Middle East tectonic shift: is Israel slipping through the cracks?

This month was the anniversary of Bashar Al-Assad's fall in Syria. Today, the region is experiencing the collapse of the Sykes-Picot agreement which defined the Middle Eastern order since 1916.

[Originally published in I-System TrendCompass] December 11 was the anniversary of the Syrian “revolution,” which toppled the regime of Bashar al Assad. A relatively small force of 20 to 30 thousand HTS Jihadi troops (formerly known as Al Nusra) overran the 260,000-strong Syrian Arab Army in only 11 days.

That was hard to explain and something about the whole affair seemed so strange, I thought it was a trap. At the time I wrote an article wondering if Syria wouldn’t prove to be the Empire’s final quagmire. With time we learned more about this episode, which I shared in a report on 16 June. Here are the key excerpts:

As it turned out, the events in Syria caught the U.S. government by surprise as they were kept out of the loop. Trump administration got the shaft while Turkey, Great Britain and France took control instead. … HTS, which overran Syria last December are in fact the project of the Turkish deep state and Great Britain. As the British investigative journalists Vanessa Beeley, Kit Klarenberg and Matt Kennard recently exposed, Syria’s current President Al Zelensky Al Jolani has been recruited and groomed by the British secret services as far back as 2011 when the assault on Syria first started. …

Al Jolani’s ultimate political patron was and still is the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair through his former Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell. In spite of his role in facilitating the 2003 invasion of Iraq and in fomenting the bloody war in Syria in 2011, Powell magically re-emerged among the British foreign policy cabal in November 2024, as Sir Keir Starmer’s National Security Advisor - smack in time to coordinate the violent takedown of Syria’s government with the help of the Turks and the new & even more moderate jihadi headchoppers.

Powell was one of the main players who concocted Britain’s WMD dossier against Saddam Hussein, which enabled the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, aimed of course, at bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. Today however, it seems that British intelligence, secret services and a slew of NGOs are running Syria’s government. As Vanessa Beeley reported, all 4-star hotels in Damascus are chock-full of British officers. The ultimate objective of their work there is to reclaim Britain’s colonial dominance of the country.

The American interests got lost in the process; US representatives demanded elections for Syria as soon as possible, but this was rebuffed. American proxies in the region (Syrian Kurds and whatever is left of the Free Syrian Army) are now largely disenfranchised and the relations between the US and Turkey (Britain’s junior partner in the whole deal) have soured to the point of borderline hostility. This is why Secretary Marco Rubio recently stated that Syria could soon slide into a bloody civil war.

Things have changed…

​Fast forward one year, and things appear to have changed, and quite radically. On 15 October this year, Syria’s new president visited Moscow and met with his counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Three weeks later, Al Jolani was at the White House for a working meeting with president Trump. Both of these meetings raised a great deal of controversy given Al Jolani’s past (until last year he had a $10 million bounty on his head as a wanted terrorist), but as my friend Tom Loungo suspected, Al Jolani was probably summoned to Moscow and Washington to meet the new bosses: “now you work for us!” This is perhaps what Trump was doing, in his own style, when he sprayed his “Victory” perfume on Al Jolani and his Foreign Minister Al Shibani.

Trump Victory: that should cover the headchopper stench

Luongo’s hunch was probably correct. First, Tony Blair, who was supposed to be take charge of Gaza peace talks was abruptly dumped by the wayside and the Trump administration wrested the lead role in Syria from the British. At last week’s Doha Forum, independent journalist C. J. Wellerman spoke with U.S. Ambassador to Syria, Tom Barrack, who told him that tensions between the U.S. and Israel have reached an unprecedented boiling point over Syria, adding that “President Trump told Netanyahu to back off, or else...”

Barrack explained that Israel wants to foment a new war in Syria to divide the country, keep it weak and sabotage the new government, whereas the U.S. believes that maintaining peace and stability in the Arab country will have positive repercussions throughout the region.

Israel defies Trump

This stance infuriated Israel, which is why the regime is now publicly attacking the U.S. Ambassador by accusing him of advancing Turkey’s interests at the expense of Israel’s security. According to a recent report in MEMO (Middle East Monitor), “... Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees Barrack as ‘someone acting with hostility towards Israel,” and that he “is overly influenced by Turkish interests in Syria and behaves like an ambassador serving Ankara’s interests.”

