On October 31, Algeria—the world’s fifth-largest producer of natural gas—ceased exporting gas to Spain and Portugal via a pipeline that runs through Morocco. To Dore Gold, this is a sign of growing tensions between Algiers and Rabat which in turn hark back to the cold war, when Algeria placed itself firmly in the Soviet bloc, while Morocco threw in its lot with the America:

The Algerians took this step just as Russia reduced its natural-gas exports to Europe, leading to soaring gas prices at the beginning of winter. . . . It is instructive to note that Algeria was cutting gas supplies at a time when it intended to increase its share of Europe’s gas market to over 30 percent, according to the Algerian energy minister Mohamed Arkab. In essence, the Algerian government was not reducing the share of its gas sector in its overall energy production; it was singling out Morocco and escalating tensions in North Africa as a result.

Algeria has been assisting the guerrilla forces of the Polisario Front in the Western Sahara region, fighting the Moroccan army and allowing the Islamic Republic of Iran to use its embassy in Algiers as a conduit for arms, funding, and training for the Polisario forces. Iran employed Hizballah for this training mission because its operatives spoke Arabic, while its own special forces were more fluent in Farsi, which the Polisario did not understand. At the time, after Morocco warned Iran that it knew what it was doing in Algeria, Rabat cut off diplomatic relations with the Iranian government.

Now Algeria is engaging in a new military buildup as it purchases both Russian state-of-the-art aircraft and Chinese naval platforms, including frigates and corvettes, presently under construction. It should be recalled that China seeks to become a more dominant power in Africa in the years ahead.

On the same day the cease-fire went into effect along the Israel-Lebanon border, rebel forces launched an unexpected offensive, and within a few days captured much of Aleppo. This lightening advance originated in the northwestern part of the country, which has been relatively quiet over the past four years, since Bashar al-Assad effectively gave up on restoring control over the remaining rebel enclaves in the area. The fighting comes at an inopportune moment for the powers that Damascus has called on for help in the past: Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and Hizballah has been shattered.

But the situation is extremely complex. David Wurmser points to the dangers that lie ahead:

The desolation wrought on Hizballah by Israel, and the humiliation inflicted on Iran, has not only left the Iranian axis exposed to Israeli power and further withering. It has altered the strategic tectonics of the Middle East. The story is not just Iran anymore. The region is showing the first signs of tremendous geopolitical change. And the plates are beginning to move.

The removal of the religious-totalitarian tyranny of the Iranian regime remains the greatest strategic imperative in the region for the United States and its allies, foremost among whom stands Israel. . . . However, as Iran’s regime descends into the graveyard of history, it is important not to neglect the emergence of other, new threats. navigating the new reality taking shape.

The retreat of the Syrian Assad regime from Aleppo in the face of Turkish-backed, partly Islamist rebels made from remnants of Islamic State is an early skirmish in this new strategic reality. Aleppo is falling to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS—a descendant of Nusra Front led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, himself a graduate of al-Qaeda’s system and cobbled together of IS elements. Behind this force is the power of nearby Turkey.