Israel’s Dangerous Shadow War With Iran
Foreign AffairsFeb 27, 2023
The Syrian defense ministry said Wednesday that Israel launched an air attack on Aleppo International Airport at around 3:55 a.m. local time, causing some "material damage" in reportedly the second strike this month.
The UK-based war monitor, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported that the attack was aimed at a weapons and ammunition warehouse, which two Israeli intelligence sources claim is associated with the Nairab military airport suspected of housing equipment delivered by Iran.
Israel has been carrying out air strikes against suspected Iranian weapons transfers and personnel and its proxies in Syria for almost a decade. Though the strikes are part of a low-intensity conflict to slow Iran's growing entrenchment in Syria, the West has seemingly dropped its previous plan of diplomacy to allow Israel and other allies to, instead, use military force to settle its grievances with Tehran — a risky strategy that underestimates the magnitude and repercussions of a military escalation.
Syria is a conflict zone with many actors, all of which can cause this "shadow war" to go hot, and Iran — with its coordinated effort with Russia, which controls much of the Syrian airspace — risks pushing it over the edge. Israel has been clear that it will not permit Iran to freely move weapons and fighters through Syria if such activities threaten Israeli security, and is right to target Iranian assets in any of the countries into which Tehran has dug its tentacles.
There's a 15% chance that a state-based conflict between Israel and Iran will cause at least 1K deaths before 2025, according to the Metaculus prediction community.