The Syrian researcher Muhsen AlMustafa at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies, on the other hand, stated that the regime has “been able throughout the past year and until now to distance itself from the battle.” He told
Al-Hurra: “It has not and does not want to intervene because it knows the consequences of such intervention given Israel’s intense aggressiveness.”

Contrary to the prevailing belief of a Syrian-Iranian rift, Iran itself may have told the regime not to intervene, according to AlMustafa. He explained that this may be related to ensuring that it “does not lose the gains it has achieved over the past years… thus allowing the Iranian presence in Syria to last longer.”