Elliot Abrams,
senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on Foreign Relations and former deputy national security adviser to U.S. president George W. Bush
A First, saving Assad. Second, asserting itself as a regional power in a region in which Russia was once influential but hasn’t been for about 50 years. Thirdly, (President Vladimir) Putin is proving that Russia is a good ally to have. By the same token, he’s suggesting the United States is not such a good ally. A In effect, the Russians are backing up Iran. The escalation strengthens Iran and Hezbollah, both of which have a very tight alliance with Assad. It also makes things tougher on Israel. For the first time in 60 years, they have the Russians just across the border. For Israel, it used to be possible to think that it could handle Egypt, the PLO or Syria, but the Russians are a different matter and that would be handled by the United States. But now it looks as if the United States isn’t in this thing. Israel has to deal directly with Russia and you see (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu going to Moscow. That’s a big change in the region. A It clearly has an impact because Israel has regularly intervened in Syria to prevent arms transfers from Iran to Hezbollah. Israel’s ability to do that is significantly affected by the assets that Russia is putting into Syria. Russia’s presence is a new complication. But it’s larger than that because the Russians have been out of the Middle East for 50 years, since Sadat threw them out of Egypt. If anybody asks what has happened under Obama that really hurts Israeli security — it isn’t just Iran — it’s this. Now, Israelis have to ask, “Is Putin satisfied? Is this a onetime intervention?” Because there is a long-term arms-supply relationship between Russia and Assad. Or, “Is this the beginning of a larger Russian effort in the Middle East?” A It probably helped. Putin has not taken a particularly anti-Israel position. He recognizes that there are a million former Russians living in Israel. If Israel wants to interdict an arms transfer to Hezbollah, their immediate question is, “Would Israeli planes be attacked by Russian-manned anti-air sites or would Russian planes go up to down Israeli planes?” I assume that is exactly what Netanyahu wanted to discuss with Putin, so it was smart for him to go there. A The worst-case scenario would be that, under Russian protection, there is a significant increase in arms transfers to Hezbollah and Israel feels deterred from stopping it or Israeli planes attempting to stop it are shot down. That’s never happened before.