The Iranian axis has gone up in flames.
Ariel Kahana
(Israel Hayom via JNS)
Jet contrails crisscrossed the skies high over the Golan Heights, interweaving with cirrus clouds. Tiny dots releasing white vapor streaked from east to west, leaving little doubt about where they came from and what they had done minutes earlier somewhere in Syria.
“It’s quiet here today, but yesterday and Saturday, we clearly heard the fighting and the constant Air Force sorties,” says Yehoshua Moskowitz, a resident of Moshav Alonei HaBashan, Israel’s easternmost locality. Since the war began, the community has been on high alert. The readiness unit to which Moskowitz belongs is mobilized.
Together, we climb nearby Tel Hazeka, adjacent to the border. In the valley below us, Israel operated a camp for Syrian civil war refugees in the past decade. Under the radar, connections are still maintained with the Druze minority on the Syrian side of the Heights and other sympathetic forces. But now, on the Golan, all is quiet and pastoral, even on the Syrian side.
Meanwhile, the IDF is writing a historic chapter east of us. The main offensive capabilities of the Syrian military are no more. Israeli air and naval forces destroyed them, while ground forces seized the buffer zone, including the snow-capped Mount Hermon peak in the distance.
For now, it can be cautiously assessed that the Syrian sector of Hermon—the northernmost point of Israeli control—and the buffer zone on the Syrian border will remain in Israeli hands until the coming of the Messiah. Perhaps even after.
Contrary to all prediction
The fall of Bashar Assad’s regime and the elimination of his army are stunning by-products in terms of Israel’s interests.
After the destruction of most of the Hamas military force in Gaza in the south and the severe blow to Hezbollah in the north, the Iranian axis built with such effort has gone up in flames. Moreover, when the Iranians have no foothold in Syria, it’s hard to see how they’ll rebuild the axis.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was right in every word when he said, “The collapse of the Syrian regime is a direct result of the heavy blows we dealt to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
“A new, dramatic chapter has opened in Middle East history. Yesterday, something fell—literally. Assad’s regime in Syria, a central link in Iran’s axis of evil, collapsed after 54 years. Iran invested many billions in Syria, and everything went down the drain,” said Netanyahu.
True, neither he nor anyone else predicted Assad would fall. Probably not even the rebels themselves. Incidentally, the only one in the Israeli system who foresaw turbulence in Damascus is the new Military Intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder.
“Eyes on Syria,” he repeatedly told his people in recent weeks. Still, even before the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, but certainly after it, we must wake up from the illusion that intelligence can provide strategic forecasts. No intelligence agency predicted the fall of the USSR, Nicolae Ceaușescu or Hosni Mubarak.
And, of course, 14 months after Oct. 7, no one could have guessed that the outcome of that Saturday would be the collapse of the Iranian axis. Yet here we stand, and not by chance.
Now, the question is what to do with Israel’s rare strategic advantage over the Islamic Republic. The obvious answer is the destruction of its nuclear program.
Iran remains without its defensive layers—Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad, an air-defense array—and with half its offensive capability. There hasn’t been, and may never be, a better opportunity.
However, operationally, at least according to public information, only the U.S. has the bunker-buster bombs needed to penetrate the underground facilities where the nuclear program is being developed. For America to act, a decision must be made by the commander-in-chief. In other words, by the president.
At least externally, there’s no indication that Joe Biden is about to do anything. If Biden were to give the order, it could be a glorious finale to a struggling presidency, particularly in the international arena.
As one of President-elect Donald Trump’s advisers says: “What’s the worst that could happen? What can Iran do? Nothing.”
That senior official in the future administration is right. Iran, at most, could attack Israel and the Gulf states with its remaining missiles. While the potential damage shouldn’t be dismissed, the risk is certainly worth it, especially since Israel and the U.S. can now easily shoot down the ayatollahs’ missiles.
As things appear, however, not only Biden, but also his successor don’t want military action. Trump and his advisers are talking about renewing the “maximum pressure” policy on Iran, meaning sanctions and economic isolation.
However, this isn’t enough. For 20 years, various sanctions have been imposed on the Iranians. This hasn’t prevented them from reaching the threshold of a nuclear bomb. Therefore, we can only hope that the outgoing or incoming president will come to his senses and remove this danger from humanity.
A new page?
Back to Syria. The whole world is wondering about the nature of the emerging government. In Israel, the new rulers were immediately identified as jihadist figures, and there’s no doubt that this is the background of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader Mohammad al-Julani and the gangs with which he overthrew Assad.
But a deeper dive into the man’s history leads to a twist in the plot, a positive one. “You could say he’s a Syrian patriot. Based on his history and statements, he’s not part of global jihad and opposes it,” said Nadine Khalifa, an Egyptian-born researcher based in Turkey, who interviewed al-Julani in Idlib in 2020 for the international research institute Crisis Group.
In a phone call from Turkey, Khalifa explained that al-Julani “left ISIS and later al-Qaeda because he only wanted to fight Assad. He claims he was part of those groups when he was a young man in his 20s, and later regretted it.
“These organizations hate him because of his positions, and he also pushed them out of territories he controlled. In his circles, opposing global jihad puts your life at risk, but he persisted and paid a price for it. He never changed his position that his only desire was to remove Assad,” she said.
Khalifa conducted the conversation with al-Julani in an area under his control in Idlib. “You can learn from what happened there about what’s expected in Syria. It’s a conservative Islamic government, but it’s not Kabul. Women don’t just study at home, but teach at universities.”
But you know he’s wanted by the Americans for terrorist activity?
Khalifa: “That’s true, but the sanctions were imposed on him for his ISIS period. They have no record of international operations. He said only Syria interests him, and now, after overthrowing Assad, he also says he won’t pursue Iranians or Syrians outside Syria.”
What about Israel?
Khalifa directs me to hopeful words said Wednesday by Syria’s new prime minister, Mohammed al-Bashir. In an indirect response to Netanyahu’s warning not to reconnect his country to the Iranian axis, he said that Syria “is not ready to enter wars and has no intentions of entering wars in the future. On the contrary, the source of concern was the presence of Iran and Hezbollah.”
While the rebels’ PR is sophisticated and adapting to the West, it was Israel that erred in publicizing its moves. The destruction of the Syrian army was undoubtedly necessary, but there was no reason to take credit for it. Like “Operation Orchard”—the bombing of the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007; or “the campaign between wars”—the series of offensive actions by Israel, primarily in Syrian territory that began in 2011, some things are better left ambiguous.
Yes, everyone knows who did what. There was no need to rub it in the other side’s face with videos and a global media tour. One day, someone will present us with the bill for this.
Originally published by Israel Hayom.
Image: Israeli soldiers operating on the Syrian side of the border fence, Dec. 15, 2024. Photo by Jamal Awad/Flash90.
