The Atlantic: The End of Netanyahu’s Unchecked Reign

Then, something odd happened: Avigdor Lieberman, who had been Netanyahu’s right-hand man in the 1990s and later served under him as foreign minister and then defense minister, refused to join the right-wing coalition with his small party unless a bill was passed aimed at military conscription of ultra-Orthodox men. This was an act of political theater—the bill would not have changed very much—but to everyone’s surprise, Lieberman held out until Netanyahu’s mandate to form a government expired. Legally, the president of Israel would then have had to task another member of Knesset with forming a government, essentially barring Netanyahu from the role. To prevent this, Netanyahu pushed the Knesset to dissolve itself and call for a second national election in less than six months.[...]

In the elections to the 11th Knesset in 1984, the Alignment (based around Labor) received 44 seats to the Likud’s 41. Neither bloc had a majority. The country was deadlocked, with no coalition in sight. The president at the time, Chaim Herzog, intervened, twisting arms and cajoling both parties to form a joint government. The two parties even agreed to a rotation in the prime minister’s post: Shimon Peres of Labor was prime minister for the first two years, and Yitzhak Shamir of the Likud led the country for another two (and then beyond). The government could agree on nothing in terms of negotiations with Israel’s Arab neighbors, producing a “national paralysis government” in foreign affairs, but it was one of Israel’s most successful governments in terms of domestic policy. Inflation, which hit an astounding 445 percent in 1984, was brought down to 16.4 percent by 1988. Israel also withdrew from most of Lebanon’s territory, downscaling a bloody intervention. [...]

Most Israeli policy would not change with a different prime minister. The basic attitudes of Lieberman, Likud, and Blue and White on Iran, on Hezbollah, on Hamas, on world relations, and even on the prospects of achieving peace with the Palestinians, are all more or less in consensus. A Gantz government would at least hope for a different outcome with the Palestinians and would take a slightly different approach to managing the protracted interim—a small but meaningful difference. But in terms of actionable policy, continuity would be the rule. [...]

In the days leading up to the elections, Amos Harel and Chaim Levinson of Haaretz reported that Netanyahu was actually prepared to launch a major escalation in the Gaza Strip, necessitating the postponement of the election, all without properly consulting the security chiefs. Only after their adamant objections and the intervention of the attorney general, who demanded a proper process for such a decision, was the plan set aside. The cautious Netanyahu of old, who held national security above any other considerations, is simply gone.  

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openDemocracy: The strange connections of Tashkent City’s “British investor”

Corso Solutions LP appears to be an unusual property developer. The Edinburgh-registered company has no website, no contact details and no obvious business activity. And yet it was named last autumn as a foreign investor on the Tashkent City project, a giant property redevelopment in the centre of Uzbekistan’s capital. openDemocracy has found that Corso Solutions has connections to an opaque international network that provides company formation services, including to apparent money laundering vehicles.[...]

According to the UK companies registry, Corso Solutions has not logged any activity or accounts since its formation. As reported by Scottish newspaper The Herald, the company should have disclosed its beneficial owner (“Person of Significant Control”) after new UK legislation on Scottish Limited Partnerships came into force in 2017. Concerns about this situation were raised in September last year. [...]

Corso Solutions was first mentioned in a September 2018 report by Uzbek media on investors in Tashkent City. Since then, we have been unable to find any information on the exact nature of Corso Solutions’ investment, and it is not mentioned on Tashkent City’s official website. When Radio Ozodlik contacted Tashkent City in October 2018 regarding Corso Solutions, an official responsible for foreign investment stated that information on approved foreign investors, including Corso Solutions, was a “commercial secret”. When we contacted Tashkent City project administration to confirm Corso Solutions’ role in the project in January and February 2019, we received no response.[...]

OCCRP and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists report that the GT Group has set up offshore corporate networks used by Russian organised crime, Hezbollah and the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel to launder funds and hide ownership. Companies House records that Ian Taylor has been disqualified as acting as a company director until 2021 under section 6 of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 (Duty of court to disqualify unfit directors of insolvent companies).

