Israel may face a crossroads in its Syria policy in the next year as countries in the region seek to bring Syria back into the fold of Arab states and prefer that the instability and chaos that has underpinned the Syrian civil war for a decade, end with the Syrian regime cemented in power.This is not a simple process because the United States and the Syrian Democratic Forces still have power east of the Euphrates, while Turkey controls and occupies a swath of northern Syria. There are still refugees and the Syrian regime is incredibly weak and poor, meaning that Iran and Russia have a lot of influence.
It is Iran’s influence that concerns Israel. Iran has worked with the Syrian regime for decades but in recent years Iran sought to establish bases and sent members of the IRGC to Syria, as well as began to support militias and the deployment of Hezbollah to areas close to Israel across from the Golan.
These myriad of tentacles of Iranian influence have been met with pushback from Israel. Back in August 2017 former Israel Air Force head Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel said that Israel had struck convoys destined for Hezbollah in Syria nearly 100 times in five years. Eshel is now Director General of the Ministry of Defense. In January 2019 former Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot told the New York Times that Israel had struck thousands of Iranian targets in Syria. A simple calculation will tell you that an increase from nearly 100 attacks in five years, to hitting thousands of targets by the end of 2019 represents a major increase in activity.
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