It’s a very interesting discussion and exchange here, and thus my pleasure, Lee.
Re. statements by the IDF: like always, the situation is neither black nor white. Rather in various shades of grey. The experience taught…
It’s a very interesting discussion and exchange here, and thus my pleasure, Lee. You have some very valid points.
Re. statements by the IDF: like always, the situation is neither black nor white. Rather in various shades of grey. The experience taught me that such statements always contain a mix of understatements, exaggeration, and lies. Thus, I’m taking the statement about attacks on ‘12 targets, including 3 aerial defense batteries & 4 Iranian military targets’ as a starting point.
From my own research about the Syrian military (see works like Syrian Conflagration or the Arab MiGs book series), I know Assad still has more than ‘3 air defense batteries’: rather something like ten times as many, of which about 20 are deployed in the Damascus area. Thus, there is no way that knocking out 3 of these would mean ‘half’ of what is still around would’ve been destroyed.
Re. what are Alawites: some say they’re a Shi’a sect, others deny this. It’s a matter of quite some dispute. One of absurdities about this war is that many of Shi’a Jihadists hauled by the IRGC-QF to Syria went there for such reasons like (to cite various of their own statements), ‘to kill Ba’athists’, ‘to kill infidels’, or ‘because our Mullah told us so’. Point is: such reasons are not decisive for decision-makers in Tehran: the IRGC-QF is sending plenty of Shi’a militias to Syria because it has got the opportunity to bring the country under its control, and because that earns money, influence, and thus power for it.
BTW, in this regards, there is plenty of reference. About a year ago, I’ve prepared two write-ups in this regards: Understanding the Syrian Civil War: Overview of pro-Regime Militias in Syria and Understanding the Syrian Civil War, Part 2: IRGC-, IRGC-Controlled and Hezbollah Units in Syria (a slightly refined and updated overview can be found at the online issue of the Truppendienst, which is a publication of the Austrian Ministry of Defence, as a PDF file).
These write-ups are offering a review of deployed groups with some links to basic sources of reference. Back then, the number of IRGC-QF-controlled militias deployed in Syria was already down from the peak in November 2015 (when the presence of up to 60 different groups of IRGC-QF-controlled Shi’a militias — foremost from Iraq — could be tracked). However, the total number of combatants in question actually increased because some of ‘major players’ in question (see: IRGC-QF’s Liwa Fatimiyoun, but also Harakat Hezbollah and Harakat an-Nujba) now have much bigger units deployed inside Syria.
Re. mobile CPs: no matter where based, US CPs are actually ‘mobile’ too. They are constructed in form similar to that of commercial containers. Means: they can be quickly loaded on a truck, then transported by aircraft or ship, as and when necessary. It’s just so that generally, they need not moving because there’s no threat. Iranian CPs for UAVs are constructed with easier forms of mobility in mind because they came into being when Iran was concerned about a possible US invasion and developed its corresponding strategy of national defence (see ‘Mosaic Doctrine’). At the same time, they should be easy to conceal: thus, the Iranians use light, commercial trucks — of which thousands are in use for civilian purposes all over the Middle East. The purpose of such construction is exactly what you described: ‘an innocent civilian truck parked next to a military facility’ — even if the latter is not visible on the video in question.
Re. Iranian — i.e. IRGC’s — motivation to ‘provoke’ Israel: yes, the protesting was greatly suppressed. However, it’s still going on, even if at a very limited scale. Either way, the IRGC cannot ‘just tolerate’ dissent at home, no matter what kind — even more so because the latest round of protests was largely run by poor and deprived in Iran: in essence ‘primary clients’ of the IRGC-controlled regime. The IRGC’s ‘struggle against Zionists’ must never end, otherwise it wouldn’t be a ‘Revolutionary Guards Corps’; it would lose not only one of purposes of its existence (one of wich is an ‘export of the Islamic revolution outside Iran’).
