If the goal of Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Syria was to preserve the rule of Bashar al-Assad, writes Ari Heistein, then the results are mixed: Assad is still in power, but he has won back relatively little territory and he remains vulnerable. But Putin did succeed in achieving aims of a different sort:

First, Putin’s intervention on behalf of Assad further undermined U.S. credibility as an ally. The autocrats of the region watched President Obama demand that Egypt’s President Mubarak step down in 2011, and then stand idly by as his successor Mohamed Morsi was overthrown. . . . Meanwhile, Russia demonstrated dedication to its only ally in the Arab world by continuing to support the Assad regime throughout the Syrian civil war and ultimately intervening on its behalf. This certainly increases Moscow’s appeal as a potential partner for autocratic Middle Eastern regimes in the future. . . .

Second, Russia exploited tension between critical partners in the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition and turned them against each other. . . . Third, Russian participation in the Syrian civil war defied the Western notion that foreign policy should be guided, at least in part, by moral principles. As Putin often criticized the U.S. for the chaos it caused in Iraq and Libya due to its desire to replace dictatorships with democracies, he demonstrated the benefits of unabashed opportunism and maintaining the autocratic order. . . . Putin paid no political price for ruthlessly bombing hospitals in support of the autocratic Syrian regime.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.