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Commune: Syria from Revolution to Civil War

I grew up in Syria. In state-run schools, we were reminded daily that we received free education thanks to the Ba’ath party’s revolution in 1963. We should be grateful, our teachers told us. In the fourth grade, like millions of students across Syria, I memorized songs praising the Ba’ath Party and its leader, Hafez al-Assad: We shine like the morning, we carry the gun / Our blood will water the soil. A loyal Syrian must recite quotes by the party leader, quotes memorized from a 150-page book entitled Nationality. In exams, one could be penalized for misremembering a single word.  [...]

I grew up believing that all other ethnic groups might kill us if they had the chance. And then, one day in eighth grade, it seemed that nightmare was coming true. In 2004, the Kurdish uprising in Qamishli happened. Following the requisite flag salute, the principal announced that our school trip was canceled because “there is trouble in the country.” Later, I overheard someone in the yard exclaim, “The Kurds are coming to kill us!” We were told that the Kurds were planning to target Alawite women. The teacher described an Alawite commander who the Kurds had tied to the back of a car and dragged through the streets of Qamishli until his flesh came off. [...]

Many observers and participants, myself included, argued behind closed doors and on social media platforms that the uprisings would have lost momentum had the president replaced the governor of Daraa and held the murdering police officers accountable. But Assad the Younger followed the dictum established by Assad the Older: just kill them all. This approach poured gasoline on the fire, the brutality of the police swelling the ever-larger and ever-angrier protests. Each day, there was a funeral for a protestor killed the day before. The funeral would turn into a protest, and the pallbearers would find themselves inside the casket the next day, surrounded by an even angrier crowd. People would attend funerals without knowing who had been killed—their main aim became the protest itself.  [...]

You might be forgiven for thinking that, after all this horror, the entire country would be against the government and sympathetic to those calling for justice, reform, and dignity. But, in fact, the majority of the country did not join the uprising. This silent majority comprised three rough categories: the hardliners, the bourgeoisie, and the undecided. Hardliners knew exactly what was happening and supported it unequivocally. Without Assad, they believed, there was no country. The bourgeoisie, unlike the hardliners, cared only about the security of their own families and businesses. They refused to pick a side. People in this category were the first to flee the country. And the undecided, finally, could not figure out what was happening. However, many members of this group made up their minds rather quickly and joined the hardliners. Their conversion to opponents of the uprising was mainly achieved by the media narrative propagated on state television, as well as by the militarization of the conflict. [...]

This was just one take on who had killed the soldiers. Some suggested that the soldiers were killed by fellow soldiers who refused to watch innocent people massacred. It’s important to note here that weapons are abundant in cities on the border. Every house has a gun. Whatever the true story, this incident opened a new chapter in the uprising, with two important consequences. First, many Syrians saw the names of the dead soldiers as confirmation of the government narrative, which aligned undecided Syrians with the regime. Second, these events created a split within activist circles, as parts of the movement took positions for and against the use of arms. 

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Foreign Policy: Syria’s Three Wars

It is not surprising, then, that one of the first firefights in Syria’s ongoing civil war took place near the city of Jisr al-Shughur in western Idlib, where insurgents assaulted a military outpost, killing more than 120 people. After four years of fighting, the Syrian regime lost control of Idlib in 2015. In 2017, as the United States pushed jihadi forces out of Raqqa in Syria’s east, survivors fled to Idlib. Their numbers were swelled more recently by men of all political stripes seeking to evade conscription into the Syrian army, which has been hoovering up all males between 18 and 51. In the interim, Turkey inserted about 1,300 troops and a dozen observation posts into the province. These were meant to contain any threat to Turkey emanating from Idlib, as well as provide the country with a forward base for further operations, as Ankara somewhat unrealistically described its mission. Instead, Ankara was primarily focused on corralling extremists who might otherwise make their way to Turkey, keeping refugees from crossing the border, and attempting to filter hard-core jihadis out of the larger rebel population, even as it sustained more moderate rebels as weapons to be used against the Assad regime. Once the civil war is over, Turkey will likely aim to convert a long-term occupation of Idlib into a permanent arrangement as part of a larger postwar settlement. [...]

