Israeli airstrike: how important is US’s support for Syria

Tel Aviv: In a recent foreign affairs article, the former US envoy on Syrian policy noted that “US-backed Israeli airstrike attacks on Iranian bases in the country further limited military options for the [Syrian] regime.” James Jeffrey, the envoy, was instrumental to US policy over the years and supported Israel’s efforts as well as Turkey’s role in Syria. He stepped down after Trump lost the election last year.

Jeffrey also told Jared Sajuba in an interview in Al-Monitor about America’s support for Israeli airstrikes in Syria. “When I came on board, America started supporting it. I went out there and we had a view of Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and others, and they thought they were not being reinforced enough by the US military and not by intelligence. And there was a big fight within the US government, and we won the war. The argument [against supporting Israel’s campaign] was, again, this obsession with counterintelligence missions. People did not want to mess with it, either to worry about Turkey or to divert resources to allow the Israelis to surround it in Syria, perhaps because it would shock our military. It is not. ”

Jeffrey sees Israel’s campaign against Iran as part of a multi-layered US strategy in the region that worked between 2018 and 2020. “So you throw them all together – anti-chemical weapons missions, our military presence, Turkish military presence, and Israel’s dominance in the air – and you have a very effective military pillar of your military, diplomatic and separatist three pillars.”

Also, following the airstrikes last week on Iranian bases in Syria near the Iraqi border, “a senior US intelligence official told the Associated Press that the airstrikes were carried out with intelligence provided by the US and that they had targeted the warehouses used part of a pipeline to store and stage Iranian weapons. According to the BBC, the warehouses also served as a pipeline for components supporting Iran’s nuclear program.

The full extent of US support for Israeli airstrikes in Syria is unknown. There are only a few points of light that guide the complete understanding of this period. When the US demanded withdrawal from Syria, first in December 2018 and then in October 2019, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raced in Syria to reassure Israel about its freedom of action. In October 2018, US Central Command chief Joseph Votel visited the US base in Tanf, Syria, near the Jordan border. The base is between Israel and Iran, called Imam Ali near Albuquamal on the Iraqi border.

US National Security Advisor John Bolton also assured US support to Israel in the January 2019 visit, according to Polarico’s reports. Bolton left the Trump administration but was still instrumental in drafting a policy requiring the US to stay in Syria until Iran left the country. Iran did not go, but Israel has said it wants to stop Iranian incursions into Syria.
The Syrian regime reorganized the Golan after a US-backed ceasefire in the summer of 2018. Iran and Hezbollah demanded entry into the Golan. January 2019 interview with the former Chief of Staff of Israel, Lieutenant General. (Race) Gaddy Ezincott revealed that Israel had carried out more than 1,000 airstrikes on Iranian bases in Syria. Iraq also accused Israel of an airstrike in the fall of 2019. In August 2017, the then Air Force Chief Major Amir Eshel said that Israel had flown the convoy to Hezbollah, which had come through Syria more than 100 times. Mathematics would appear to indicate a large increase in airstrikes until January 2019, when Eisenkot made his assessment for the New York Times.

It dovetails with another data point. US Secretary of State James Mattis, according to sources who spoke to The Jerusalem Post, was concerned about Israel’s actions in Syria and Iraq as it could be due to the effects on the US-ISIS alliance. Mattis stepped down in December 2018. The US Lead Inspector General report from October to December 2019 expressed concern about Israeli airstrikes. It appears that the increased airstrikes in 2019 were part of Jeffrey’s saying when he said there was a fight in the US government about supporting Israeli airstrikes, “not by the US military and with intelligence.”

The BBC report claimed the airstrike on the night of 12–13 January was “done with the US’s intelligence.” This may have broad regional influence beyond Syria or Iraq. On December 2, 2020, an article by Amos Yadlin and Asaf Orion in the INSS read that “Israel and the United States have worked together in the past to counter Iran’s nuclear program, for example, Stuxnet in uranium enrichment” With the entry of the computer worm. Facilities in Nitzan, although they differ in their approach to such aggressive activity. Israel’s attack on a nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007 coincided with Washington’s knowledge and even his blessing. However, this should not be inferred from the events shortly before the assassination – including the visit of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Israel and anywhere else in the region, and (leaked) Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s There was a meeting between which the operation [attributed] to Tehran] was coordinated between all the parties. On the same side, it is very likely that this time also, Israel did not surprise the US administration, and even That he also received his blessings.”

These details indicate US support for Israeli action in Syria, including intelligence and other support. The question is whether this period of assistance and how it appeared in 2019 and 2020 will continue in the same fashion. Jeffrey’s article indicates that it has many sides in Washington, some opposed and some supported the campaign against Iran in Syria.