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.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.