What has the IRGC got to gain from such behaviour? Again: a lot. Foremost are fame and prestige.
Remember Lebanon War of 2006? Ever since, the Hezbollah is ‘famous’ as ‘having defeated Israel’, and thus gained immense prestige in the Arab world. Sure, one can discuss without an end whether that war was a draw or if anybody there was really defeated, and how many losses either side suffered etc. However, matter of fact is plenty of Arabs convinced themselves that the Hezbollah ‘won’, and that this is sending its own ‘shockwaves’ through their world. So much so, when the Saudis forced the Houthis in Yemen to accept a cease-fire in their ‘first round’ of mutual clashes (run in late 2009 and early 2010), they praised their military as ‘better than that of Israel’ — precisely because they thought they would have ‘defeated Hezbollah-commanded Houthis, and Hezbollah defeated Israel…’. I know, this is not only forgotten nowadays, and indeed: it’s likely to appear ridiculous to any serious observer. But, that’s how plenty of every-day people still think.
Sending an UAV into the Israeli airspace is thus something like a big propaganda win for the IRGC: the Israeli military is considered ‘invincible’ by many of Arabs and Persians alike. Supposedly, ‘no foreign aircraft can penetrate the Israeli airspace’. ‘But now, an IRGC UAV did so… and then “we” have shot down a Zionist F-16…victory!’ That’s why the IRGC — and Assadists too — can’t stop claiming, ‘we’ve broken the Israeli aerial dominance’.
That’s a win-win situation, no matter what kind of losses they suffer in return (and losses in such case are always a ‘martyrdom for the higher purpose’, which is centre-piece of the Shi’a and IRGC’s ideology) — no matter how the Russians react.
Talking about the Russians: IMHO, nobody else than Tehran knows how much are the Russians out of position to ‘respond unpredictably’ — and the IRGC has nothing to lose in this regards. It was the IRGC that convinced the Russians to launch their military intervention in Syria. Now, 2 1/2 years later, that intervention helped the IRGC ‘win’ this war, too, or at least helped bring the IRGC into a position at which it’s unlikely to lose. That said, the Russians proved to be unfriendly to Iran (or at least: ‘not really friendly’) — regardless of their supposed ‘alliance’ and all the possible offers from the IRGC’s side (which included a clear breach of the IRI’s Constitution when the IRGC permitted Russian bombers to deploy on Iranian bases, back in August 2016): Moscow repeatedly made it clear that it does not want the kind of ‘strategic partnership of equal partners’ the IRGC was looking for to have with Moscow. The IRGC has already turned to China as a new source of arms. Thus, if the Russians like, they can go their own way: the IRGC now feels free enough to act at its own discretion.
Re. Assad and S-300s: I really don’t know where have platforms like Ynetnews got a notion that Assad explicitly cited ‘S-300s’. Sure, he expressed threats towards Israel numerous times; and, sure, there were rumours about deliveries of various weapons — including S-300s — to Syria, time and again. However, and while I’m not excluding the possibility of being wrong in this regards (nobody is perfect), I never found evidence that Assad himself explicitly cited S-300s. Indeed, since 2013, he’s hopelessly out of position to get any (in that year he actually considered giving up). BTW, it wouldn’t be the first time Israeli officials (and thus the media) are citing inflammatory statements from Arab statesmen supposedly published in the Arab media: mind Begin’s famous ‘Kuwaiti newspaper published Saddam’s speech in which he promised to burn Israel with nukes’ (or something of that kind). Back in 1981 the personnel of the US Congress Library spent weeks searching for such a publication — Kuwaiti, Iraqi or any other kind — and never found trace of anything of that kind.
Finally, re. Western interest to remove Assad: there were some in the West who have considered that idea a good one and acted accordingly — back in 2011–2012. However, the idea of ‘sitting this war out while looking in other direction’ eventually prevailed. A ‘nice’ summary in this regards was published yesterday by The Guardian: The epic failure of our age: how the west let down Syria.