Damascus has indicated its readiness to move against the rebels in Idlib soon, but a drumbeat of warnings from the United States, United Nations, Turkey, and others against a reckless offensive seems to have deterred the expected assault for now. From the regime’s perspective, the delay represents pragmatic restraint. A campaign in Idlib would be labor-intensive, and the regime lacks manpower. It would also be difficult—the foreign fighters, especially Central Asians, who have lived and battled in Syria for years have nowhere to go and would fight to the death. Intensive combat would push a wave of desperate refugees toward the Turkish border, which might inject unwelcome vigor into Turkish operations in the province. In addition, neither of Syria’s backers, Russia and Iran, want to be tarred as facilitators of the humanitarian disaster that most observers expect to result from an offensive. It is no wonder, then, that things have been put on hold.[...]

It is hard to know the exact reasons for Iran’s caution. It could reflect a view among regime officials that the targets of Israel’s strikes have been insignificant. Alternatively, Tehran might just not have plans to open a second front. It could also want to avoid doing anything that could diminish European support for the Iranian nuclear deal, or it might believe that it is overmatched. It is also possible that the skeptics are wrong and that the Assad regime has effectively banned counterattacks. Whatever the reason, Tehran could at some point decide that it has had enough and respond either from Syria or Lebanon.

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The Atlantic: The United States Could End the War in Yemen If It Wanted To

That war has long since devolved into a humanitarian catastrophe. The United Nations stopped counting its civilian death toll two years ago, when it hit 10,000. An independent estimate by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, which tracks conflicts worldwide, found that nearly 50,000 people, including combatants, died between January 2016 and July 2018. The war has also left more than 22 million people—75 percent of the population of Yemen, already one of the poorest countries in the world—in need of humanitarian aid.

As public anger over America’s role in the Saudi-led war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen has grown, Congress has slowly tried to exert pressure on America’s longtime allies to reduce civilian casualties. Last month, a bipartisan group of lawmakers included a provision in the defense spending bill requiring the Trump administration to certify that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are taking “demonstrable actions” to avoid harming civilians and making a “good faith” effort to reach a political settlement to end the war. Congress required the administration to make this certification a prerequisite for the Pentagon to continue providing military assistance to the coalition. This assistance, much of which began under the Obama administration, includes the mid-air refueling of Saudi and Emirati jets, intelligence assistance, and billions of dollars-worth of missiles, bombs, and spare parts for the Saudi air force. [...]

While the Saudis are quick to blame Iran for the war, several researchers, including Thomas Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa and a former analyst at Canada’s Department of National Defense, have shown that the Houthis did not receive significant support from Tehran before the Saudi intervention in 2015. Iran has stepped up military assistance to the Houthis since the war, and Hezbollah has begun sending military advisers to train the Yemeni rebels. But the costs of this assistance fall far short of those incurred by Saudi Arabia and its allies. For Iran, the Yemen conflict is a low-cost way to bleed its regional rival.

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Haaretz: What Russia and Turkey Really Want in Syria

And last week, Russia struck a bold deal with Turkey that averts a battle for Idlib — at least for now. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will seek broader backing for the accord at the UN General Assembly this week, and try to drum up Western money for Syria’s costly reconstruction.

Syria’s Cold War patron, Russia wants to maintain influence over Damascus once the war winds down, to keep a strategic foothold in the Mideast and a stable client for Russian weapons and commodities — and to warn the U.S. and its allies against future interference. Russia’s announcement Monday that it will supply Syria’s government with sophisticated S-300 air defense systems sent that message loud and clear, depsite Israel's vow to continue to restrain Iranian actions in the country. [...]

As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan takes the stage Tuesday at the UN, he will be seeking to head off or at least delay new crises along the Syrian border. Turkey wants to avoid a new wave of refugees and stop extremists it once tacitly supported from setting up camp on Turkish soil. And most of all, Ankara wants to keep the region’s Kurds at bay. [...]

Iran is loath to see an expansion of Turkish and U.S. influence in the region, and argues that the West fueled jihadis with past support for the Syrian opposition.

