Alwaght- The several-year competition between various regional and international actors in the Syrian crisis is nearing its end now. The central government and its allies are practically winners of a terrorist war on Syria designed by the Western and Arab sides to change the region’s geological map. The losers are going to great lengths to secure a share in the future equations after their funding for the terrorist actions only yielded plight and destruction to the Syrian people.
Meanwhile, a player with increasing actions in Syria is the Israeli regime. Tel Aviv has recently expanded to its military aggression against the Syrian government positions in a practical announcement of war against Damascus and support for the anti-Syrian terrorist groups to save them from obliteration.
Over the past year, as the Syrian government forces tightened the noose on the foreign-backed armed groups especially in the southern regions where Syria shares borders with the occupied Palestinian territories, the Syrian skies witnessed responses by the Damascus air defenses to the Israeli warplanes seeking bombing the government positions.
Meanwhile, the regional and international observers waited to see Russia, one of the key allies of the Syrian government, to lose patience with the Israeli attacks. In 2016, and following shooting down of its bomber by the Turkish fighter jets, Moscow deployed its S-300 and S-400 air defense systems to the Syrian cities of Tartus, Lattakia, and Damascus to ramp up the risks for the uninvited foreign forces’ air operations but declined to materialize its threat of delivering S-300 systems to the Syrian government.
But the Moscow-Tel Aviv game equations in Syria appear to move towards ending the cooperation after the downing of the Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft on September 17 in the port city of Latakia following air intrusion of the Israeli warplanes for bombing Syrian government sites and response of the Syrian air defenses.
Major General Igor Konashenkov, the chief spokesman for the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation said on Sunday that “misleading” information from the Israeli Air Force Command had in fact downed a Russian Ilyushin Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft off a Syrian coast, holding the Israeli regime fully responsible for the tragic event, which killed more 15 servicemen, adding that the Tel Aviv move was a violation of the Russian-Israeli agreement for cooperation over the Syrian skies signed in 2015. On September 21, 2015, after his trip to Moscow and meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Israeli regime announced an accord with Russia for coordination to avoid air incidents between the Israeli and Russian forces operating in Syria. The agreement over the past few months looked quite on a shaky ground as Tell Aviv kept its air aggression on Syria, sending Moscow to the understanding that going easy with the seemingly endless Israeli military actions in Syria only seriously put the Russian interests at risk.
The fundamental conflict of interests in Syria
In their political stances, Russians condemn any aggression on Syria from any side and sometimes after the Israeli airstrikes on the Syrian army flavor their remarks with threats of response. However, in general, they have been patient with the Israeli air raids. The policy, on the one hand, made the Syrian government unhappy with Moscow inaction and, on the other hand, risked preventing the growing Russia-Iran cooperation from upgrading to a strategic level in the shape of a strong bloc countering the West’s interventionist policy to change the West Asia region's politico-security order to its own advantage.
The Russian decline to respond to the Israeli attacks provided material for the Western and Arab material media which analyzed the Moscow-Tehran alliance in Syria as weakening. The analyses, however, were not based on an accurate reading of the Syrian and regional developments. For example, after the Israeli strikes on the T4 military base in Homs province in April, the Russian strong-toned opposition led to diplomatic tensions between the two. After the Russia warnings, the Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Tel Aviv will not accept limitations on its “actions” in Syria or the region, asserting that the Israeli forces reserved full freedom of action.
As Syria prepared to launch an operation to take Idlib, the last major stronghold of the anti-Damascus terrorist groups, which could mean that the war will end in the total loss of Tell Aviv – Iranian, Hezbollah, and Syrian forces are strengthening their toehold close to the occupied territories' borders after several decades–, the Israeli leaders take pains to perpetuate the crisis in Syria even if it takes triggering the US embroilment in a military confrontation with the trio, collectively with other parties dubbed Axis of Resistance.
This is highly challenging for Russia, a country whose Western-sanctioned economy feels the Syrian war spending as a burden. That is why the Russian government pursues its diplomatic moves to bring the Astana and Sochi peace initiatives to success by persuading the Syrian opposition to sit on the negotiating table with the government for a faster settlement to the devastating crisis in the country. But Israeli regime does not seem to intend to end its aggression on Syria. On Monday, Russia announced it will give the Syrian government S-300 anti-missile and aircraft systems, a decision read as a firm response to the ongoing Israeli air hostilities against the Syrian government sites.
