A Sliver of Good News for Israel from the Trump–Putin Summit

July 24 2018

A week before the U.S.–Russia meeting in Helsinki, Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin in an attempt to secure some guarantees for Israel in southern Syria, and later reported the terms they had settled upon to Donald Trump. It seems, writes Josh Rogin, that Presidents Putin and Trump agreed to uphold these terms:

[T]he Assad regime and Russia are about to complete their offensive to regain control of territory on Israel’s border. This is territory rebels had held for several years, until recently with the support of the United States. . . . Israel has remained largely neutral in the Syrian civil war but wants Assad to go, and was quietly helping Syrians across their border with emergency medical care and humanitarian support. But when the United States made clear it will not intervene in southern Syria to stop Assad and Russia, Netanyahu cut a deal with Putin to make sure Israel’s interests were protected.

Under the deal, Israel (and now the United States, presumably) will formally endorse the Assad regime’s control over the area and work to implement the 1974 [Israel–Syria cease-fire] agreement, which sets the physical borders [between the countries] and provides for UN observers to be deployed in between the Syrians and Israelis. [For its own part], Russia agrees to keep Iranian troops and proxy groups [about 50 or 60 miles] from Israel’s border (if it can), and Putin promises not to object if Israel strikes Iranian assets in southern Syria, especially if Iran deploys weapons that threaten Israel, such as strategic missiles or anti-aircraft systems.

Of course, there’s broad skepticism about Russia’s ability to force Iran to do anything in Syria. “We have assessed that it is unlikely that Russia has the will or the capability to implement fully or to counter Iranian decisions and influence [in Syria],” Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said Thursday at the Aspen Security Forum.

But overall, it’s a deal that Israel can live with and that establishes a framework for Israeli relations with its powerful new neighbor—Russia. You can’t blame the Israelis for being realistic about the fact that Russia, not the United States, is the power they have to work with most in the Middle East now.

Read more at Washington Post

More about: Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Iran, Israel & Zionism, Israeli Security, Syrian civil war, Vladimir Putin

American Middle East Policy Should Focus Less on Stability and More on Weakening Enemies

Feb. 10 2025

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.

Read more at Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy