Understanding the outcome of the Israeli bombing of #Syria since 2013, and the assassination of Iranian generals:
The first thing to understand, is the reason why Israel and Americans bomb Syria and assassinate Iranian generals. The reason is very simple. Iran is arming the Levant with all the weapons it can, and building an infrastructure that enables the region to have strike capabilities against
Israel.
We are seeing a small part of the fruits of these efforts today with the bombing of Israeli sites from
Lebanon,
Syria,
Iraq, and
Yemen.
These bombings on Syria are what Israel calls ''The war between the wars''. The goal is to disrupt the infrastructure building and armament pipeline that Iran is supplying. Iran sends weapon shipments via land routes, but also through air cargo, that's why the Damascus and Aleppo airports keep getting bombed, it's to disrupt the shipments.
The killing of Soleimani and other Iranian generals is within this context. The American occupation of Syria (Yellow Kurdish area, and green Al-Tanf base on the Jordanian borders) is aimed to disrupt these routes as well as strangle the Syrian state economically by occupying the oilfields and farmlands.
However, these strikes and occupations are not enough to halt the project. Stopping such project requires a full scale war on the region. What Americans and Israel are doing is imposing a cost on the continuation of this project and trying to slow it down, however the Syrian state, Iran, and the resistance groups keep doubling down and expanding their arsenals. 100,000 armed Hezbollah fighters is the fruit of these supply lines.
Although still in it's infancy, there are efforts to open supply routes to the West Bank through Jordan, and shipments sometimes get bombed by Jordan under the pretext of ''fighting drug cartels'' (who bombs drug dealers with F16's ?).
Although the assassinations of generals is painful and make Iran look weak , the reality lies elsewhere: Are these assassinations achieving the strategic goal of stopping the Iranian routes? Nawwaf Al Moussawi, a Hezbollah official, stated that today Hezbollah's supplies are replenished in 1 month, the equivalent of what they were receiving in 6months before October 7th. In the middle of the war, these routes supply Hezbollah 6 times faster than before.
The strikes on Syria and the assassinations are hurtful jabs that don't disrupt the project, and they are expected: it's the price to wage resistance. It's what Jordan and Egypt are not doing - they are security providers for Israel, they combat arm shipments and don't engage in an arms race with Israel as stipulated in the security deals with Israel.
Americans and Israel know that assassinating generals don't halt the project, however they bring big political scores in domestic politics. Trumps is seen as a ''hero who killed Soleimani'', and Netanyahu's assassination two days ago is a show of strength that inspires a much needed confidence in the Israeli internal front.
It should be noted that these strikes are not really military achievements, they are done in the most coward and cheapest way possible, through terrorism. Soleimani was on an official announced diplomatic visit to Iraq , he got assassinated in his car convoy outside of the Baghdad airport, and the generals two days ago got assassinated in the consulate. These are not military feats, it's just plain cowardice and terrorism.
Iran will respond on this strike because it's a strike on it's land, and not responding opens the door for the normalization of such strikes on Iranian land. The response will come to avoid this change in the rules of engagement, but at the same time in a way that doesn't lead to a full scale war. It will be a similar response to Solemani's assassination, just enough to prevent the normalization of such strikes.
