Pompeo says Iran isolated but Israel’s Syria airstrikes show otherwise

The reality in Syria is that Iran’s role and its entrenchment have not diminished.

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks next to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, during a news conference to announce the Trump administration's restoration of sanctions on Iran, at the U.S. State Department in Washington, U.S., S (photo credit: PATRICK SEMANSKY/POOL VIA REUTERS)
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks next to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, during a news conference to announce the Trump administration's restoration of sanctions on Iran, at the U.S. State Department in Washington, U.S., S
(photo credit: PATRICK SEMANSKY/POOL VIA REUTERS)
Iran is more isolated in the wake of the Abraham Accords between Israel and two Gulf states, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. This, along with messages about new sanctions, was part of the narrative put forth on Wednesday during his visit to Israel.
The peace deals have certainly shifted the region and provide an important new step in Israel-Arab relations, as well as cementing an emerging strategic system of nations that includes Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, India, Greece and Cyprus.
The other side of the coin regarding Iran’s isolation is that years of Israel’s “campaign between the wars,” the effort to erode or set back Iran’s entrenchment in Syria, may continue indefinitely.
After the IDF said it had carried out airstrikes in Syria against Iranian-linked targets, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday reiterated that Israel would not allow Iranian entrenchment there. The strikes are a message to Iran about its role in Syria.
However, the reality in Syria is that Iran’s role and its entrenchment have not diminished.
The IDF released some images of sites struck in Syria, showing the precision involved in hitting Iranian-linked targets. Online commentators, such as the Aurora Intel Twitter feed, noted that strikes had hit the “Glass House” at Damascus International Airport. The same site has been struck in the past.
CONSIDERING RECENT tensions with Iran and its Hezbollah ally in Lebanon, as well as Iranian proxies in the region, it is not clear that Tehran is isolated. Iran’s own officials and media do not think they are isolated. Iran boasts that it is feeding UF6 into a newly installed cascade of 174 iR-2m centrifuges at Natanz, the same site Iran said was sabotaged in July.
The Islamic Republic’s deputy foreign minister has apparently tried to reach out to the incoming US administration. Pro-Iranian militias in Iraq fired rockets at the US Embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday night. Iran keeps bragging about its ballistic-missile and drone programs.
In addition, Iran’s IRGC-linked Boeing 747 from Qeshm Fars Air was in Venezuela, photographed proudly at the airport. The Iranian-backed Houthis attacked Saudi Arabia with a drone on Wednesday.
Israel has conducted years of airstrikes in Syria against Iranian targets. The numbers in January 2019 were put at some 1,000 strikes by a former IDF chief of staff. A similar airstrike in August by Israel after a border incident on the Golan Heights did not cause Iran to stop entrenchment in Syria.
Is Iran more isolated today than in January 2019? Since then, there have been many incidents along the Golan. In the fall of 2019, Israel said it hit a “killer drone” team near the Golan. That caused tensions with Hezbollah.
More tensions arose in July 2020 when Hezbollah claimed Israel killed one of its members in Syria. That was in addition to Hezbollah cutting holes in the northern security fence after saying Israel targeted a vehicle with a drone in Syria in April.
THERE ARE also the drone incidents. Two drones crashed in Beirut on August 25, 2019. Hezbollah alleged they were linked to Israel. Another drone crashed in Lebanon on July 26, 2020, according to the Associated Press. Yet another drone crashed on August 22, according to Haaretz. On June 21, Israel carried out an airstrike in Lebanon to destroy one of its own drones, The National News reported.
Israel says it downed a drone on November 10 that came from Lebanon and was linked to Hezbollah. In August, another drone infiltration was reported. There was another drone incident on July 19 and again on November 29, 2019.
One might conclude from these lists of incidents that Iran is not particularly isolated. We could add to this list Iran’s use of drones and cruise missiles to attack Saudi Arabia in September 2019, its mining of ships in May and June 2019 in the Gulf of Oman, its apparent hijacking of the Gulf Sky ship in July 2020, harassment of US ships in April, the US interdiction of at least three Iranian ships smuggling weapons to Yemen, a plot that may have targeted Argentina, Iran’s killing of dissidents in Europe, Israel’s needing to launch an operation against tunnels on the border with Lebanon in December 2018, rocket fire from Syria at Israel in May 2018, Iran’s construction of a base near Albukamal in Syria, dozens of attacks on US forces in Iraq by Iranian-backed militias that receive salaries from the Iraqi government, an Iranian drone flown into Israeli airspace in February 2018 from T-4 base in Syria, Iran’s attempt to move a 3rd Khordad system to Syria in April 2018, Iran’s downing of a $200 million US Global Hawk drone in June 2019, dozens of ballistic-missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia by the Houthis and a drone attack on Saudi Arabia allegedly launched from Iraq in June 2019.
If this is an example of Iran’s isolation, then one wonders what a non-isolated Iran would look like.
Iran’s behavior in the Middle East is unprecedented. It backs militias that control parts of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. It has infiltrated the Lebanese and Iraqi governments to such an extent that it basically controls them either de facto or through blackmail.
The Islamic Republic may be under tough sanctions, but it continues to increase its uranium-enrichment and weapons programs.
Israel’s airstrikes near the Golan are just one example of how the continued “message” to Iran is not being received in Tehran, and assertions that it is isolated are only part of the story. Iran is suffering a setback through Israel’s increase in relations in the region.
But Iran’s regime believes it is winning. This presents two narratives – one from Tehran and one from Washington – in which both sides think they defeated the other in the last four years.


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