Russia has told Israel on several occasions that it can’t make Iran leave Syria completely; the most it can do is try to get Iranian forces and Iranian-affiliated militias, including Hezbollah, to move a significant distance away from the Syrian-Israeli border in the Golan Heights. But Russia isn’t even managing to keep its promise to secure a partial withdrawal of Iranian forces.
According to reports from Syria, even during the Syrian army’s conquest of the Daraa district over the past few days, Iranian officers and observers and Hezbollah fighters participated alongside the Syrian troops. It also turns out that the Syrian army – which now controls most of the border between Syria and Jordan, including the Naseeb border crossing – is entering rebel-controlled areas in violation of an agreement it reached just last week. [...]
The American magazine The New Yorker revealed on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel had suggested to Trump that America offer to cancel the sanctions it imposed on Russia four years ago, following Russia’s war in Ukraine and occupation of the Crimean peninsula, in exchange for Russian action to remove Iranian forces from Syria. Reporter Adam Entous wrote that shortly before the U.S. elections in 2016, the UAE’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, met with an American mediator and told him Putin might be interested in solving the Syrian crisis in exchange for an end to sanctions on Russia. [...]
An American official who spoke with an Israeli minister close to Netanyahu told the New Yorker that the minister had tried to sell him on the idea of “trading Ukraine for Syria” – canceling sanctions on Russia in exchange for Iran’s removal from Syria. The Saudi and Emirati foreign ministers also marketed this idea.
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