Clifford May looks at Iran’s role in the growth of violent Islamism and at the consequences of America’s failure to sustain the fight against jihadists:

In 2011, President Barack Obama withdrew all U.S. military forces from Iraq, leading to the rise of the Islamic State group . . . and further opening Iraq to Iran’s influence. In 2021, President Biden withdrew all U.S. military forces from Afghanistan. That proved that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, planner of the 9/11 attacks, was correct when he told his CIA interrogators that jihadists can be confident of victory because “we only need to fight long enough for you to defeat yourself by quitting.”

For many years, Americans hoped that Russia and China would side with us in the Global War on Terrorism. . . . Xi Jinping, China’s Communist ruler, and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s neo-imperialist dictator, had agreed to a “no-limits” partnership in February 2022, just days before Russian troops invaded Ukraine. Both went on to establish close relations with Ali Khamenei, the Islamist “supreme leader” of Iran.

Mr. Khamenei has begun sending ballistic missiles to Russia. There are numerous other examples of military cooperation among the members of [this] axis of aggressors. North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela are also members. Are Americans capable of understanding that, 23 years after the 9/11 attacks, we’re in an even more dangerous era—no time for peace dividends and holidays from history?

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.