After the withdrawal of US troops from the Kurdish areas of Syria, the Jewish state deplores an erosion of the deterrent capacity of Washington.
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Analysis. Benyamin Netanyahu sent a reminder to his 'Friend' Donald Trump, Sunday, October 27, congratulating him for the raid by US special forces against the head of the Islamic State (IS) organization, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, killed the night before in Syria. The Israeli prime minister intended to dissuade Mr. Trump from claiming victory too quickly. "It's an important step, but part of a longer battle," he thought, by hiring the US president to continue the fight "Against terrorist organizations and terrorist states. "
Under the term "terrorist states", Netanyahu has only one target: Iran, Israel's main regional rival. The Prime Minister is alarmed: the death of the jihadist leader should not encourage Mr. Trump to continue a withdrawal of US forces from Syria, announced October 6. Seen from Israel, such a withdrawal gives a blank check to Iran to extend its influence to the whole of this neighboring country.
For more than a year, the US administration claimed that its military was deployed in Syria to fight the IS, but also to make room for the presence of Iran. They were a corner embedded in Tehran's axis of influence, stretching from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon, to the Israeli borders. Supporting the Syrian Kurdish forces, which lead the main battle against the IS, they prevented the Damascus regime from resuming its entire territory, at the end of the civil war that began in 2011. They also hampered the passage by road of commercial goods and military equipment dispatched by Tehran to its allies, which Israel is closely monitoring.
This goal is not completely abandoned. As early as October 21, Trump claimed that US troops would remain in eastern Syria, where they were monitoring roads Tehran wanted to use. This will be the case on the Jordanian border, "At the request of Israel and Jordan". Similarly at the Iraqi border and in the Euphrates Valley, where Mr Trump hopes the Kurds will contribute to "Secure the oil". Washington does not want these fields to fall too quickly into the hands of the regime and its Iranian ally.