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Spiegel: The Nuclear Agreement Is Not a Love Affair'

Zarif: The Europeans and other signatories must take action to compensate for the effects of the U.S. sanctions. In May, they presented us with a package. That was an important commitment. Now, it must be translated into action. The most important thing is that Europe shouldn't do it for Iran, but for its own sovereignty and its long-term economic interests. [...]

Zarif: Our first priority is to ensure that Iran can continue to sell reasonable amounts of oil and to bring the proceeds back to Iran. In addition, we are interested in investment and cooperation in a variety of areas like science, technology and trade. But the litmus test is oil and banking. [...]

Zarif: Europe has said that the nuclear agreement is in their own security interest. Europe must be prepared to pay for its security. Nothing is for free. Europeans must decide whether they are prepared to put their money where their mouth is. [...]

Zarif: We have never threatened Israel with violence. We say that the policies pursued by the Zionist regime will lead to its annihilation. That isn't something that we will do. [...]

Zarif: Iranian foreign policy is determined neither by me nor by Mr. Soleimani, rather by the Supreme National Security Council. That is where discussions are held and decisions are made. When we negotiated the nuclear agreement, it was also said: Zarif is just a mouthpiece, the deal will never be implemented because the government has no power. But we did implement the agreement.

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The Atlantic: No Matter Who Wins the Syrian Civil War, Israel Loses

If you want to understand Israel’s ambivalence about the outcome of Syria’s war, look no further than Avigdor Lieberman. In 2016, Lieberman, Israel’s hawkish defense minister, condemned Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, as a “butcher.” He asserted Israel’s moral imperative to oppose genocide, born from the Holocaust, as a reason to oppose the Syrian government’s massacres. It is in Israel’s interest, he added, that Assad and his Iranian allies “be thrown out of Syria.” Fast forward to earlier this month. While touring Israeli air-defense units, Lieberman struck an optimistic note about Assad’s gaining strength, saying it means “there is a real address, someone responsible, and central rule” in Syria. Asked whether he believed this would decrease the possibility of clashes on Israel’s northern border, he said: “I believe so. I think this is also in Assad’s interest.”

Those two positions represent Israel’s conflicted priorities in Syria. On the one hand, Assad is Iran’s most important ally in the Arab world—the state he rules provides Tehran with access to Israel’s northern border, and facilitates the flow of weapons to Hezbollah. On the other hand, Assad—his government’s fiercely anti-Israel rhetoric notwithstanding—represents a known quantity to Israel, unlike the chaotic tangle of Sunni militias and jihadist organizations that would replace him. Until recently, Israel’s border with Syria had been its quietest frontier for four decades. [...]

Israel’s reliance on Russia is a result of President Donald Trump’s hostility to a long-term commitment to Syria. Trump told the military earlier this year to prepare to withdraw all U.S. soldiers from the country, and earlier this month announced that the United States would not spend $230 million that had been earmarked to help rebuild the country’s shattered infrastructure. “If you’re an Israeli policy maker and you’re looking at Syria, you see Russia is there and obviously staying,” Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s former chief negotiator with Syria in the 1990s, told me. “And you see the United States—the president says one day that he wants to withdraw the 2,000 [American] troops, and the next day he faces some pressure and keeps them there. But is that reliable in the long term? Doubtful.” [...]

As these political and military dramas play out, there is little question about a fundamental fact—Iran and its allies are poised to challenge Israel on multiple fronts in the years ahead. In Lebanon and Syria, Hezbollah boasts more fighters and better weapons than at any point in its history. Earlier this year, in the Gaza Strip, Hamas and Israel engaged in a series of tit-for-tat clashes for months before a cease-fire took hold. And in Iran, there is a growing risk that the Islamic Republic could restart its nuclear program following the Trump administration’s decision to reimpose sanctions on the country.

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The Atlantic: Why Israel Fears Iran’s Presence in Syria

In some ways, Israel has never been more powerful. It boasts a close relationship with the Trump administration, a powerful and nuclear-armed military, and an air force capable of striking enemies hundreds of miles away. At the same time, it is a small country with limited infrastructure: It has one international airport, a handful of major power stations, and an electrical grid that Israeli experts have already warned is vulnerable to attack. [...]

