Moscow ratcheted up its war of words against the U.S.-led coalition in Syria, after the Pentagon said it downed a Syrian military plane for the first time. That came as Tehran took an unprecedented step of firing ballistic missiles into eastern Syria, against what it called ISIS targets, over the weekend. The threats from Russia and show of force by Iran over Syria – the regime’s strongest supporters – may force Washington to re-consider its Syrian strategy.
On Monday, Russia’s defense ministry warned it would view any aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition in Syria as “targets” after a Syrian army jet was shot down near Raqqa the day before.
After the strike, U.S. Central Command issued a statement saying the coalition did not “seek to fight the Syrian regime” had acted in “self-defense of Coalition-partnered forces” when Syrian forces dropped bombs near U.S. led forces, identified as fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). It went on to say it “contacted its Russian counterparts by telephone via an established 'de-confliction line' to de-escalate the situation,” before taking action.
The Russian defense ministry said it did not get a warning and responded with a terse statement. "Any aircraft, including planes and drones belonging to the international coalition operating west of the Euphrates river, will be tracked by Russian anti-aircraft forces in the sky and on the ground and treated as targets," it said.
It stopped short of saying it would shoot down coalition aircraft, but Moscow said it would suspend a military hotline between the two sides, which aims to avoid collisions in Syrian airspace.
That wouldn’t be the first time. In April, the hotline was shut down after a U.S. strike on a Syrian airbase suspected of being the launch pad for a chemical attack. The use of the hotline had just resumed last month.
But after Moscow’s statement on Monday, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford said the two sides were working on re-opening the communications channel.
"We'll work diplomatically and militarily in the coming hours to re-establish de-confliction," Dunford said. In the meantime, he said “We have an effective link between our operations center in Qatar and the Russian Federation on the ground in Syria. That link is still ongoing.”
Anna Borshchevskaya, the Ira Weiner Fellow at The Washington Institute, says Russia’s strong words simply point to posturing. “This is bluster, just as it was after the April 7th U.S. strikes. We’ve seen this before,” she says. “The last thing [Russian President] Putin wants is a direct military confrontation with the U.S.” she adds. “Putin wants the U.S. to be afraid, but he knows very well that he can’t take on the U.S. military.”
Retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Barbero agrees. “I believe this is rhetoric,” he says. “But tactical misjudgments and miscalculations have happened before, so the situation remains very dangerous.”
That’s partly due to rising stakes in Syria. This was the first time, the coalition shot down a Syrian jet in the six-year war, but in recent weeks, there are have been a growing number of incidents between coalition and Syrian forces. Earlier this month, the U.S. shot down a Syrian armed drone after it fired near coalition forces near the Iraqi border. In May, a coalition aircraft bombed a convoy of Syrian government forces in the same area.
“We have seen a shift across the region with the new Trump Administration,” says Barbero. “It is a departure from the disengagement of the Obama Administration to a more involved approach and a strategy of defining American interests, protecting our interests, and supporting our friends and allies in the region.”
Retired Admiral James 'Sandy' Winnefeld, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that shift in U.S. strategy has been gradual and “sort of crept in.”
“It’s not a sudden change, but it demonstrates a greater willingness on the part of this administration to support those who are fighting ISIL (ISIS), even if it risks direct confrontation with Syria or their backers Iran and Russia.”
Winnefeld says, “For better or worse President [Barack] Obama wanted to avoid that, a confrontation between the United States and Syria, if at all possible.”
The Iran Equation
That may not be an option, for much longer. In a separate strike on Sunday, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched several ballistic missiles into eastern Syria to target ISIS fighters. The strike, it said, was in retaliation for an attack on the Iranian parliament on June 7, claimed by ISIS, that left 18 people dead.
“The IRGC never shies away from touting its missile capability and this is an example of that,” says Alex Vatanka, a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute. But he says, for now, this is mostly “just posturing.”
“The IRGC is playing to a domestic audience. The Guard has always argued, if you want to promote Iran’s regional interests, you have to walk around the neighborhood with a big stick. This is what it is. It’s a big stick.”
But he warns that “this is an important turn of events.”
“I’ve never seen the Islamic Republic of Iran deploy ballistic missiles in such a manner before,” says Vatanka. “Iran has hit militants inside its borders or within close proximity to its borders to Pakistan and Iraq. What we have here is ballistic missiles that are travelling over Iraqi airspace to hit targets in Eastern Syria,” he adds.
“Is this the new normal? A lot of that will depend on the response.”
So far there hasn’t been much international outcry over the Iranian strike.
That’s partly due to what analysts see as a one-time attack. “I believe this will be an isolated incident,” says Barbero. “If you look at Iran’s strategy over the years, it has been centered on the employment of proxy forces to do its bidding and to pursue its interests. We have rarely seen active and direct combat operations by actual Iranian forces. So Iran feels it can achieve success through its proxy forces, that it will continue to do so.”
The question is “how often are they going to do this now?” says Winnefeld. “Do they have the resources and missiles available to consistently launch these missiles strikes? It is what it is, until they make a mistake and hit forces that we’re working with, and of course the worse thing they could do would be to hit our forces, particularly if it looks like it was intentional. But even if it was unintentional, that’s going to be a problem.”
Should that happen Winnefeld says “the administration would likely react kinetically and proportionally, by taking out the location from which the missiles were launched, for instance. If it’s clearly unintentional, we would at a minimum warn them strongly.”
Iran’s broader strategy isn’t fully clear, says Vatanka. “Iran has gradually in the last couple of years, moved towards the east of Syria. That was never the focal point for Iranian military advisors or the proxies,” he adds. “But now the Iraqi-Syrian border is up for grabs and perhaps Iran feels that this is a good moment to flex its muscle.”
It may also be an opportunity for Iran to flex its muscle on the heels of another rift in the region. On June 5th, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and four other countries in the region broke diplomatic ties with Qatar over its close ties to Iran and accused Doha of supporting terrorist groups.
Following Iran’s Sunday strike into Syria, General Ramazan Sharif of the Guard said in a telephone interview with state television, that the missiles were "successful" but warned the ISIS group and its "regional backers" against launching attacks on Iran. Tehran had accused Saudi Arabia of involvement in the June 7 attacks, a charge Riyadh has denied.
For now, much of the United States’ role in the region is being played out in Syria, and how it addresses Iran and Russia’s advances there. The latest confrontation with Syrian forces, says Winnefeld, is “just a tiny incident that’s sort of a canary in a coal mine for what is ultimately going to happen when ISIL is squeezed out and the real battle begins.”
That’s when he believes there’s likely to be a “collision” between the Syrian army and forces sympathetic to the U.S.-led coalition. “When that happens, this Administration is going to have to decide how hard they want to push on this.”
Winnefeld says for the Syrian government this is a “total war” and a “fight to the death.”
“It’s their territory; it’s their country. They’re going to want to regain sovereignty over it,” he says. “They’re going to keep pressing and Russia will support them. Iran will support them.”
For Washington, that may be the ultimate test in Syria.
Leone Lakhani is an executive producer and reporter at The Cipher Brief. Follow her on Twitter @LeoneLakhani.
