Isfahan, Zagros, Al-Sufyani! On the path of dismantling the “Ancient East”?
By Hussain Jummo
It is difficult to dismiss Benjamin Netanyahu when he takes the podium and boasts that Israel is reshaping the Middle East to its liking. It is equally unfair not to consider that the crises in this region are now under U.S. management, without partners from competing international powers—some providing political influence in crisis management, such as transitional arrangements in Damascus, and others in a direct military capacity, as seen in southern Lebanon (the Truce Monitoring Committee).
The partnership also continues in eastern Syria with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance that may deepen its future extensions within the Kurdish mountainous Zagros arc, while Turkey is attempting to block this potential route by pushing thousands of Syrian militants daily to the Tishreen Dam in the battle to close the Zagros Gate.
As Amos Yadlin and Avner Golov noted in an article for Foreign Affairs magazine, Israel’s current ability to impose military regional dynamics still surpasses its willingness to develop a coherent strategic vision. So far, there are no clear strategic concepts that align with its operational successes on the ground.
Therefore, Israel needs to advocate for establishing a political framework that reflects its battlefield successes. This necessitates an Arab-Israeli alliance supported by the United States. According to the authors, Israel should not seek to impose its vision of a new regional order unilaterally, as it requires the approval of the United States, Arab countries, as well as Germany and the United Kingdom.
In any case, this new Israeli formation is not yet finalized. It is more likely that Donald Trump will complete the reorganization of the region in his way rather than Netanyahu’s.
The level of concern among Israelis regarding changes in Syria, despite their significant role in paving the way for the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, indicates that the new Middle East they boast about may be just as dangerous as the old one, particularly with the ideology of “eliminating Israel.” This remains true even if those who champion this ideology manage to conceal it for years to come. The leader in Tel Aviv boasts that he understands what could be termed the “deep malice” of his adversaries. Based on this understanding, Netanyahu has never genuinely accepted Yasser Arafat’s sincerity regarding peace, especially since Arafat returned to Gaza and sought to reassure his critics in closed meetings that the Oslo Accords were akin to the “Peace of Hudaybiyah”: temporary, staged, and a truce to enable and prepare (according to Netanyahu’s narrative in his book A Place Under the Sun).
Netanyahu has shattered the Middle East, which was contested by three major powers: Israel, Iran, and Turkey. However, the new configuration of the region remains fluid and is likely to witness prolonged conflicts until it stabilizes into regional alliances or confrontations. At the forefront of this instability is the mutual aggression between Ankara and Tel Aviv, which could lead to a collision within Syria if the two sides do not agree on the division of spheres of influence under the auspices of the United States as the dominant regional power in the Middle East.
In the early days of the 7 October 2023 offensive, Israel lived in terror for weeks and months, fearing that Hezbollah and Iran would launch a lightning strike in conjunction with the rockets fired by Hamas that were hitting Israeli cities. Netanyahu has experienced the nightmare of Israel’s possible demise. He has his own understanding of enemies and their warrior leaders. His approach is based on discerning internal cues rather than external appearances, which is why he has never trusted Arafat. For the same reason, he accused Edward Said of wanting to kill him and the people of Israel during their televised debate in 1985.
The general terms of the ceasefire agreement that Israel and Hamas finally reached after a year of negotiations are not fundamentally different from the terms available to both sides eight months ago. However, what has changed is that neither side fears Joe Biden. The situation is different with Trump, who has other agendas and does not want to become mired in the Middle East in its current state. Netanyahu was also horrified when Trump did not reserve his expression “gates of hell” solely for Hamas. Thus, it can be said that Netanyahu’s brief era may be nearing its end if Trump comes up with a viable plan.
Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, asserts in the Wall Street Journal: “Steve Witkoff, the real estate businessman appointed by Trump as his envoy to the Middle East, achieved in a single meeting with Netanyahu what dozens of Biden administration officials could not.”
Trump has appointed several long-time friends of Israel to his Middle East team, and Netanyahu will need Trump’s assistance as he confronts Iran, seeks to consolidate Israeli control over the West Bank, and pursues a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia.