Since Hezbollah’s last war with Israel in 2006, it has expanded its rocket and missile stockpile. With Iran’s help, its arsenal is also now far more technologically advanced. Israel’s missile-defense systems can counter some threats, but would likely be overwhelmed by the sheer number of rockets and missiles that Hezbollah can now fire. “In the event of a war, the Israeli population will absorb blows that it has not experienced in decades,” Ofer Zalzberg, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Israel and Palestine, told me. [...]

The damage done to Israel in another war will pale in comparison to the destruction wrought on Lebanon. Under a strategy outlined in 2008 that calls for the use of disproportionate force on any villages or neighborhoods in which Hezbollah operates, Lebanon would experience a level of destruction that “has not been seen since World War II,” one Israeli defense official was quoted in an International Crisis Group report as saying. “We will crush it and grind it to the ground.” [...]

Oren said Israel will be forced to target civilian areas where Hezbollah has positioned its rockets, and advocates declaring war on the Lebanese government in a future conflict. But he also worried that Israel could be setting itself up for a Pyrrhic victory. The gory images from Israeli strikes are going to be transmitted across the world, he worries, inflicting a serious diplomatic blow on Israel. “The battle that begins in Lebanon doesn’t end in Lebanon. The battle in Lebanon, if Hezbollah wins, ends in The Hague. And the goal there is the systematic wearing away, erosion of our legitimacy. Our right to defend ourselves, and ultimately our right to exist,” he said. “And I’ve got to tell you, honestly, they’re winning this war.”

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Haaretz: Netanyahu May Offer Putin: Remove Iran From Syria for Lifting of U.S. Sanction on Russia

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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The Atlantic: Arab Democracy Depends on Normalizing Islamist Parties

The perennial question of whether democracy can work in the Middle East isn’t always easy to answer. Generally, it hasn’t worked. But amid civil war in Yemen, Libya, and Syria, authoritarian resurgence in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and economic instability in Jordan, there are at least three cases that challenge the notion that it can’t happen here. Tunisia, which held its first post-revolution municipal elections in May, continues to be a (relative) bright spot. Then there are the more unlikely cases of Iraq as well as Lebanon—probably the world’s most successful failed state. All three share two related features: Largely without controversy, they include Islamist parties in their democratic processes; and, second, they feature some degree of power-sharing. [...]

The very presence of Islamist parties can be inherently polarizing, particularly when they represent large, powerful, and conservative constituencies. Through successive administrations, the United States has regarded too much Islamist representation—or any Islamist representation—as a risky prospect. Yet it was the George W. Bush administration that, despite its discomfort with Islamism, ironically paved the way for Islamists to take power through democratic elections in Lebanon—a first in the Arab world. After its January 2005 elections, Ibrahim al-Jaafari of the Shia Islamist Dawa party assumed the prime ministership. Interestingly, Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood members served in various cabinet positions, including as ministers of higher education and planning. In Lebanon, Hezbollah—however much the United States and Saudi Arabia oppose it—has become a fixture of coalition governments. The point here isn’t that these groups are good (Hezbollah is a designated terrorist organization as well as an active participant in the Syrian regime’s mass killing of civilians), but rather that Arab democracy, in practice, often coincides with the normalization of Islamist parties. [...]

In the case of Tunisia, the irony is that Islamists’ willingness to play nice—something that would generally seem quite positive—has contributed to a troubling trend of democratic backsliding on things like police reform, an overly securitized counterterrorism strategy, and the lack of accountability for the crimes and corruption of old regime figures. As the largest party in parliament, Ennahda potentially has considerable power to challenge Prime Minister Youssef Chahed and President Beji Caid Essebsi Essebsi’s priorities. Instead, they have emphasized caution, consensus, and stability, fearing that doing otherwise might summon the old days of polarization and repression. Embracing their role as junior partner in the government, they have, in effect, gained protected status. But this also means that Tunisia is deprived of a cohesive bloc that could serve as an effective lobby for strengthening the democratic transition. The desire for compromise, unchecked, can come at a cost.

