Last week, the Israeli government confirmed that a researcher named Elizabeth Tsurkov has been held captive in Iraq, most likely by the Iran-backed militia Kitaeb Hizballah—an offshoot of the similarly named Lebanon-based terrorist group. Tsurkov, a dual Russian and Israeli citizen, is currently a graduate student at Princeton University, and had traveled to the Middle East to pursue her academic research. Hussain Abdul-Hussain comments:

Anti-Western regimes have always used hostage-taking as a tactic to blackmail Western governments. . . . After a nuclear deal was signed in 2015 between the international community and Iran, Tehran freed all Westerners in its custody. Since then, Iran has taken thirteen new Western hostages, eleven of whom are of Iranian origin. From time to time, Tehran offers to “swap prisoners” with the U.S., Canada, and European countries, or asks for some American concessions, mainly sanctions relief, in return for releasing one or more hostages.

Baghdad enjoys strong ties with Washington and does not need to take hostages to extract concessions. On the contrary, [the kidnapping] shows that, in Iraq, the government cannot guarantee the safety of foreign tourists or residents. This is why it is imperative for Baghdad to take custody of Tsurkov.

America has invested a lot in Iraq. . . . As a close ally, it would be wise for Washington to impress on Baghdad that Tsurkov should be freed, not for the sake of Israel, but for the image of Iraq as a sovereign country where law and order are upheld by courts and law-enforcement agencies.

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.