Israeli construction of a wall on the Lebanese border and the growing arsenal of Iran-backed Hezbollah have contributed to the spike in tensions. Metula, Israel in February, 2018. Nir Alon/Press Association. All rights reserved.The joint cruise-missile attack on Syria by forces of the United States, France and the United Kingdom on the night of 13-14 April was a largely symbolic gesture. It warns Bashar al-Assad's regime against further use of chemical weapons, but does little else. Such at least is the conclusion of a new Oxford Research Group analysis of the operation and its context.
From the perspective of Damascus, the use of chemical weapons has a narrow and localised role as a form of terror to force the evacuation of districts. More widely, the Syrian regime's overwhelming weapons of choice remain air and artillery attacks, which will no doubt be used extensively in forthcoming actions against the holdout rebel-held areas in Idlib province along part of Syria's border with Turkey (see "After the Syria raid: what next?", 17 April 2018)
The regime’s main backers, Russia and Iran, draw from the US-led raid the lesson that they have little to fear of further western interventions and have free rein to continue their support for Assad. In Iran's case, this support has less to do with Syria's leadership itself and much more to do with Israel, where by contrast there is consternation in government circles over the modest nature of the western assault. The ORG briefing says:
