The Syrian missile in the Lebanese airspace

Written by Nasser Kandil,

Away from the trivialities which those who are obsessed with the invincible Israeli force launched, the Israelis experts and analysts agree that there is a disturbing deterrence strategy followed by the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad that imposes its presence quietly, and draws rules of engagement that cannot be ignored and their successes cannot be denied. In such a days and after a long patience the Syrian air defenses have fired missile against the Israeli fighters that attacked targets which it was said that they were weapons convoys to Hezbollah, it was bombed from inside the Syrian airspace, Israel responded to the missile and the Syrian response has been repeated against similar raids for three times, the last of which was last March. Thus Israel recognized not to enter the Syrian airspace and to draw an alternative plan, its basis is to be sufficient with targeting Syrian sites or what it called weapons convoys from the Lebanese airspace, and rarely from the borders of the Occupied Golan Heights with ground -to ground missiles.

The Israeli recognition of leaving the Syrian airspace is not an ordinary matter in the equation of the timed bomb that no one knows when it turns into a war, where Israel has to wage it without entering the airspace which became forbidden, and which the objectives of the air force have become determined by how long the missiles can reach from the Lebanese airspace, but Israel which accepted this first Syrian deterrence and which it supposed that it is the last, tried to be convinced that the vital goals to which it should respond  may come from the Lebanese airspace along the borderline where Damascus, Hama, Homs, and Tartous locate in the range of sixty kilometers which its missiles could reach from the Lebanese airspace, but the Israelis were surprised with a Syrian missile that targeted their fighter, they said that it was in a routine tour of photographing in the Lebanese airspace , they said loudly that this dangerous targeting is surpassing the red lines and is not accepted, since they did not enter the Syrian airspace and they did not raid any objective inside Syria in order to be under the targeting of the Syrian defense. Whether the Israeli speech about bombing Syrian missile battery was right or wrong, what has been done by the Syrian defenses will be repeated for sure, as what has happened through drawing a red line after violating the Syrian airspace and imposing a new deterrence equation on Israel, so the Israelis have as in the previous time to choose either the escalation towards the danger of uncontrolled confrontation or the commitment to new deterrence line, and the seeking to present guarantees not to use the Lebanese airspace for any action that violated the Syrian sovereignty. They put in their consideration the assumption of their exposing to the threat of Syrian ground- to ground missiles in response to their using ground – to ground missiles against objectives in Syria from the borders of the occupied Golan, towards the recognition of sequential deterrent reactions that have been imposed on them sequentially that prevent them from hitting any objective in Syria.

The Israeli analysts said that the issue is further than protecting the Syrian interior from Israeli raids, they put it within the framework of the defense integration between the Syrian army and Hezbollah in confronting Israel. Through it they read that the Lebanese airspace has become a range of the Syrian fire as long as it is a range for the Israeli aircraft, so the only possible equation is the Israeli withdrawal from the Lebanese airspace in exchange of not being under the Syrian fire, because every Israeli flight in the Lebanese airspace is considered by Syria as an attempt of Israeli raid on the Syrian territories which have been exposed for many Israeli raids from Israeli aircraft that used the Lebanese airspace.

It is a deterrence equation that started with a battle to be fixed, it may turn into an open confrontation and may end with fixing new rules of engagement, but it is an equation drawn by a strategic leader who considered his steps carefully, and who does not miss any opportunity. He is the President Bashar Al-Assad.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,