Hal Brands
A great many actors had a hand in the fall of Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group that led the offensive; Turkey, which nurtured and supported HTS; the myriad Syrian groups and people who gave a hated tyrant a final push. But Assad’s fall was also the work of a dead man, Yahya Sinwar.
When Sinwar ordered Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023, he meant to revolutionize the Middle East. Today, the region is being remade, just not as Sinwar intended: An astonishingly successful Israeli offensive has left Hamas and the rest of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” in ruins, and has now claimed Assad as its latest victim.
The Hamas fighters who streamed into Israel on Oct. 7 were after more than an orgy of rape, kidnapping and murder. They also sought to shatter Israel’s security and start a multi-front war that would destroy the Jewish state.
For a time, it seemed to be working. Israel was sucked into a grinding, globally unpopular war in Gaza. Its northern territory was depopulated because of attacks by Lebanese Hezbollah. The Houthis of Yemen bankrupted the Israeli port of Eilat through attacks on Red Sea shipping. Iran fired missiles and drones at Israeli cities.
This was all seen, by many Israelis, as an existential challenge. But by revealing Israeli weaknesses, Sinwar ended up unleashing Israeli strengths.
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