The cease-fire agreement between Israel and Lebanon gives the IDF until January 26 to evacuate all its forces from the latter country. On Sunday, the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, declared that the complete withdrawal of troops might not be possible since Hizballah continues to violate the deal by holding onto positions south of the Litani River. The Lebanese military, for its part, is required to disarm the Iran-backed terrorist group, but so far, writes Hussain Abdul-Hussain it is “yet to show a single bullet it has confiscated from Hizballah.” He explains the problem:

Instead of boasting about its capabilities in warring with Israel, [as it once did], the Iran-backed militia has instructed the caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati to pretend that Lebanon has lived up to its part of the deal, and that it is now incumbent on the Jewish state to stop its “violations” and accelerate its withdrawal from Lebanese territory.

What Mikati called violations were in fact Israel enforcing 1701 by striking Hizballah’s rearmament shipments, an arrangement that Lebanon had signed on to. The deal also stipulated that the Israeli military would control up to five miles of Lebanese territory so long as Hizballah maintains its ability to reconstitute.

Five weeks after Lebanon promised to enforce the 1701 mechanism, the Lebanese Armed Forces have yet to bust a single Hizballah arms depot. Even a busload of explosive drones that Lebanese civilians had wrestled from Hizballah’s fighters during the war and handed over to Lebanese authorities was released back to the Iran-backed militia by order from a pro-Hizballah judge.

Reasons behind Lebanon’s unwillingness or inability to disarm Hizballah are many. First are the political ambitions of presidential hopefuls like [the commander of the armed forces, Joseph] Aoun. Election requires two thirds of lawmakers, and that is impossible without the Hizballah-led parliamentary bloc. Second is Hizballah’s bullying of Lebanese politicians and the general population.

Yesterday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Israeli representatives have been involved in secret talks, brokered by the United Arab Emirates, with their Syrian counterparts about the potential establishment of diplomatic relations between their countries. Even more surprisingly, on Wednesday an Israeli reporter spoke with a senior official from Syria’s information ministry, Ali al-Rifai. The prospect of a member of the Syrian government, or even a private citizen, giving an on-the-record interview to an Israeli journalist was simply unthinkable under the old regime. What’s more, his message was that Damascus seeks peace with other countries in the region, Israel included.

These developments alone should make Israelis sanguine about Donald Trump’s overtures to Syria’s new rulers. Yet the interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s jihadist resumé, his connections with Turkey and Qatar, and brutal attacks on minorities by forces aligned with, or part of, his regime remain reasons for skepticism. While recognizing these concerns, Noah Rothman nonetheless makes the case for optimism:

The old Syrian regime was an incubator and exporter of terrorism, as well as an Iranian vassal state. The Assad regime trained, funded, and introduced terrorists into Iraq intent on killing American soldiers. It hosted Iranian terrorist proxies as well as the Russian military and its mercenary cutouts. It was contemptuous of U.S.-backed proscriptions on the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield, necessitating American military intervention—an unavoidable outcome, clearly, given Barack Obama’s desperate efforts to avoid it. It incubated Islamic State as a counterweight against the Western-oriented rebel groups vying to tear that regime down, going so far as to purchase its own oil from the nascent Islamist group.

The Assad regime was an enemy of the United States. The Sharaa regime could yet be a friend to America. . . . Insofar as geopolitics is a zero-sum game, taking Syria off the board for Russia and Iran and adding it to the collection of Western assets would be a triumph. At the very least, it’s worth a shot. Trump deserves credit for taking it.