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Presidents Obama and Biden have treated Iran and its proxies with kid gloves. It is difficult to understand the underlying thought. Michael Doran seemed to me to hold the key in his 2015 Mosaic essay “Obama’s secret Iran strategy” (2015) and in updates such as the Tablet essays “The realignment” (with Tony Badran, 2021) and “Biden’s ties that bind” (2023). The Obama/Biden foreign policy hands (including Obama and Biden themselves) make Neville Chamberlain look like a strategic genius.

In my own comments in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Assad regime, I held that Obama might have been hardest hit, or Russia, or Iran. All true, but I should also have credited the crucial role played by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in neutralizing Hezbollah and ignoring the Biden administration at just about every step along the way. As Jonathan Tobin puts it his current JNS column (all of it is worth reading):

The surprising collapse of Syria’s brutal authoritarian government is the direct result of Israel’s defeat of the Assad clan’s main ally, Iran. Tehran thought the seven-front war launched against the Jewish state by its terrorist proxies on Oct. 7, 2023, would fundamentally alter the balance of power in the region. But the setbacks dealt by Israel to Hamas in Gaza—and then against Hezbollah in Lebanon in the last few months—achieved that result but not in the way the Islamist regime intended.

Or let us turn to Dexter Filkins, author of The Forever War. He put it even more concisely in an interview with the Free Press over the weekend: “Most of the credit goes to Israel, which, by destroying Hamas, decapitating Hezbollah’s leadership, and leaving Iran’s leaders exposed, kicked away the support struts of Assad’s regime.” See also Hal Brands’s Bloomberg column “Assad’s Fall Shows Russia, Iran, and Hamas Made a Bad Bet.” The trail leads back to Netanyahu and Israel.

This morning Netanyahu testified in the corruption case that has been pending against him over the past several years. In anticipation of his testimony he held a press conference last night. In the press conference he devoted the first few minutes to a statement concerning developments in Syria. I think the gist of it is that all is proceeding as he has foreseen — i.e., as he has vowed since October 7.

Many in Israel detest Netanyahu. I would include among their number most of the Israeli media, including Times of Israel editor David Horovitz. We have our own version of the phenomenon with President Trump and the American media. However, ToI’s Lazar Berman covers the press conference in a straightforward fashion here. The ToI also covers the familiar reaction to the press conference here — familiar to those of us in the United States following President Trump, I should say.

Despite obvious differences, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump have a lot in common. Something beyond diplomatic niceties — something like the Churchill-Roosevelt relationship — underlies Netanyahu’s reported plan to attend the Trump inauguration next month.

UPDATE: The great Richard Kemp adds this postscript.