The recent unrest in Suweida province in Syria has shown that the situation in the country remains far from resolved. While Syria has dropped from the headlines, the events in Suweida and beyond indicate that significant parts of the population in the regime-controlled parts of Syria are far from reconciled to the prospect of continuing to live under the rule of the Assad family. The country remains divided into areas of control, and with none of the issues that triggered the civil war in 2011 resolved.

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What is the current Israeli interest in Syria, and what should Israel be seeking from allies and partners in terms of the diplomacy on Syria? Israel's primary goal in Syria is the halting of the advance of Iranian influence and capacity in the country.

From an Israeli point of view, the current diplomatic situation in Syria – in which the regime remains isolated by the West, and without major reconstruction efforts underway from Western companies or states – is the ideal background for the continued prosecution of the Israeli military efforts against Iranian entrenchment and consolidation on Syrian soil.

Thus, Israel should use all available diplomatic channels to encourage the West to maintain its firm stance on Resolution 2254 and the continued isolation of the Assad regime. If Assad succeeds in ending his isolation and normalizing relations with the West, it is a near inevitability that at a certain point, US pressure on Israel would begin to induce it to cease its military campaign on Syrian soil, on the grounds that the conflict has finished, Syria is now a normal actor on the international stage, etc.

Similarly, the continued de facto partition of Syria is a clear Israeli interest. The control by the US and its Kurdish allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces constitutes an incomplete but significant barrier to Iranian freedom of movement and action between Iraq and Syria. Because of the presence of this entity, which controls around 30% of Syria's territory, the Iranians have only one route between Iraq and Syria, namely the al-Qaim/Albukamal border crossing at Syria's southeastern tip. In the event of war, the limited maneuverability of Iranian forces and their proxies would offer an advantage to Israel, which could swiftly disable the border crossing and the roads leading westwards from it. Thus, Israel should use its diplomatic representations and capacities to seek to induce the US and its allies to remain in Syria.

Even the Sunni Islamist, Turkish-dominated enclave in the northwest of the country offers an advantage to Israel in that its presence keeps the regime weakened, prevents it from focusing on the reconquest of the southeast and prevents the regime from extending its rule across the country and thus normalizing its situation. Thus, Israel should encourage Turkey in the direction of continued opposition to the Assad regime, and maintenance of its area of control in Syria.

At the same time, there is currently no realistic prospect for the fall of the regime or a process of political transition. Nor is there an obvious alternative to the regime. Extensive contacts and representations to the Syrian opposition are thus without purpose.

Regarding the "war between wars," while there have certainly been achievements, the available evidence suggests that the tactics employed have been insufficient to deal with the reality of the penetration of the Syrian state by Iran, and the extent to which large parts of the machinery and organs of the Syrian regime state are now either working in close cooperation with or are under the control of the Iranians.

The Iranians are closely involved in the vital drug production sector, in arms procurement, and even as recently revealed in the area of chemical weapons production, as well as in myriad other areas. To adequately develop responses, Israel must first internalize this reality.

Following this, the choice may well lie between an escalation and broadening of the target base for the air campaign, to include targets unambiguously associated with the Assad regime, or acceptance of a situation in which a large part of the Iranian project remains 'out of bounds' to Israel, enabling the Iranians to continue to consolidate and entrench themselves in Syria, as long as they do so while sheltering behind a regime flag of convenience.

It may also, unfortunately, be the case that Israeli air power alone will not be sufficient to address the issue of the full dimensions of Iranian ambitions in Syria. Cooperation with other forces in the country, most centrally the US and its local clients the SDF (possibly even elements within regime-controlled areas such as the clients with whom Israel worked in the pre-2018 period), will prove necessary.

So, Syria, in 2023, remains a crucial and central arena in the contest between Israel and the Iran-led regional project. A renewed focus, and probably a broadening and deepening of the scope of Israeli activity in the country, are required to adequately address this reality. The preservation of the current diplomatic situation with regard to the country, and increased boldness and flexibility regarding the tactics to be adopted, are prerequisites for success.

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Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi movement (also known as Ansar Allah) launched two ballistic missiles at the United Arab Emirates on Jan. 24, which were shot down by US-made Patriot missile interceptors. This was the Houthis' second attack on the UAE in January; On Jan. 17, three foreign workers (two Indians and a Pakistani) were killed in a Houthi drone attack. The three were employees of ADNOC, the UAE's national oil company. The earlier attack coincided with a Houthi missile launch on southern Saudi Arabia, in which two people were wounded.

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These attacks represent a significant escalation, deriving from the ongoing face-off in Yemen between forces loyal to the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, supported by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the Iran-supported Houthis.

Al-Jazeera quoted Houthi Information Minister Dhaifallah Qasim Saleh al-Shami as stating that the purpose of the Jan. 17 attack was "to teach them a lesson, to stop their involvement and participation in the Saudi-led coalition [in Yemen]."

