Israel Opposes Russia-Iran Arms Deal
Israel has asked Russia not to proceed with a $10 billion arms deal to provide Iran with fighter aircraft, helicopters, T-90 tanks, and artillery. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced on November 16 that the Israeli government had asked the Russians to cancel the sale but acknowledged that the Russian leadership considered the transaction valuable. The deal comes as Iran expands its regional influence and cooperates with Russia in backing the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, while Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to fill a perceived power void in the Middle East.
Russia delivered S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran between April and October 2016, following an $800 million contract signed in 2007 that was halted in 2010 by UN economic sanctions. The S-300s were tasked with defending Iran’s nuclear facilities, following the country’s July 2015 multilateral agreement with world powers to restrict its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of the damaging sanctions. Although Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov insisted that the missiles were defensive and posed no threat, Israel denounced the deal, and the U.S. also expressed concerns over the transfer.
Russia has played an increasingly prominent role in the region since it intervened in September 2015 to support the Syrian government, an old Cold War ally, boost Russian prestige abroad, and maintain a strategic “foothold” in the Middle East. Russia has aligned itself with Hezbollah and Iran, two Shia actors fighting to preserve the rule of Assad - an Alawite - but has earned some growing distrust from Israel. On November 15, Israeli foreign policy and defense official Avi Dichter voiced his worries that "Russia thinks and acts as a superpower and… often ignores Israeli interest," fearing a “large and disturbing” gap between the two countries.
The Syrian civil war has placed Israel in a difficult political situation. According to scholar Eran Etzion, Israel has refrained from supporting the Syrian opposition or “formulating any political position regarding Syria’s regime or post-conflict structure,” instead pledging to “respond to immediate direct security threats.” While the Israelis have sought to maintain contact with Putin’s government, Russia has allied itself with Iran and Hezbollah - two of Israel’s main adversaries - in the Syrian civil war. In another example of what analyst Mohsen Milani called “the deepening political and military ties between Iran and Russia,” Iran granted Russia access to its Shahid Nojeh airbase in August to fly combat missions over Syria.
While Israel has previously attacked weapons shipments in Syria allegedly bound for Hezbollah, which is expanding its territory into the Golan Heights, the Russian military presence in Syria limits its present military options.Israel no longer possesses absolute air supremacy in the Middle East, which it had enjoyed since its 1979 peace pact with Egypt. The S-400 anti-aircraft system, deployed near Russia’s Latakia airbase in Syria after the 2015 shootdown, has a range of 248 miles (400 km), covering northern Israel, southern Turkey, and most of Syria. Israeli and Russian planes have also encountered one another near Syria’s borders, with one press report claiming the Russian military fired on the Israelis.
In his press conference, Lieberman noted that Russian deployment of radar systems - along with S-300 and S-400 missile launchers - in Syria meant that the Israeli military is “entirely visible” to Russia. Izvestia, a popular Russian newspaper, reported in October that Israel and Russia were seeking to develop new protocols to prevent a Russian shootdown of an Israeli plane, a plan that would be a mirror-image of the Turkish downing of a Russian SU-24 jet on November 24, 2015.
Meanwhile, Iran has also looked to the East as it broadens its international influence in the wake of the nuclear deal. On November 14, Iran agreed to increase military training and security cooperation with China, which signed the nuclear accord along with the other P5+1 states.