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openDemocracy: Russia’s cautious role in Syria

Endless debates can be had on Syria today, ranging from the US-Russian rivalry to the hunting of Kurdish fighters by Turkey or the Iranian paramilitary expansionism, along with sectarianism, terrorism and many more. However, one of the major conclusions this conflict brought to light is an unusual, more confident Russian participation in the Middle East – in fact, its first since the fall of the Soviet Union. [...]

Facing this chaotic or complex scenario, we cannot deny that Assad’s regime would not have lasted without the support of Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran and most importantly Russia. Russian strikes began overshadowing the Syrian skies in September 2015, as requested by the Syrian government and approved by the Russian parliament. The motto “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, perfectly suits the Syrian issue when it comes to the US-Russian debates about it, at least up until the Trump administration, which presented more commonalities with Putin. [...]

Russia has been constantly avoiding direct engagement with the US in Syria, despite having casualties within its own military personnel amid domestic angers and concerns in Moscow by civil society and the families of the victims. If Russia does not have the confidence to directly retaliate against US attacks in a country where it has military agreements with the regime, then when will it ever? The Russian blind eye on the US involvement near its own military forces is another sign of Russian doubtful presence in Syria, and is similar to the US haphazard strikes just to boast their strength. [...]

If there is evidence that Russia avoids retaliation with the US in Syria, then there is also evidence that it is not – and likewise with the other arguments. In today’s Syria, key players created temporary alignments with players who are arguably the enemies of the former’s own allies based on common interests on the battlefield. Therefore it would be inaccurate to consider the conflict’s structure through the lenses of the officially announced alliances. As today’s enemy, can be tomorrow’s friend, and vice versa.

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Haaretz: How Russia Angered Iran in Syria and Had to Pull Its Troops From the Lebanese Border

The situation was resolved on Tuesday when Syrian army soldiers took over three positions where the Russians had deployed near the town of Qusair in the Homs region on Monday, one of the officials, a military commander, told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

It appeared to be a rare case of Russia acting out of sync with President Bashar al-Assad's Iran-backed allies in the war. Iranian and Russian support has been critical to Assad's war effort. [...]

Russia and Iran-backed forces such as Hezbollah have worked together against the insurgency. Hezbollah deployed to Syria in 2012. The Russian air force arrived in 2015 in support of Assad.

But their different agendas in Syria have become more apparent of late as Israel presses Russia to make sure Iran and its allies do not entrench their military sway in the country.

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Al Jazeera: Analysis: What's next for Iran?

In an effort to placate the Americans, Europe's leaders will be looking for concessions on Iran's ballistic missiles programme, and are likely to raise the issue of Tehran's support for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. [...]

Iraq under Saddam Hussein invaded Iran shortly after the 1979 revolution. The US as well as many of Iran's Gulf Arab neighbours supported Hussein in the eight-year conflict.  [...]

Iranians say they still remember the sound of air raid sirens on the radio and on TV, whenever an Iraqi jet on a bombing run or an Iraqi ballistic missile would be spotted in the skies over an Iranian city. For eight long years, people here say they looked up at the skies in constant fear.

That conflict shaped the way Iran looks at national security issues. The country's collective trauma changed how civilian and military leaders make decisions about present-day defence policies. [...]

While the US pullout may have given Iran the moral high ground with regards to the nuclear deal, at home the Rouhani administration is in trouble. If Zarif's trip is unsuccessful in achieving even some minor measurable gain for Iran's economy, one MP predicts changes at the top.

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Haaretz: Israelis Reveling in Iran Deal's Downfall Forget Euphoria Is Often a Prelude to Disaster

And that’s not all. After the U.S. essentially violated the Iran nuclear deal and following the massive Israel Air Force attack early Thursday morning on Iranian installations in Syria, the new U.S. Embassy will be inaugurated next week, perhaps in keeping with the prescient saying of ancient Jewish sages: “And the gates of Jerusalem are destined to reach Damascus.” Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has already named a square in Jerusalem in honor of our savior Trump, while Third Temple enthusiasts minted a coin bearing the likeness of Trump against the backdrop of Cyrus the Persian emperor, the only gentile to be dubbed “a king messiah” in the bible. I will “subdue nations before him”, God promised through his prophet Isaiah, and, in what could make Trump even happier, will give him “hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places,” that might even exceed the generous “contributions” of Trump’s Russian oligarchs.

