The battle for the Golan Heights

The northern border refuses to rest. Just last week, Hezbollah organized a tour along the Israeli-Lebanese border for members of the media in a move meant to show who is really in charge in Lebanon. Hezbollah officers who accompanied the reporters proudly pointed out that Israel is in something of a defensive fever along the border, digging tunnels and fortifying positions out of fear of an attack by Hezbollah fighters.

On the other hand, three militia fighters operating in the service of the Syrian regime, with the assistance of Hezbollah and Iran, were killed in an attack the Syrians attributed to Israel, according to a report from the Syrian Golan Heights Sunday morning. It was only a month ago that one of the commanders in this very same militia was killed in an aerial attack, which Israel insinuated it had a hand in attack and noted the commander who was killed had been working to promote terrorist activity in the Golan Heights.

The incidents along the border come two weeks after the U.S. airstrikes on Syria. This attack was without a doubt important and of much symbolic significance, but it was a largely isolated event, without follow-up and devoid of a clear strategy that could serve as a practical translation of the statements out of Washington saying that Syrian President Bashar Assad must go and that he will not be allowed to play a role in Syria's future. It is no wonder, then, that Assad sees the U.S. airstrikes on Syria as a minor blow, after which he can continue full force, albeit with greater caution than in the past, toward his aim of retaining the throne and defeating his opponents.

A return to normal in Syria following the U.S. attack means a return to the battle Assad, with the help of Russia and mostly Iran, is waging to resume power over large areas of Syria, and more critically for us, over the Golan Heights region.

Assad lost control over the Golan Heights at the outset of the civil war, but he is now acting to return to the region that is of such strategic importance to him and his Iranian allies.

A senior IDF officer was quoted last week as saying that Russia is taking Iran's place as hegemon in Syria, and that everything is being done there according to its will and dictates. But it is too soon to eulogize Iran's role in Syria and the presence of the Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah fighters in the country. After all, the Russian presence in Syria is limited to a few dozen fighter jets, while Iran and Hezbollah have tens of thousands of fighters, some of whom are Shiite volunteers brought in by the Iranians to fight in Syria. Several thousand of them are members of the al-Nujaba Shiite militia, whose men announced in Tehran that after they achieve victory in Syria, they will turn to fighting Israel in the Golan Heights. The Russians may control Assad, but they need the Iranians to both preserve and reimpose his rule over large areas of Syria.

Given this situation, Israel has focused its attention on the Golan Heights front, which the Iranians and Hezbollah hope to make their playground and use indirectly against Israel, through the use of the Assad men they have enlisted and trained. When Israel acted against Hezbollah operatives like Jihad Mughniyeh in the past, the organization retaliated by attacking IDF soldiers. But when it comes to actions against Assad's men attributed to Israel by the foreign media, Hezbollah leaves the reaction -- or more commonly, the lack thereof -- to Assad. And Assad, of course, has no interest in opening another front with Israel, as long as he is absorbed in fighting his opponents in Syria.

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