Austria's precipitous withdrawal of forces from the UN-mandated force monitoring the disengagement of the Israeli and Syrian armies in the Golan Heights is yet another alarming signal of the breakdown of the rules of the game that have governed not only relations between Israel and Syria for more than four decades, but also those between the two superpowers of Russia and the United States.

These rules, formulated in the aftermath of the last superpower confrontation in the region during the October 1973 war, established international support for the framework that has preserved a de facto peace between Israeli and Syrian armies on the Golan front and more broadly, set the terms of superpower competition in the region that has continued even after the end of the communist regime in the last century.

This pattern of relations and understandings is now being tested as never before. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a report released today, June 13, warned that “The ongoing military activities in the [Golan] area of separation continue to have the potential to escalate tensions between Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic and to jeopardize the cease-fire between the two countries.”

The ability of the regime in Damascus to enforce its writ along the disengagement line with Israel is being challenged by opposition attacks on government and the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). In its efforts to re-establish its authority along the border, the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has deployed forces and armaments, including tanks, in violation of the terms of its 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel. Localized, small-scale exchanges of fire between Syrian and Israeli forces have been recorded, violating the terms of their agreement and raising tensions already exacerbated by Israeli attacks on other fronts. UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told the UN Security Council last Friday that Israel formally notified the UN that it would attack Syrian forces that had deployed in the disengagement zone in order to wrest control of a border position in Quneitra from rebel forces. Damascus, for its part, has threatened to open a “Golan front” against Israel.