Russia is key to preventing Israel-Iran war, regional crisis expert argues

Russia could prevent the Middle East from plunging into a massive conflict between Israel and Iran triggered by “a game of chicken that could easily spiral out of control,” a leading regional crisis expert warned.

“The key to preventing the Syrian civil war from splintering into an even more chaotic and deadly phase will be Russia, whose September 2015 military intervention gave it control of Syrian airspace and placed it politically in the driver’s seat,” Joost Hiltermann, Middle East and North Africa program director for International Crisis Group, wrote in a New York Times op-ed Thursday.

Mr. Hiltermann argued that the resurgent government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has steadily retaken terrain lost to the rebels during the seven-year-long war, calming down previously restive provinces. However, this has also increased the chances of sparking “newer, potentially more dangerous confrontations,” he wrote.

Northern Syria remains fraught with tension as wrestling for influence continues between the Turks, the U.S. and a Kurdish militia known as the YPG, which served as an American ally in the fight against the Islamic State.

But the greater danger, Mr. Hiltermann wrote, is Syria’s southern border along the armistice line that divides it from Israel.

There, tit-for-tat attacks between Israel and Iran in February were diffused only by a last-minute phone call from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asking Israel to call off airstrikes against Syrian and Iranian targets “after an Iranian drone invaded Israeli airspace.”

Mr. Hiltermann noted that late last month Israel also “piggybacked on international outrage over an apparent [Assad] regime chemical attack to carry out a second round of strikes,” which reportedly left 10 Iranian military personnel dead. Iran has vowed to respond.

To intervene, Mr. Hiltermann argued, Russia is in a stronger negotiating position than Washington due too Moscow’s relationships with almost everyone involved including Tel Aviv, Tehran, Damascus, Ankara and Hezbollah.

However, Mr. Putin might not be interested in such “a proactive measure when he can currently magnify his personal role by simply picking up the phone to defuse a crisis,” Mr. Hiltermann wrote.

That would leave Washington — which has removed itself from active diplomatic involvement in the Syrian war — to engage and potentially promote a Russian-led mediation, which would require the U.S. to remain in the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal that limited Tehran’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions, Mr. Hiltermann said.

President Trump has criticized the deal since its inception and could pull the U.S. out next week.

“If, on the other hand, the Trump administration pursues the same approach with Iran as it has with North Korea, and begins to talk seriously with Iranian leaders, it could help defuse tensions in the Middle East,” Mr. Hiltermann said.