Ultimately, the battle of 2025 in the Middle East will revolve around the Iranian nuclear issue, which could either lead to a deal or result in U.S.-Israeli bombs falling on its facilities, with significant repercussions for the political culture of Isfahan on the Iranian plateau. Therefore, it would be premature to categorize Iran as part of the defeated camp simply based on the collapse of the Assad regime and the defeats of its allies in Lebanon and Palestine. If Netanyahu were to describe the situation, he might more accurately say, “It’s not over yet.”
The Israeli Prime Minister spent the first half of last year entangled in struggles with political rivals while attempting to maintain his governing coalition, facing a war of attrition with Hamas in Gaza, and addressing serious threats from Iran and Hezbollah. However, the tide turned when Israel executed a bombing campaign followed by the assassinations of Hassan Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders. It also eliminated Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza and dealt a significant blow to Iran by destroying a large portion of its air defenses. Meanwhile, the Assad regime collapsed following a swift and enigmatic attack by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a development likely influenced by successive Israeli strikes on Iranian forces in Syria.
Avner Golov, a former director at the Israeli National Security Council, stated: “For the first time in the history of Zionism, there is an opportunity for Israel to become a regional power.” Current and former Israeli officials are advocating for aggressive measures to build a coalition that includes Israel, the United States, and moderate Arab states.
Itamar Rabinovich, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and adviser to several prime ministers, believes that the current conflict in the Middle East has broader implications as Iran develops closer ties with Russia, which in turn is allied with countries competing against the U.S. and its allies. He states, “This is not just a regional conflict, but a global conflict against the alliance of Russia, China, and North Korea.” The Russian presence in the Mediterranean has “collapsed with the fall of Assad” after a strategic investment that seemed both successful and cost-effective for Russia, serving as a “counterpoint” to the discredited U.S. foreign policy following the disastrous withdrawal scenes in Afghanistan and the attempted withdrawal from Syria during Trump’s first term.
In 2015, when Putin sent his troops to Syria, he had several goals in mind, summarized by analyst Alexander Paunov in Foreign Affairs:
- He aimed to help Russia escape the international isolation it faced after its annexation of Crimea in 2014, working to restore Russia’s influence in the Middle East, where its presence had waned after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
- He sought to establish Russia as a global power capable of supporting its allies and countering efforts to overthrow friendly governments.
- The intervention in Syria allowed Russia to assume the role of protector of Christians in the Middle East, a role that, in Putin’s view, had been abandoned by the declining Western powers—an endeavor that aligns perfectly with Putin’s desire to present Russia as the last bastion of Christian values in Europe.
In the aftermath of the rapid collapse of Assad’s regime, Putin had little to show for this triple agenda. Russia is facing the loss of its military infrastructure in the Middle East and has shown little interest in the Syrian Christians it claimed to protect after Assad’s secular government was overthrown by HTS. Russia’s isolation from the international community has intensified since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The essence of Russia’s intervention was a message to smaller, non-aligned countries: join us, and we will protect you from Western-backed plots. The impact of its protection of the Assad regime extended beyond the Middle East, as countries in Africa and Central Asia found Moscow’s ability to defend an allied regime from internal turmoil and collapse reassuring. However, all of this has collapsed, leaving only the question of whether Putin has anything left to protect his pledges except for nuclear weapons.
Starting in 2025, if there is no U.S.-Russian understanding (or any form of truce and temporary accommodation), the second battle, paralleling the Iranian nuclear issue, will be the dismantling of Russian influence outside the Mediterranean (mainly Africa) as well as in Ukraine, which will remain the main arena for confrontation. The recent strategic agreement between Russia and Iran reflects these apocalyptic possibilities for both countries. For Tehran, there is no need to analyze or foresee the future, given what it considers to be a prevailing Twelver Shiite narrative circulating in propaganda and media platforms, portraying Israel’s assistance in the “victory of the Sufyani” in the Levant.
Nadav Shtraukler, a political strategist who has worked closely with Netanyahu on the fluctuations of the Middle East, observes, “If we consider this a film, we haven’t yet reached the final scene.”
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