BEIRUT — President Trump’s call to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights fired up Middle East tensions on Friday and complicated a U.S. push to roll back the growing regional influence of Iran and its allies, which say their military expansion is necessary to counter Israeli threats to Arab lands.
Syria, which lost control of a third of the strategic Golan region to Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and has not given up hope of getting it back, slammed the U.S. policy shift as “an act of aggression” and vowed to regain control of the area “by all available means.”
“The Golan was and will remain a part of Arab Syria,” Syria’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Syrian allies Russia and Iran also condemned the U.S. decision, conveyed in a tweet by Trump on Thursday, as contrary to international law and United Nations resolutions. Many U.S. allies, including the European Union, Egypt and Turkey, also expressed opposition to the shift, which overturns decades of U.S. policy on the status of the Golan Heights.
The White House endorsement of Israeli sovereignty over the plateau fulfills a request from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and came less than three weeks before the April 9 election in which Israeli voters will decide whether to reelect their prime minister for a fifth term. Trump’s decision was widely welcomed by Israelis, but also triggered criticism that he was interfering in a close election campaign to help Netanyahu.
In Lebanon, the furor over the Golan statement overshadowed a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo intended to rally support for the Trump administration’s effort to roll back Iran’s expanded influence across the Middle East. Pompeo delivered a tough warning to Lebanese officials that they would have to choose between their accommodation with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and their alliance with the United States. ‘A miracle’: Netanyahu thanks Trump for endorsing Israeli control of disputed Golan Heights
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Trump on March 21 for endorsing Israel’s sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights. (The Washington Post)
“The Lebanese people face a choice: Bravely move forward or allow the dark ambitions of Iran and Hezbollah to dictate your future,” he said after a meeting with Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.
Pompeo’s message was blunted, however, by concerns that Trump’s decision risks a confrontation in the tense Golan region, reinforcing Hezbollah’s argument that its military role in the region is justified.
“This tweet is very dangerous, and it will lead to more chaos in the region,” said Mohammed Obaid, a Lebanese analyst who is close to Hezbollah.
Syria has made no military effort to regain the Golan since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, and its tired army, depleted after eight years of battling Syrian rebels, is no match for Israel’s superior military capabilities, making it improbable that Trump’s assertion will trigger an outright war.
The Syrian conflict has brought Iranian military advisers and Iranian-backed militias, such as Hezbollah, into the strategic Golan area on Israel’s borders. Those forces have on several occasions fired rockets into Israel, prompting Israeli retaliatory strikes.Pompeo arrives in Lebanon
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo landed in Beirut March 22, after visiting Israel. (Reuters)
Pompeo’s mission to convince Lebanon to turn against Hezbollah was never likely to succeed given the group’s entrenched role both as a political player and the most powerful armed group in the country, according to Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut.
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