Iran
and US Fighting On Same Side Rattles Israeli Defense Officials
by Yaakov Lappin
Special to IPT News
December 11, 2014
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 Confirmation
that Iran has joined the air campaign against Islamic State (IS) terrorists
in Syria won muted praise from U.S. officials last week. And that
development has increased anxiety among Israeli defense officials that
budding cooperation between Tehran and Washington will lead to dangerous
comprises about Iran's nuclear program and inadequate action confronting
the Islamic Republic's global terrorist network.
The biggest threat from that network lies just over Israel's northern
border in Lebanon.
On Sunday, according to international media reports, Israeli Air Force
jets bombed targets in and around Damascus. The strikes
likely targeted advanced weapons that were destined for Hizballah depots in
southern Lebanon, often hidden in apartment buildings in Shi'ite villages.
With more than 100,000 rockets and missiles, Hizballah has the largest
arsenal of any terrorist organization in the world, and its heavy
involvement in the Syrian civil war on behalf of dictator Bashar al-Assad's
regime is giving it plenty of experience in ground warfare.
Israel did not confirm any involvement in the recent air strikes, but it
is deeply involved in a covert war against an international Iranian-led
weapons smuggling network that is designed to provide Hizballah and other
radical terror entities around the Middle East with an array of
sophisticated arms.
This network is run by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force,
which oversees the smuggling of powerful weapons to Hizballah in Lebanon,
often via Syria. The Iranian network also attempts to send arms to Hamas
and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, to radical Shi'ite militias in Iraq that fight
the Islamic State, and to Shi'ite Houthi rebels that have taken over
Yemen's capital.
Iran's Quds Force and Hizballah, both backers of the Assad regime, have
set up terrorism sleeper cells around the Middle East and beyond, according
to Israeli intelligence assessments. Some of these cells are routinely
activated and ordered to strike Israeli and Jewish targets.
Israeli intelligence agencies quietly work to stop the planned attacks,
any one of which, if successful, could spark a wider regional conflict.
Meanwhile, Tehran continues to pursue a nuclear program and develop
ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
According to international media reports, Israel targeted shipments of Hizballah-bound weapons in Syria
five times in 2013, and once in Lebanon in 2014. This has led Hizballah to
retaliate by planting two bombs on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon appeared to hint at Israel's role in the
latest Syria strikes, by saying that "those who seek to arm Israel's
enemies will know that we can reach anywhere, at any time, and through any
means to thwart their plans."
As this covert, high-stakes struggle continues to rage against the
background of Iran's creeping nuclear program, a growing number of Israeli
defense officials are expressing concern that the Obama administration may
be willing to cooperate with Iran and its radical Shi'ite allies in the war
against the Islamic State.
The officials stress the flourishing defense ties between Israel and the
U.S., which are absolutely vital for Israeli security, and express
gratitude for continuous American defense assistance.
However, some have become highly critical of the way the U.S.-led
coalition against the Islamic State sees Iran as a de facto member.
Israeli defense officials wonder out loud whether the West, led by the
U.S., is falling into a dangerous trap, by teaming up with the radical
Shi'ite axis in the Middle East.
To be sure, no one within the Israeli defense establishment doubts the
need to tackle the Sunni Islamic State. Israel is quietly providing any
assistance necessary to the anti-ISIL coalition.
Yet it is the prospect of tactical cooperation between the U.S. and Iran
against IS, and the danger that the cooperation could lead to Western
concessions to Iran over its nuclear program that haunts some.
The failure by Washington to take tangible steps against Iran's global
terrorism network is also a source of concern. This network is growing in
Syria, along with Iran's presence there, and over the past 12 months, all
of the cross-border terror attacks launched from Syria into northern Israel
have been the work of elements linked to either Hezbollah or Iran, one
senior military official has said.
These worries seem to be bolstered by comments like those recently made
by Secretary of State John Kerry, who welcomed Iranian air strikes on Islamic State positions
in Iraq, describing them as "positive."
Unlike the Islamic State, the Shi'ite radical axis enjoys state
sponsorship from an Islamic Republic that is three to six months away from nuclear weapons.
This situation makes it a more urgent problem for global security, and
would seem to justify a stance that views both radical Sunnis and radical
Shi'ites as threats to international peace.
Driven by an extremist religious-ideological doctrine, the Iranian-led
axis views moderate Sunni governments which partner with the West – like
Egypt and Jordan – as enemies, seeks to push American influence out of the
Middle East, and promotes the idea of Iranian hegemony as a first step to
establishing eventual Iranian global dominance.
Iran views itself as the authentic Islamic caliphate, and seeks to
export its influence as far as possible. Eventually, it would like to fuel
conflict across the region through its proxies under a nuclear umbrella.
"The success of the Iranian
revolution influences to this day the ambition for an Islamic
caliphate," Ya'alon said this month, in an attempt to illustrate the
imminent danger posed by Iran's role in the world.
Disappointment in Israel has been expressed over what one official said
was the West's "support" for radical Shi'ites, and its
willingness to ignore Iranian threats.
Israeli officials, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have
expressed concern about the U.S. agreeing to a "bad deal" with Iran over its nuclear program since
talks started. Thus far, those fears have not yet been realized.
The Tel Aviv-based Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information
Center published a report
last week that explicitly warned about Iranian-American cooperation against
IS, which it said could occur at Israel's expense.
"Despite Iran's basic hostility towards the United States, and
despite Iran's subversion of American interests in the Middle East, it
might collaborate with the United States against ISIS and the global jihad
in Syria and Iraq, the common enemy," the report said. "Such collaboration might occur at Israel's
expense and harm its vital interests (for example, Iran's concessions on
the nuclear issue). In addition, collaborating against ISIS might increase
Iranian influence in Syria and Iraq, and might also strengthen Hizballah's
status in Lebanon, possibly strengthening the Iranian-led radical camp in
the Middle East."
The report is another signal of concerns in Jerusalem that Washington's
war on IS could lead it to make concessions to Tehran on a nuclear program.
Such an outcome would entrench and legitimize Iran's position as a state
on the threshold of nuclear arms possession, an outcome that, in
Jerusalem's eyes, would jeopardize both regional and international security
to an unacceptable degree.
Yaakov Lappin is the Jerusalem Post's military and national security
affairs correspondent, and author of The
Virtual Caliphate (Potomac Books), which proposes that jihadis
on the internet have established a virtual Islamist state.
Related Topics: Yaakov
Lappin, Islamic
State, ISIS,
Iran,
nuclear
program, Hizballah,
Revolutionary
Guard Corps, Quds
Force, Bashar
al-Assad, Moshe
Ya'alon, John
Kerry, Meir
Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
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