War talk

At a joint press conference with his Israeli counterpart, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates earlier this week in Washington accused Syria and Iran of arming Hezbollah with increasingly sophisticated weapons.

According to Gates, Hezbollah now has "far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world. And this is obviously destabilizing for the whole region, and so we're watching it very carefully."

Two days later, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated Washington's concern when she directly adressed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in remarks to a pro-Israel group in Washington:

"President Assad is making decisions that could mean war or peace for the region." She added that providing terror groups with sophisticated weapons poses a threat to Israeli security and warned that the US would not accept such a provocation.

Hezbollah didn't deny or confirm the allegations, but instead warned Israel that starting a war with Lebanon would pose a "dangerous risk" for the Jewish state.

True, but not new

Asked about the merit of the claim of Syrian weapon shipments to Hezbollah, Margret Johannsen, a Middle East specialist at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, believes that they are probably accurate.

Her colleague, Rouzbeh Parsi from the EU's Institute for Security Studies shares that assessment even though the claims can't be verified. However, both experts point out that the fact that Hezbollah is indeed armed by Iran via Syria is not new, but has been going on for a long time.

So why bring it up now?

Washington is clearly sending a message to Damascus, says Parsi:

"Definitely it's a case of telling the Syrians, if this is something you're contemplating, then don't do it." By adressing the issue directly and linking it to the security of the larger region, the US wants to indicate that the stakes are high. "It would be a can of worms that the Syrians should avoid opening," he told Deutsche Welle.

It's also an implict admission that the Obama administration's strategy of engaging Damascus and wooing it away from Iran and Hezbollah hasn't succeeded so far. The hope by many in the West that Syria like Egypt under Anwar el Sadat could decide to switch camps and join the West is unlikely, argues Parsi:

"I don't think that kind of switch is going to happen in the Syrian case. I think Syria is in a much more precarious situation than Egypt was back then and I don't think they would be willing to cut their bonds in either direction fully."

Potential for conflict

Johannsen however argues that Syria's original reasons for creating Hezbollah together with Iran - namely Israel's occupation of Lebanon - with the minor exception of the disputed Shebaa farms, are gone.

"Therefore Syria could think twice whether it is still worth the price to have this close relationship with Iran. I think it is an attempt to point out to Damascus that there are alternatives which could be beneficial to Syria."

Israel, say the analysts, also has two clear reasons for pushing the arms delivery issue. "For Israel it's very important at the moment to deflect from problems regarding the occupation and the the so-called peace process which is stalled", says Parsi.

The second reason is simply that Hezbollah which wasn't disarmed as required by the UN is now probably even better-armed than before the military conflict in 2006 and with long-range missiles could present a serious threat to Israeli cities.

How big then is the danger than the escalation in rhetoric could turn into a fully-fledged war between Hezbollah and Israel?

"I would argue it's larger than anyone should be comfortable with, but whether it's going to happen in the next six months, I don't know," says Parsi while Johannsen puts it this way: "There is always the danger that some incident might trigger another war."

Author: Michael Knigge
Editor: Rob Mudge