Tom Barrack acknowledged that for the Israelis, a unified Sunni Arab state on their border is the sum total of their worst fears because it would pose an existential threat to the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights and the Palestinian West Bank. They not only see Syria as a potential ground for staging future attacks against Israel but also as a force that could galvanize revolutionary movements throughout the region, particularly the neighboring Jordan and Egypt.

Barrack’s words were corroborated by a senior Israeli intelligence officer on Israeli TV.

“Look, what’s happening here is an event - we are talking about a strategic event that’s happening in the area - a mega strategic event. It is essentially a tectonic collapse of the Sykes-Picot agreement, which has been the established order in the Middle East since 1916. And there is a major collapse of the foundations of the old order. We need to ensure that there is a buffer zone between us and the Sunis. A buffer zone that is either fully secured by IDF forces, for that matter, which might be somewhat less realistic...”

Syria-Israel collision course

One of the strange things about HTS and its predecessors was that they never showed any hostility towards Israel and until not so long ago, Al Jolani was speaking openly about peace and normalization of relations with Israel. As recently as last July, Benjamin Netanyahu himself asked Trump to lift Syria sanctions. Trump did as his friend asked, but Bibi might be having regrets about that request. By now, Al Jolani and his government dropped the Israel friendly mask.

On 8 December, the new Syrian Army held a parade at which the troops chanted pro-Palestine slogans, expressing solidarity with Gaza and vowing to liberate the Palestinian people. The reactions in Israel weren’t moderate: “Israeli minister says war ‘inevitable’ after Syrian troops chant for Gaza.” The declaration that “war is inevitable,” says more about Israel’s fear of Damascus than about any actual change in policy, since Israel already conducted over 1,000 airstrikes against Syria in the past 12 months.

Trump administration sets red lines for Israel

However, these strikes are no longer tolerated in Washington and the Trump administration recently issued a strong rebuke, accusing Israel of destabilizing Syria. A senior White House official quoted by Axios said that, “We are trying to tell Bibi he has to stop this because if it continues he will self-destruct.” In fact, Israeli media reported this week that U.S. envoy Barrack “set red lines for Netanyahu over Syria.”

Trump said he would not allow Israel to interfere in Syria’s development into a prosperous state. However, Israel isn’t backing down and is challenging the U.S. to a showdown over Syria. The deaths of two U.S. servicemen in Syria over the weekend might have been a warning.

Toward Kissinger’s prophecy

Tel Aviv’s growing headaches also include Hamas, which now appears to have a close relationship with the new Syrian regime. Israel believes Hamas still has some 40,000 fighters in Gaza, the same number as they did before October 7, 2023 attacks. The New York Times cited Shalom Ben Hanan, a former senior official in the Shin Bet stating that, “Hamas was hit hard, but it wasn’t defeated. It’s still standing.”

And it’s still a bit worse than that: U.S. intelligence believes that Hamas’ influence has grown over the past two years and that “Hamas has positioned itself successfully in other parts of the Arab and Muslim world.” In all, the mood in Israel, which was jubilant after the fall of Bashar Al Assad, has suddenly darkened. It is surrounded by hostile forces that appear to be gaining in strength and confidence, and that includes Turkey.

As The Times of Israel reported, Tel Aviv regards Turkey as “an immediate strategic threat to Israel.” Turkey has by far the largest military in the region with a huge arsenal of advanced weapons that include some 300 F-16 jets and thousands of powerful Bayraktar drones. Last but not least, Israel’s greatest enemy might be Israel itself. By recklessly opening hostilities with six regional powers and refusing to back down for over two years, it has gutted its own economy and its military strength.

And now another piece of bad news for Israel emerged: Trump administration has requested Pakistan to provide peacekeeping troops for Gaza. Apparently, Trump wants the peacekeepers to be from Muslim countries. At the moment, there seems to be great resistance to the idea, but ultimately Trump might get his way. It is hard to see how this is not the beginning of Henry Kissinger’s 2012 prophecy that, “In ten years, there will be no more Israel.”

Alex Krainer – @NakedHedgie is the creator of I-System Trend Following and publisher of daily TrendCompass investor reports which cover over 200 financial and commodities markets. One-month test drive is always free of charge, no jumping through hoops to cancel. To start your trial subscription, drop us an email at TrendCompass@ISystem-TF.com, or:

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