Last week, President Trump shocked the United States military command when he suddenly announced that he aims to pull the entire US military apparatus out of Syria within the next six months, as soon as ISIS is finally defeated.
“I want to get out, I want to bring the troops back home, I want to start rebuilding our nation,” Trump said during a press conference. “It’s time. We were successful against ISIS. We’ll be successful against anybody militarily, but sometimes it’s time to come back home—and we’re thinking about that very seriously.”
Trump’s statement reportedly surprised the Pentagon, who had heard nothing about the president planning to leave Syria until his dramatic announcement. However, the consternation at Arlington was nothing compared to the horror that his remarks caused in Israel. Trump’s plans could lead to an escalation of all-out war between Israel and Iran, with the latter being joined by Syria as well as terrorist group Hezbollah.
Ever since it became clear that Syrian President Basher Assad, together with Russia and Iran, would prevail in the bloody civil war that has ripped the country apart since 2010, Israel’s biggest fear is that Iran will fill the power vacuum and establish military bases on the Israeli-Syrian border.
Israel has been publicly warning the international community that it will not tolerate Iran setting up shop in Syria and has sworn to do everything in its power to stop this, even if it means going to war. “Israel wants peace, but we will continue to defend ourselves with determination against any attack on us and against any attempt by Iran to entrench itself militarily in Syria or anywhere else,” said Prime Minister Netanyahu in February.
The Israeli security establishment is virtually united in viewing a large-scale Iranian presence in Syria as an existential threat. Israel’s worst-case scenario is that the Syrian and Iranian forces will launch a combined attack on the Syria-Israel border, while Hezbollah devastates Israel with a missile barrage targeting its civilian population and raids in the north by its elite Radwan units.
As such, Israel has been endlessly lobbying both the Trump administration and Vladimir Putin to rein in Iran in efforts to spare a war which could be the worst Israel has ever seen. Soon after Trump’s 2016 victory, Israel sent a high-level delegation to seek out the president-elect’s Iran strategy. Another team followed in August, this time comprised of Yossi Cohen, the head of the Mossad espionage agency, and Major General Herzl Halevi, IDF Military Intelligence Commander, along with senior officials from the Defense Ministry. The Israelis reportedly left the meeting distressed that the Trump administration did not have the resources to focus on Iran’s meddling in Syria.
In January, Prime Minister Netanyahu paid a surprise visit to Russian President Vladimir Putin to inform Putin that Iran was building missile factories in Lebanon, which Israel refuses to tolerate. According to both the Israeli and Russian press, Netanyahu’s visit was a last-ditch effort to head-off an all-out war between Israel and the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis.
While it is unknown how the talks ended, diplomacy has clearly taken a backseat to saber rattling. The first sign of this ticking clock was back in February. After an Iranian drone infiltrated Israeli airspace, Israel shot down the drone and destroyed the Iranian command-and-control center in Syria that was controlling the UAV.
(Credit: Facebook/ChildrenOfGod)
While retaliation for airspace violations is a common Israeli practice, Syrian President Assad responded by targeting the Israeli planes with SAM’s and downed the Israeli F-16, the first time an Israeli jet has been shot down in battle since 1982. Israel in turn destroyed 122 Iranian targets in Syria. However, the boldness exhibited by the Iranians to pilot a drone into Israel, and the aggression shown by Assad after the Israeli response—in contrast to his previous meek reaction—are major signs that the border is heating up.
Assad further displayed his newfound confidence on Saturday when he ordered a heavy mechanized armored unit in no-mans land, violating the 1974 cease-fire agreement with Israel.
The IDF has been training for a multi-front war on a level that has not been seen for over 40 years. In September, tens of thousands of IDF soldiers staged a mock ten-day war with the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah, in the largest drill the IDF has held in two decades.
In another clear sign that the US and Israel both see war on the horizon, the two allies held another massive drill in February that trained for a Hezbollah missile barrage on Israel’s most sensitive civilian and military sites. During the exercise, US armed forces deployed over 2,500 troops, including 1,400 Marines and 1,100 naval personnel, with two US Navy vessels taking positions off the coast of Israel.
Simultaneous to this drill, Israel held another exercise to train its police, rescue services, and firefighters to coordinate in the event that large portions of Israeli cities were turned into rubble. This drill, which was called “Operation Steadfastness,” sent Israeli citizens scurrying into bomb shelters twice in a 24-hour period, something that was previously unheard of in the context of a large-scale drill.
Other than war games on levels never seen before, the escalating rhetoric by IDF generals provides another clue that war is quickly approaching. In January, IDF Spokesman Brigadier General Ronen Manelis took the unprecedented step of publishing an op-ed in the Lebanese media warning that Hezbollah’s efforts at building missile factories in South Lebanon “would bring the region to ruin.”
“Lebanon has become—both by its own actions and omissions and by a blind eye from many members of the international community—one large missile factory,” Manelis wrote. “It’s no longer a transfer of arms, funds or consultation. Iran has de facto opened a new branch, the ‘Lebanon branch’. Iran is here.”
Soon after, an unidentified senior IDF officer, whom many presume to be IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, told Israeli journalists during an off-the-record talk that war with Hezbollah was probable before the end of 2018. Two days later, Northern Command Major General Yoel Strick said that “Iran wants to establish a forward operating base in Syria whose goal is attacking Israel. We will not allow it. We will not allow Israeli citizens to be threatened. We will not allow Iran to threaten the stability of the entire region.”
IDF officers, especially senior ones, are forbidden from giving interviews to the media without official permission from above. The spectacle of senior officers giving multiple interviews with identical talking points can only mean that the Israeli government is desperately trying to prepare the public for a painful and costly war.
Throughout the preparations of both Israel and Iran for the upcoming round of fighting, Israel has always held onto the faint hope that the Trump administration would assist in keeping Iran from the border. Trump’s statement last week extinguished such hopes. While Netanyahu is still trying to change Trump’s mind, and even reportedly grew tense with Trump during a recent phone call regarding the issue, the countdown to war between Israel and Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah has begun.
