On July 16, President Trump will meet with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, where they are expected to address, inter alia, the situation in Syria. Alexandra Gutowski urges the American president to insist, despite likely Russian objections, that the U.S. will maintain its military base at Tanf in southern Syria. She writes:

Since 2016, American special-operations forces have used a base in the border town of Tanf to train Syrian opposition forces to fight Islamic State. The town lies near the intersection of the Syrian, Iraqi, and Jordanian borders, astride a strategic highway that provides the most direct route from Baghdad to Damascus. While the U.S. prohibits the opposition forces at Tanf from fighting the Assad regime, the presence of coalition troops serves as a bulwark against Iran’s ongoing efforts to establish and secure a so-called “land bridge” from Tehran to the Mediterranean, with the help of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria.

The Assad regime and its allies have regularly probed American resolve to defend the base at Tanf. . . . [In addition], Syria’s foreign minister, Walid Muallem, indicated that concessions regarding Tanf were essential [to his government]. Russia and Syria seem determined to raise the issue if U.S. negotiators have not done so already.

For the U.S., the abandonment of Tanf would be a serious strategic error. The current offensive in southwest Syria demonstrates that the U.S. cannot trust Russia to enforce agreements, even those made directly between the two countries’ presidents. Second, Tanf provides a valuable launching point for operations against Islamic State, including a seizure this month of $1.4 million worth of narcotics. Third, were the U.S. to abandon Tanf, retaking it in event of a crisis would be very difficult, from both a political and a military perspective. Thus, Iran would secure control of a key pillar supporting its land bridge from Tehran straight through to the Mediterranean, enabling it to accelerate the shipment of weapons and militia fighters to Assad and Hizballah.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.