An Iranian military presence in Syria will be a constant source of friction and tension not only with Israel, but with the Sunni majority in Syria, with the Sunni countries in the region, and with Sunni minorities outside the region.” Russia probably will try to find some kind of compromise, analysts said. “The dominant view is that Iran is still a partner in Syria and now is not the time to sow tensions,” said Alexander Shumilin, head of the Middle East Conflict Analysis Center at the government-run Institute for US and Canada in Moscow. What it might do is “let Iran strengthen its positions in western Syria,” further from Israel, he said.
Zvi Magen, a former Israeli ambassador to Moscow and now a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, expects Netanyahu and Putin “will try to find a solution in which the Iranians can stay in Syria under Russian control,” with no military units and no military bases.