As Bashar al-Assad and his allies have regained control of much of Syria, and now seem ready to crush the rebel strongholds in the country’s southwest and northwest, it is increasingly likely that victory is in reach for the Moscow-Tehran-Damascus axis. Yet, argues Frederic Hof, that outcome is by no means guaranteed. He urges American policymakers to push back before it’s too late:

[A]ny discussion of objectives and strategy must start with a clear understanding of why [the fate of Syria] matters to the United States. Pro-[Assad] elements in Washington and elsewhere try to make hay on this point. Their message to Donald Trump is (a) Assad has won, so don’t waste time, effort, and resources on Syria, (b) Assad’s supposed victory poses no challenge to American security, and (c) Assad might actually prove to be an asset in the battle against Islamist extremism of the Sunni variety.

The message here is that Syria matters profoundly to the interests of the United States and its allies in the region and beyond. Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah will find, in the fullness of time, that their own reliance on Moscow to neutralize Tehran in Syria was misplaced. . . . But even if Washington cared nothing about Israeli and Jordanian security, the persistence of an Assad regime subordinated to Iran and to Lebanon’s Hizballah should be profoundly troubling, given the destabilizing agenda of Iran-based Shiite Islamist extremism. Even if Russian attempts to blackmail the West into subsidizing a crime family succeed, a Syria ruled by the corruptly brutal Assads will hemorrhage human beings and host extremist Islamists (Shiite and Sunni) for as far as the eye can see.

Many of the consequences of a continued Iran-Assad domination in Syria will fall on American allies and friends. But North America may not be exempt from violent reactions inspired by the Nazi-like practices of a systematically repressive regime. . . And Iran (often through Hizballah) has long-since demonstrated its terror reach into this hemisphere. . . .

Declining to accept the inevitability of perpetual Assad rule in Syria need not be a costly endeavor for American taxpayers. But neither will it be cost-free. With allies and partners organized to do heavy lifting, American leadership can permit Syrians to create an attractive, credible alternative to Assad in a prosperous northeast rich in petroleum and agriculture. By warning the Russians and working with Turkey, Assad can be deterred from mass homicide in Syria’s northwest. If resisting Iranian expansionism and extremist-abetting mass murder is more than just a rhetorical relic of bygone administrations, the United States will work to defeat the conclusion that Syria has been lost to Iran.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.