The Wars of October 7 Are Not Over

Israel stepping up strikes on Syria:

Israeli Air Force jets bombed the Syrian defense ministry and presidential palace in Damascus on Wednesday. The airstrikes on two key government buildings in the capital mark a massive escalation in the growing dispute between Israel and Syria over the status of the Druze community in the southern part of the country. 

Over the past two days, Israel has been attacking forces in that region aligned with the Syrian government in an attempt to protect the Druze. They are an Arab sect of about one million people living in Syria, Lebanon and Israel, where they make up a small but influential minority. Israel sees them as a potential ally as it works to create a buffer zone in that part of Syria. The Druze say Syrian forces have been attacking civilians in their community in the south of that country.

All this comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has been seeking to foster better relations between Israel and the new government of Syria.

Much of the dispute involves the future strength of the Syrian central government, an issue Israel and the US disagree about:

The killings began just days after Thomas Barrack, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Syria (and the U.S. ambassador to Turkey) laid out a muscular vision for a centralized Syria. “What we’ve learned is federalism doesn’t work,” Barrack said after meeting with Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa. This was a startling rebuke to those who have argued for years that Syria should avert another dictatorship by conferring greater power on local authorities. Barrack made clear that he wants the Kurdish-led enclave in northeastern Syria—which has been holding out for more autonomy, like the Druze in the country’s south—to make larger concessions to Sharaa. “There is only one road, and it leads to Damascus,” Barrack said.

That is not the Israelis’ view. Although they were happy to be rid of Assad, a sworn enemy, the Israelis do not trust Sharaa, a former jihadist whose forces swept to power in December, and who was once the leader of the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. The Israelis have often seemed to believe that they are safer when their Arab neighbors are too weak and divided to pose a threat. That perspective may have motivated recent Israeli demands that southern Syria remain a demilitarized zone. The Israelis also have a special relationship with the Druze, historically a warrior community that lives both in Israel and across the border in Sweida, their stronghold.

Barrack’s comments, on July 9, may have suggested a kind of carte blanche to Sharaa: Do what you have to do to get the country’s troublesome minorities in line. Sharaa knew that the Israelis did not want him to send troops into Sweida. But for weeks, he had engaged in back-channel talks with Israel, in an American-sponsored effort to resolve decades of tensions over a host of issues. Perhaps Sharaa assumed that the Israelis and the Americans had worked out the differences in their positions toward him.

And meanwhile on the Iran front:

One of the three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran struck by the United States last month was mostly destroyed, setting work there back significantly. But the two others were not as badly damaged and may have been degraded only to a point where nuclear enrichment could resume in the next several months if Iran wants it to, according to a recent U.S. assessment of the destruction caused by the military operation, five current and former U.S. officials familiar with the assessment told NBC News.

The assessment, part of the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to determine the status of Iran’s nuclear program since the facilities were struck, was briefed to some U.S. lawmakers, Defense Department officials and allied countries in recent days, four of those people said.

Three things that seem to me obvious…

1. Iran continues to have the capacity to build a nuclear weapon
2. Iran now has more incentive than ever to work towards weaponization
3. The US will not act to prevent more Israeli strikes on Iran

… seem to lead to the obvious conclusion that fighting will resume between Iran and Israel at some point in 2025. We shall see.