[LINK] "Will Syria become Russia's Vietnam?"

[rfmcdonald]

Ben Caspit's Al-Monitor article describes the extent to which Russia is getting involved in Syria, boosting its participation even as allies like Iran seem ready to withdraw. Israel, for one, is concerned about the prospects for an extended Russian deployment.

Russia's newest surprise from its bag of tricks in Syria has come from deep in the water: It's the Rostov-on-Don submarine that, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, has begun to cruise the eastern Mediterranean Sea along the coasts of Syria, Lebanon and Israel. The submarine is almost undetectable, armed with a large number of cruise missiles and regarded as a sophisticated, almost invisible intelligence-gathering vehicle. The Rostov-on-Don has already fired cruise missiles toward Islamic State targets in Syria, but it is the submarine's other capabilities that are causing far greater concern to other players in the region, such as Israel.

It is still unclear what the ratcheting up of the combined efforts of Russia and Iran will achieve on the Syrian battlefield. A Dec. 10 Bloomberg News article stated that the Iranians have begun withdrawing their forces from Syria after heavy losses there, including the wounding of Gen. Qasem Soleimani. The source of the news tidbit was, evidently, American intelligence that discovered convoys of Iranian fighters returning to the land of the ayatollahs, their tails between their legs.

This week, Israeli intelligence sources denied this information. “We are not convinced that this points to desertion of the battleground,” one source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “There is movement of Revolutionary Guard soldiers within Syria, and it is actually unclear whether they are leaving or not. Perhaps it is redeployment. It is too early to say that Iran is giving up on Syria, though. In light of their meager results so far, anything is possible.”

In October, a record number of 7,000 elite Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps soldiers fought together with Hezbollah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against the rebels in Syria. They were recently joined by the Russians. This coalition set far-reaching goals for itself: stabilization of Assad’s regime, ensuring his continued rule and enlarging the regions he controls by retaking a number of key cities, including Idlib.