Strikes and talks

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 2nd of September.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Up first: Israel striking targets in Syria as Washington scrambles to keep the conflict contained.

NETANYAHU: [Speaking in Hebrew]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlining strikes on Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Syria—coming just a week after U.S.-brokered peace talks.

MAST: Joining us now to talk about it is retired U.S. Marine Colonel Darren Duke; he formerly served as an attache to Israel.

Colonel Duke, good morning.

DARREN DUKE: Good morning. Lindsay, it's good to be with you.

MAST: Colonel, can you tell us what the goals were and whether they succeeded?

DUKE: Well, the Israeli strikes and ground operations near Damascus last week were, by one Israeli account, intended to destroy or seize Turkish surveillance equipment that had been installed to collect intelligence on Israel. These actions also reflect Israel's longer term policy of retaining a territorial buffer between Israel and Israeli held territory in the Golan Heights, especially the strategically important summit at Mount Herman, the Israelis have communicated very clearly to the regime in Damascus that they do not want any heavy maneuver forces south of Damascus to create that buffer zone, and they will continue to address those threats as they emerge.

MAST: The Associated Press reports Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes against Syria since the Assad regime fell last December. Syria calls it a breach of their sovereignty and has accused Israel of sowing chaos in the region… What are Israel’s interests at this point?

DUKE: Well, Israel is facing a complex array of threats from Yemen in the south, obviously, the continuing war in Gaza, the continuing presence of an armed Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the emergence of whatever will become the new Syrian government. And those are all tremendous challenges to Israel. So Israel's approach to that strategically is to try to achieve some measure of quiet in Syria while retaining the freedom of action to address more pressing threats, such as the ongoing military action in Gaza.

MAST: I'm also curious about the American interests here. Last Monday, members of Congress met with Syria's transitional president, Ahmed al Shara. They're calling for the US to end sanctions on Syria and open up trade. Would that be helpful now, or is there more at stake? What's what's your take?

DUKE: Well, the US has a much more complicated set of interests in the region and globally than Israel does. Israel cares about quiet on its borders. The United States, however, has to be concerned about a whole array of interests, from energy policy, security interests, balancing alliances. Turkey, who has a large interest in Syria, is still a NATO ally and also has interest in the Black Sea, with regard to the the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. And so those interests have to be taken into account. And then there's the broader role of Iran in the region, and the United States policy towards Iran. So the United States is trying to balance a whole set of interests, and Israel has a more narrowly focused security concern, and so that's going to naturally bring the two allies into some tension, but I don't think that either leader will allow that to affect the very solid relationship the United States and Israel will continue to have.

MAST: The latest strikes came just days after Israel and Syria met for direct talks brokered by the U.S. What should we make of those talks given the actions of both sides since?

DUKE: I don't think it's unusual that states may be in conflict with each other as they conduct negotiations, I think actually that's the historical norm. I think frequently, many people look and see military action while diplomacy is going on is some type of contradiction, and I would offer that actually, that's probably historically the natural pattern of interactions between states, and so I wouldn't read too much into the military action and the diplomatic discussions as being contradictory, but rather part of an ongoing, complex engagement between an emerging Syria and what that will look like and an Israeli government that's seeking to protect its citizens.

MAST: You mentioned, sort of the larger context of the Syrian conflict. I don't want to let you go without asking you about two other countries of interest… Lebanon and Yemen. Last week, Israel’s airforce struck a site in Yemen where leaders of the Iran-backed Houthi group were gathered. Can you talk a bit about the larger picture?

DUKE: Let’s talk about Lebanon first, because it's right next door to Syria. The situation in Lebanon is essentially that Hezbollah remains the largest and most well armed faction inside Lebanon and has no intention of giving up that power easily or willingly. And so Lebanon is always faced with the specter of a return to the civil war that raged between 1975 and 1990 and this, this cows other elements in in Lebanon that would be willing to stand up to Hezbollah, and that makes it very difficult for progress to be made. And so that's likely to remain an unstable location and an unstable part of Israel's northern border. And therefore Israeli action in Lebanon will probably continue for the foreseeable future. 

When we speak about Yemen, what we're talking about is the continuation of Iran's proxy strategy throughout the region, and the Houthis ability to launch attacks on Israel and to threaten international shipping in the Red Sea in order to place pressure on Israel, both strategically and more locally with regard to the war in Gaza and the strike last week on Yemen and the death of the Houthi Prime Minister, does add an element of uncertainty to it. Whenever a state is attacked and its political echelons are attacked, that certainly raises the stakes. 

But with respect to Yemen, we'll have to see because of the relative inability to project force beyond primarily attacks on Israel. We'll have to see where that goes. I know that the Israeli government has increased the security profile of its leaders because of that result in Yemen, and it does bear watching. We'll have to see where that goes. I think all of this puts the UN General Assembly in the coming week in perspective, as we see all the global leaders converging on New York and where a lot of these issues will be discussed, there'll be lots of side meetings where global leaders will be engaged to try to reduce tensions or address the instability in the region and try to bring it back to some modicum of stability and quiet. But we'll have to see.

MAST: Darren Duke is a retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel who served in the Middle East. Colonel, thank you so much!

DUKE: You’re welcome. Thank you.

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