With these two dramatic decisions, the withdrawal from the deal and the decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem, Trump is not only fulfilling his role in the Talmudic “beginning of redemption”, he is reflecting the very essence of today’s “Israeliness”. Not only is Trump instituting the most pro-Israeli U.S. policies in the history of relations between the two countries, he is doing so while personifying the traits that Israelis, some would say unfortunately, admire most. He speaks the blunt “dugri” that Israelis cherish, denigrates diplomacy, ignores international norms and conventions, cares nothing for the UN and torments those anti-Semitic but nonetheless spineless Europeans. He is embracing the traditional Israeli maxim that “Arabs understand only force” and expanding it to include Muslims as a whole, especially the ayatollahs in Tehran. [...]

No one disputes that Iran poses a mortal threat to Israel’s wellbeing and hardly anyone fails to take seriously its leaders’ threat to destroy the Zionist entity. The argument is over the means, not the end. Those who supported the extension of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action believe that its harsh inspection regime was a preferable way to curtail its nuclear ambitions and thus served Israeli interests better than the chaos and bedlam and danger of all-out war that is now looming over the Middle East. The deed, however, is now done, and that train is leaving the station. While the fervent admirers of Trump and Netanyahu celebrate a victory that has yet to be achieved, critics of the two leaders can only hope and pray that their apprehensions are misplaced and that euphoria, for a change, won’t turn out to be a prelude to disaster. 

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Haaretz: Putin’s Gambit Could Backfire

Now Assad is indebted to Putin and relies on him for further military support, which includes Russian aircraft and missiles. The use of Russian mercenaries for fighting on the ground allows Putin to claim that no Russian ground forces are involved in the fighting and that the Russian military presence on the ground is limited to the Russian naval and air bases. The use of mercenaries is a ruse that was already used to cover the Russian involvement in Ukraine. Although quite transparent, it seems to be working. It has become part of the inventory of methods used to spread Russian influence beyond Russia’s borders. The world seems to be getting used to it. [...]

Undoubtedly a few of the old-timers at the Kremlin remember the effect that the introduction of Soviet surface-to-air missiles in Egypt in 1970 had on the War of Attrition, and then during the Yom Kippur War, when they managed to neutralize the Israel Air Force. They probably hope that now the supply of the S-300 missiles to Syria will have a similar effect. [...]

Is it possible that the Israeli Air Force will know how to deal with the S-300 missile system if it is deployed in Syria? That no doubt is of concern to Putin and his generals. Such a scenario is liable to constitute a harsh blow to Russian weapons technology, hurting the Russians’ marketing efforts for this missile system to other countries, such as Iran, and even raising questions as to the continued Russian-Iranian alliance in Syria.

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Politico: How Putin’s Folly Could Lead to a Middle East War

It was all very predictable, the moment that Putin began to partner with Iran and its lethal proxy, Hezbollah. They shared intelligence, patrolled together and fought together against the Sunni jihadists and other rebels who were warring against the Assad regime.

Iran’s motivations for this unlikely marriage were crystal clear: The regime viewed Syria as a crucial territory to maintain a land bridge from their borders to the Mediterranean. For Iran, Syria was key to regional domination. It was also key to maintaining military supply routes to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Russia, by contrast, had more global ambitions. For one, Putin was putting a finger in the eye of the Obama administration. The message was that Russia could dominate territory once seen as under American influence. Putin also sought to convey to the rest of the Arab world that Russia was a strong and reliable ally for the region, and that Russia was willing to provide advanced weaponry at the right price—and without American-style red tape and oversight. [...]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the Israelis on Monday, calling the strike “a dangerous development.” Lavrov is right about that. The Israelis have shown that they can operate repeatedly inside of Syria, with or without Russian deconfliction. And with Trump signaling outrage over Sunday’s chemical weapons attacks in Damascus, the United States is not likely to restrain the Israelis from protecting their interests.

