Prejudices aside, there is no strategic reason Baghdad and Jerusalem shouldn’t be able to establish normal or even cordial diplomatic relations. Hussain Abdul-Hussain argues that the Jewish state’s water technology could bring the two countries together:

The top UN Development Program official in Baghdad warned that an increase in global temperature will decrease the fresh water available to Iraqis by 20 percent. Basra, Iraq’s second most populous city, which sits at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, is already dying of thirst, its water contaminated and its population decreasing.

Israel, too, faces tremendous environmental stress on its water supply, yet has mastered the process of desalination. Its efforts are so successful, it has been pumping desalinated water into its natural reservoir, Lake Kinneret, [also known as the Sea of Galilee]. So advanced is Israeli desalination that the former Arizona governor Doug Ducey described the Jewish state as “the world’s water superpower.” Accordingly, the arid southwestern state has awarded Israel contracts to deal with Arizona’s water shortage. Azerbaijan is also an Israeli customer.

Why not Iraq? . . . Iraq desperately needs Israeli desalination technology, which in turn requires moving toward peace. Instead, Baghdad has been going in the opposite direction, passing an absurd law that punishes with death or life in prison anyone “who places a call to the Zionist entity.”

In a momentous meeting with the Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh, President Trump announced that he is lifting sanctions on the beleaguered and war-torn country. On the one hand, Sharaa is an alumnus of Islamic State and al-Qaeda, who came to power as commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which itself began life as al-Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot; he also seems to enjoy the support of Qatar. On the other hand, he overthrew the Assad regime—a feat made possible by the battering Israel delivered to Hizballah—greatly improving Jerusalem’s strategic position, and ending one of the world’s most atrocious and brutal tyrannies. President Trump also announced that he hopes Syria will join the Abraham Accords.

This analysis by Eran Lerman was published a few days ago, and in some respects is already out of date, but more than anything else I’ve read it helps to make sense of Israel’s strategic position vis-à-vis Syria.

Israel’s primary security interest lies in defending against worst-case scenarios, particularly the potential collapse of the Syrian state or its transformation into an actively hostile force backed by a significant Turkish presence (considering that the Turkish military is the second largest in NATO) with all that this would imply. Hence the need to bolster the new buffer zone—not for territorial gain, but as a vital shield and guarantee against dangerous developments. Continued airstrikes aimed at diminishing the residual components of strategic military capabilities inherited from the Assad regime are essential.

At the same time, there is a need to create conditions that would enable those in Damascus who wish to reject the reduction of their once-proud country into a Turkish satrapy. Sharaa’s efforts to establish his legitimacy, including his visit to Paris and outreach to the U.S., other European nations, and key Gulf countries, may generate positive leverage in this regard. Israel’s role is to demonstrate through daily actions the severe costs of acceding to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions and accepting Turkish hegemony.

Israel should also assist those in Syria (and beyond: this may have an effect in Lebanon as well) who look to it as a strategic anchor in the region. The Druze in Syria—backed by their brethren in Israel—have openly expressed this expectation, breaking decades of loyalty to the central power in Damascus over their obligation to their kith and kin.