BICOM

Key points 

• Claims that Syria has supplied advanced Scud-D missiles to Hezbollah have led to a new peak in ongoing tensions in the region.
• While it is not currently clear whether the Scuds have in fact been delivered, Syria has without doubt been engaged in supplying Hezbollah with weaponry across the Syrian-Lebanese border, in clear contravention of UN Resolution 1701. This weaponry has enabled Hezbollah to vastly increase its capabilities since the 2006 war.
• The US Administration is currently seeking to ascertain the reasons for Syrian recalcitrance, and for Damascus’s apparent rejection of Washington’s attempts at engagement in recent months. For the moment, it appears that ambassador-designate Robert Ford will not be leaving for Damascus.

 Introduction

 The US Administration is currently engaged in an attempt to reduce tensions in the region following claims that Syria has supplied advanced Scud-D missiles to the Lebanese Shia terror group Hezbollah, via the Syrian-Lebanese border. The Scud-D system, if supplied to Hezbollah, would place all of Israel within range of Hezbollah ordnance. It has not yet been confirmed whether the Scuds have already been delivered to Hezbollah, but the crisis reflects the broader pattern of Syrian arming of Hezbollah in recent years, in direct contravention of international law and UN Security Council resolutions.

This document will trace the emergence and progress of the current crisis, seek to place it within the broader context of Syrian behaviour, and will then focus on the dilemma faced by Western and Israeli policymakers in formulating a response to Syria’s regional actions.

The Scud affair

Reports that Damascus had supplied Hezbollah with Scud missiles first surfaced in the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai earlier this month. The newspaper claimed that Israel had urged the US to induce Syria to cease the supplies, otherwise Israel would be forced to act ‘unilaterally.’ The Syrians, for their part, denied the allegations, and accused Israel of disseminating ‘fabrications’ in order to “create an atmosphere for probable Israeli aggression” against Syria.

­The Syrian denials notwithstanding,  it is clear the US is deeply concerned at the new revelations. The US, in public at least, has not confirmed that the transfers of Scuds have taken place, though US officials last week held meetings with all parties in an attempt to reduce tensions. The Syrian deputy Ambassador Zouheir Jabour, the highest ranking Syrian diplomat present in Washington at the time, was summoned on Monday and Damascus was criticised for its ‘provocative behaviour.’ State Department Spokesman Gordon Duguid said after the meeting that the US opposed “in the strongest terms the transfer of any arms, and especially ballistic missile systems such as the Scud, from Syria to Hezbollah.”

Despite the denials, grave concerns clearly remain over Syrian arms supplies to Hezbollah. It has recently been reported that US Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Susan Rice will raise the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons during a UN Security Council session set to happen at the end of the month. UN officials are set to meet on 30 April to discuss a report on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls on all armed militias in Lebanon to be disarmed.

If Scuds have indeed been transferred to Hezbollah, this would be the first time that a terror organisation has been in possession of ballistic missiles, and would point to the growing military competence of Hezbollah. Possession of Scuds would add to the already existing sense of a dangerous rearming of Hezbollah, which has led to an exponential increase in its military capabilities in the past three years.

Syria’s longtime support of Hezbollah

The latest crisis reflects a clear pattern of Syrian military support of Hezbollah, in direct contravention of UN resolutions, since the 2006 war. Resolution 1701 explicitly states that “there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state.” It also prohibits “sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government.” Despite international demands, ample evidence of both the porousness of the Syrian-Lebanese border, and of some of the weapons systems that have as a result reached Hezbollah have emerged into the public domain in recent months.

The UN carried out two assessments of the Lebanese-Syrian border since 2006 – in June 2007 and August 2008. Both assessments found inadequacies in the implementation of resolution 1701. This is largely because the UN forces that monitor the situation in south Lebanon are not deployed in the area, and the Lebanese army has only a minimal presence along the country’s eastern border.

Consequently, the border has become the main route through which Hezbollah gains Syrian and Iranian weaponry. The situation has reach such a state, that many analysts now consider Hezbollah more as a conventional army than a guerrilla or militia group. According to these assessments, the group possess between 40-50,000 short range missiles of the type that caused havoc in Israel’s north in 2006.  Hezbollah has, according to a report in Janes’ Defence Weekly, in the last weeks deployed advanced Syrian-made surface to surface M-600 missiles. These missiles are copies of the Iranian Fateh-110 system, have a range of 250 kilometres and carry a 500 kg warhead, bringing the entirety of central Israel within range. The missiles are precision-guided, meaning that in the event of renewed conflict, Hezbollah would be able to use them to target military facilities or heavily populated areas. According to the journal, the deployment of the M-600s adds to concerns already expressed by Israel at Syrian supplying of the (relatively unsophisticated) SA-2 air defence system and the SS-N-26 surface to sea missile to Hezbollah.

In addition to these systems, a recent report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy noted that Syria has transferred the Russian Igla man-portable anti-aircraft system to Hezbollah. As with the Scud-D system, there is no conclusive proof that the transfer has been made available – though Israeli sources sounded confident that the Scuds at least have been brought into Lebanon.

Understanding Syria’s objectives in Hezbollah’s rearmament

Leading policymakers and analysts in Washington and the region are currently debating Syria’s persistent support for and arming of Hezbollah, in spite of the diplomatic and security risks involved. A recent article identified three competing ‘explanations’ in the US Administration’s debate on this issue:

One view holds that the Syrian President is adopting a hardline stance toward Israel in anticipation of imminent negotiations. According to this view, Assad seeks to avoid entering negotiations from a weak position, and is attempting to create the impression that he has alternative options other than negotiations, in order to make Israel more amenable to compromise.

A second view posits that Syria has no interest in further negotiations, and has opted for a path likely to lead to conflict with Israel, in the belief that his regime is best served by embracing the Iran-led bloc and its ideology of ‘resistance.’

A third more nuanced view sees Assad,to a certain degree, caught in a bind: Assad may not be able to extricate himself from his multiple ties with Iran and Hezbollah as easily as some in the West imagine that he can. Also, Assad is seen by many observers as a ‘gambler’ who may have become ‘entangled’ in deals made with Iran and Hezbollah.

The prevailing tone emerging from Washington at the present time is one of uncertainty. The evidence of Syrian arming of Hezbollah is considerable. As to why the Assad regime has opted for this potentially perilous course of behaviour? As one US official quoted in Foreign Policy put it, “We do not understand Syrian intentions. No one does, and until we get to that question we can never get to the root of the problem…Until then it’s all damage control.”

 

Conclusion

While there is no reason to believe that war is imminent, the situation to Israel’s north is ominous. On the one hand, a US official quoted said recently that “It’s a deterrence game and each side is building up its deterrence capability.” However, the official also noted that Hezbollah has an open account with Israel – namely, the killing of the movement’s leading military figure, Imad Mughniyeh, in Damascus in February, 2008 – for which it holds Israel responsible. But the movement is also aware of the potentially devastating Israeli response to any attack on Israel, and Hezbollah must also in this regard take into account its role as a Lebanese political force and a presence in the Lebanese government. Some analysts therefore consider that Hezbollah wants to goad Israel into making the first move of a renewed conflict. However, it would also be difficult for the Israeli government to justify a pre-emptive strike to its public, given the likely grave implications of any conflict which would ensue.

This already tense situation is rendered yet more complex by the role that Syria is playing. Hezbollah is reported to have re-located its main military infrastructure north of the Litani River, to the Bekaa Valley and areas close to the Syrian border. In the event that Israel launches a military strike against Hezbollah, it may require a ground incursion into the Bekaa, an area dangerously located in close proximity to Syrian military outposts. The chances of a flare-up that might involve Syria in addition to Hezbollah would significantly increase in such a scenario.

The current crisis over the Scuds thus reveals a complex and tense situation to Israel’s north. Consequently, the main unresolved consideration in both Washington and Jerusalem remains understanding Syrian objectives behind the ongoing rearming of Hezbollah and preventing further deterioration in the region’s strategic balance.