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Haaretz: How Foreign Powers Keep Assad From Retaking 'Every Inch' of Syria

Some believe a divided Syria may stabilise for some time - perhaps years - with Assad forced to accept a de facto partition and no prospect of a negotiated peace. Others fear further escalation involving Turkey, the United States, Israel, Iran and Russia.  [...]

Reflecting confidence in Damascus, first lady Asma al-Assad, has stepped back into public life. She has visited special needs children and accompanied Assad to meet the wounded. Assad has appeared on the currency for the first time. [...]

At its weakest point in 2015, the Syrian state held less than a fifth of Syria. Russia's air force arrived to turn the tide in September of that year, working with Iranian and Iranian-backed forces spearheaded by Lebanon's Hezbollah, which has been fighting in support of Assad since 2012. [...]

Assad now holds 58 percent of Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, including the main cities, the coast, and an expanse of desert west of the Euphrates.

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The Atlantic: What Iran Is Really Up To in Syria

“Iran is now mainly preoccupied with Syria’s future and cementing its share of influence and power in the Arab world. The enmity with Israel is simply the card it will use in negotiations to achieve its goals,” Ali al-Amine, a Beirut-based expert on Shiite affairs who runs a news site critical of Hezbollah and Iran’s regional meddling, told me. [...]

In the end, Iran and Hezbollah embedded themselves into the Syrian state. That allowed them to begin expanding a long-term economic, military, political, and even religious and cultural presence. It was precisely this outcome, along with Hezbollah’s acquisition of advanced missiles and weapons, that Israel tried to thwart when it began a campaign of escalating strikes inside Syria in January 2013. [...]

There are already signs of Assad’s resistance to Putin’s agenda in Syria. On Tuesday, the Syrian foreign ministry announced that it saw no role for the United Nations in overseeing the drafting of a new constitution for the country, even though the Russians have gone out of their way to court Staffan de Mistura, the body’s Syria envoy, and make sure he is involved in this process to lend it legitimacy. De Mistura attended the Syria conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi last month that was boycotted by most of the opposition. And while Russia has been skeptical of Assad’s determination to regain “every inch” of Syria, it has backed him and the Iranian-led militias in this year’s offensives to retake rebel-held Idlib province in the north and the Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. So far, close to 900 civilians have already been killed in these campaigns, according to the Violations Documentation Center.

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The Atlantic: Syria's War Is Fueling Three More Conflicts

In the last few weeks alone, Turkey has clashed with Syrian Kurds and threatened a U.S.-controlled town in Syria; an Israeli fighter jet that was part of a response to an incursion into Israeli territory by an Iranian drone launched from Syria took Syrian anti-aircraft fire, forcing its two pilots to eject and parachute into Israeli territory; and U.S. forces repelled an attack by Russian fighters, killing an unknown number of them that reports suggest could be in the hundreds.

Taken individually, each one of the clashes has the potential to turn into something more dangerous. Taken together, they suggest the reasons why even after the defeat of ISIS, Syria cannot hope for stability to return soon—and why the next chapter could be even worse. “The issues have been out there: Kurdish-Turkish-American tensions; Iran-Syria-Israel tensions,” Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, told me. “But … we’ve gotten to a level not reached before, and it’s all coming at once.” [...]

The fact that many of those interests are fundamentally opposed seems to guarantee further conflict. Assad will try to consolidate and expand his hold over the country. Turkey will try not to allow a semi-autonomous region on its border. The Kurds will fight to protect the territory they’ve gained. Iran wants to reap the gains of its investments in Syria and Assad. Israel is adamantly opposed to a permanent Iranian and Hezbollah military presence on its border in southern Syria. The U.S. wants to ensure ISIS doesn’t re-emerge and has stated a preference for Assad to step aside. Russia wants to preserve Assad’s position—and its own as a power broker in the Middle East.

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