Thanks to the U.S., Russia Has a Secure Foothold in Syria

The U.S. and Russia recently announced an agreement to coordinate their airstrikes against Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate that now controls a significant amount of territory in Syria. The agreement, writes Tony Badran, is yet another instance of President Obama’s ever-deepening alliance with Russia—and Iran:

In September 2015, Russia intervened directly in Syria, knowing the White House wouldn’t stand in the way. Russia’s Vladimir Putin saw a golden opportunity to set up a military base on NATO’s southern flank, enabling him to project power both in the Middle East and Europe.

But the president only doubled down by deepening military and intelligence cooperation with Russia in Syria, swatting aside objections from the Pentagon, the State Department, and the intelligence community. In so doing, the president is entrenching Russia’s presence on the border of NATO, the institution founded to counter Russian expansion.

What’s more, since the Russian enterprise in Syria is in full partnership with Iran, its success is Iran’s success. Stated differently, just as Russia now has a base bordering NATO member Turkey, Iran will also cement its presence in Syria—on Israel’s borders.

The latest agreement with the Kremlin . . . makes the U.S. a partner in Russia’s war to save the Assad regime—the logical endgame of Obama’s policy.

Critics of the president’s Syria policy have often accused him of being too passive. This is a mistake. The White House has been actively shaping the Syrian theater, both diplomatically and militarily. Only, it has done so in a manner that has undercut and endangered U.S. allies and interests.

Read more at New York Post

More about: Barack Obama, Iran, Israeli Security, Politics & Current Affairs, Russia, Syrian civil war, U.S. Foreign policy

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF