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Russia Pushes Iran Away from Israel's Border - But for How Long?

(New York Times) David M. Halbfinger and Ben Hubbard - Prime Minister Netanyahu left Moscow on Thursday saying Russia had pushed Iranian and allied Shiite forces "tens of kilometers" away from the Israeli border as Syrian forces are laying siege to a rebel-controlled pocket of southwestern Syria. "We are aware of your concerns," Putin told Netanyahu, the Kremlin said. Yet there are limits to what Russia can do. Russia could be expected to do little more than "communicating with Iran and asking them politely" to move farther from the Israeli border, and its promises would likely be both short-lived and difficult to enforce, said Ofer Zalzberg, an analyst at International Crisis Group. "I don't see Russia as likely to deploy a sizable contingent of its military police in the southwest with some kind of endless duration," he added. Andrei Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, said that even if Putin agreed to try to oust the Iranians from Syria, "Iran also needs to sign up to this too....You can move the Iranian forces by 50 or 80 or even 100 kilometers away from the Golan Heights, but if the infrastructure remains there and if this territory is still controlled by Damascus, then it won't be difficult to bring the Iranian forces back."
2018-07-13 00:00:00
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