President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are at loggerheads. Why? Following the White House's lead, many observers have focused on the personal enmity between the two. Some commentators go further and analyze the growing strategic rift over how best to handle Iran's nuclear program. In truth, however, the rift is far larger still.
In addition to all of the other issues, Obama and Netanyahu entertain contradictory views of Iran's role in region, and Syria stands at the heart of their disagreement. Whereas Obama is comfortable with the rise of Iranian power in Syria, Netanyahu and, to be sure, the Israeli security elite are deeply discomfited by it.
In recent days, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and Hezbollah launched an integrated assault in the Quneitra and Daraa countrysides in southern Syria. Importantly, they are advertising their lead role; underscoring that southern Syria is now an operations theater for Tehran. Thus, they are also confirming what has long been obvious: the Assad regime and its forces are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Iran.
These developments are impossible for Israel to ignore. Indeed, Iran and Hezbollah are calling their joint campaign "Operation Martyrs of Quneitra" - a direct reference to the Iranian-Hezbollah convoy that Israel destroyed on 18 January. The appearance of the Iranians in force in the Golan foists difficult choices on Israel, not just regarding its posture in Syria, but also about how to manage the growing chasm with the Obama administration.
Until now, Israeli policy in Syria has been, as one former official put it, "to wait and see" - to stand back and respond to any breach at the border, but not to intervene directly in the course of the war, even as Israeli activity in Syria has targeted Iranian assets exclusively. For all the talk about the supposedly impending threat of the Islamic State (ISIS), the January strike against the Iranian convoy and the current Iranian-led drive in southern Syria have emphasized the fact that the strategic and present threat comes, first and foremost, from Iran.
The Iranian determination to push into southern Syria reveals the weakness of the "wait and see" approach. Even if Israel desired to stay out of the Syrian war, the Iranians, seeing a green light from Washington, have ideas of their own. These dynamics are pushing Israel to reconsider its options.
In this context, a couple of recent articles by two prominent Israeli scholars, Efraim Inbar and former Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich, offer important insights on what those options are. The authors reach similar conclusions: to push back against Iran's designs and provocations in the Golan, Israel should go after Assad. The "best option," Rabinovich argued, is to signal to Tehran that the Israeli response would be against Assad, "thus affecting the course of the Syrian civil war." "This," Rabinovich adds, "is a call the Israeli leadership will have to make if the trends observed last January continue."
