Syria's allies warn of retaliation for Israeli airstrikes, but threats likely hollow (+video)

Syria and Iran have threatened retaliation against Israel for a reported strike or pair of strikes in Syrian territory yesterday, but it is widely seen as counter to their interests to follow such bellicose rhetoric with concrete action.

Hezbollah slammed the attack today as “barbaric aggression,” but the Lebanese Shiite militant group is seen as unlikely to risk a new war with Israel when one of its chief backers, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is fighting for his regime’s survival and is in no position to engage Israel. Iran, which also backs Hezbollah and could use it as a proxy to retaliate against Israel, is likewise seen as loath to play that card and risk losing one of its best deterrents against an Israeli attack.

“I don’t think any of the sides are willing to risk a war at this time,” says Timur Goksel, a commentator based in Beirut, Lebanon, who served with the United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon between 1979 and 2003. “If there’s going to be another war, it will more likely be related to an attack on Iran, not on an arms convoy or a facility in Syria.”

But the mutual deterrence that has kept Hezbollah from engaging in a fresh war with Israel, potentially on behalf of Iran or Syria, appears increasingly tenuous.

Israeli 'game changers'

Israeli officials have remained tight-lipped about the reports of military action, but analysts say it was likely motivated by both a sense of growing urgency and a calculation that neither Syria nor Hezbollah would retaliate.

“I have a distinct feeling that something happened in Syria that increased or heightened the threat perception in Jerusalem as well as in Washington,” says Prof. Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. “I think the Israeli view is probably that Hezbollah and Syria are weak, with little likelihood of response or escalation.”

Amid official Israeli silence, there is still uncertainty as to the actual target of last night’s airstrike. Numerous reports cite unidentified US and Israeli sources claiming that the attack targeted a convoy carrying weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The weapons were variously reported as SA-17 mobile medium-range antiaircraft missiles, Yakhont anti-ship missiles, or Scud short-range ballistic missiles. All three weapon systems are regarded as “game changers” in the Israeli context because of the threat they pose to Israeli aircraft, shipping, and populated areas respectively. In particular, the SA-17 missiles could limit the ability of Israeli jets to monitor Hezbollah and Syrian weapons sites.

However, Syria claims that the airstrike targeted a research facility that belongs to the Scientific Studies and Research Center, a government-run agency that is suspected of spearheading Syria's weapons development program. Israeli Lt. Col. Dany Shoham (ret.), a specialist in chemical and biological warfare who served in Israel’s Ministry of Defense in the 1990s, says it’s possible that that facility was developing or upgrading components related to chemical weapons.

The facility is located in Jermaya, five miles from central Damascus, and is surrounded to the north, east, and west by sprawling military bases for the elite Republican Guards unit.

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