The Houthi aggression against the UAE follows significant gains made in recent weeks by the Hadi government in Yemen, specifically in disputed Shabwa province in southern Yemen. All 17 districts of Shabwa are now under the control of the UAE- and Saudi-supported government forces. Located in the middle of the country and adjoining Marib province, Shabwa is the third largest province in Yemen. With it, government forces control of a large part of Yemen's southern coastline. In addition, Shabwa contains significant oil and gas fields, and has two ports available for use in energy export. One of these, Balhaf, has a liquefied natural gas facility.

The offensive now looks to continue in the oil-rich Marib province, the main contested territory between the two sides. To the west of Marib lies Sanaa province and the Houthi-controlled capital city.

As al-Shami's statement indicates, the latest attacks should be seen as a Houthi/Iranian response to these gains and an effort to raise the stakes to a point where the UAE folds and abandons its current effective support for the anti-Iran axis in Yemen.

What is the nature of this Emirati strategy, and what explains the timing of the latest Iranian/Houthi escalation? And what should be the Western and Israeli response to the latest attacks?

Current Emirati strategy in Yemen: War by proxy

As was widely reported in regional and international media, the UAE removed its conventional forces from Yemen in mid-2019. The withdrawal came as Iran renewed aggression against Emirati-flagged tankers in Gulf waters and against Saudi oil infrastructure. In addition, the UAE sought to revive dialogue with Tehran during the summer of 2019, and the withdrawal from Yemen was widely reported as reflecting this turn in policy.

This description of events, however, was somewhat simplistic. The Emirati withdrawal was partial, and as is now clear, represented a transition from engagement with a clumsy, Saudi-led strategy of direct intervention to a more sophisticated approach of partnering with and supporting local forces.

Analyst James M. Dorsey accurately understood the nature of the Emirati withdrawal, describing it in August 2019 as "a fine-tuning rather than a reversal of the UAE's determination to contain Iran and thwart political Islam."

So, with which Yemeni forces are the UAE partnering?

The UAE has remained in close partnership with the Southern Transitional Council (STC), an organization that seeks the reconstitution of the former Democratic Republic of South Yemen (DRSY) and whose leadership traces back to the leadership elite of that state.

The historic DRSY, of course, was a strongly pro-Soviet state, known mainly for its domiciling of leftist terror groups in the 1970s. Little remains of this orientation today, but the STC is a coherent and well-organized structure based on the more modernized southern Yemeni population.

In recent months, the critical focus for the UAE and its associated forces has been Shabwa province. UAE personnel have been directly engaged in training a force known as the Shabwani Elite Forces. As its name suggests, this force recruits from among the population of the province. Mohammed Salem al-Qumishi commands it. Consisting of around 6,000 fighters, this unit has been seen carrying the flag of the DRSY, reported The New York Times in 2017.

In addition, Abu Dhabi has backed the 30,000 strong Giants Brigade, commanded by Brig.-Gen. Abu Zarah al-Mahrami. His original group, trained and supported by the UAE armed forces, was later joined by the National Resistance (formerly the Republican Guards of the Saleh regime in Yemen), commanded by Brig.-Gen. Tariq Saleh, son of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Many of the fighters of the Giants Brigade are Salafis, but the south Yemeni composition of this unit should also be noted, and at the command level it has good relations with the STC.

In Shabwa province, Hadi appointed a governor with good relations with the STC and the UAE, that proved significant. Sheikh Awadh bin al-Wazir al-Awlaki replaced Mohammed Saleh bin Adio. The latter is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood-associated Islah Party. He was opposed to UAE influence and associated with Saudi interests. His replacement served to unify the UAE-associated forces.

In an offensive launched at the beginning of January, these forces successfully drove the Houthis out of Shabwa province, with air support from the Saudi-led coalition. The Iran-backed forces were forced to abandon the areas of Ain, Usailan and Bayhan and to retreat to the nearby provinces of Bayda and Marib. The recapture of Shabwa serves to reverse the dynamic of the war in Yemen. The next phase is likely to be an effort to clear the Houthis from the western part of Marib province, located directly east of the capital, Sanaa.

The Shabwa gains come after the Houthis seized an Emirati ship off the port of Hodeidah, claiming that it was carrying weapons.

The gains made by Emirati-associated forces in Shabwa represent a significant turn in the dynamic of the war in Yemen. Hence, it is unsurprising that the Iranians and their allies seek to reverse this process.

The 10-day Shabwa operation results from an effective partnering strategy with local forces by the UAE in southern Yemen. From an ideological point of view, the partnership might appear a strange one – the monarchists of the UAE, the secular socialist remnants of the DRSY, now organized in the STC, and the Salafi rank and file fighters of the Giants Brigades. However, from this point of view, the alliance is no more unlikely than the United States partnering with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)-associated forces in the war against Islamic State – a partnership that also proved to be a successful and durable arrangement.

This deft association with local forces is a key element of successful counterinsurgency. The UAE appears to have made considerable advances in this regard over the last half-decade.

What will happen in the next phase is crucial. It is a pressing interest for the West and Israel that the Houthis and Iran should be kept out of southern Yemen and, most importantly, prevented from taking control of Hodeidah Port and, further south, of the Bab el Mandeb Strait. Control of the latter would allow Tehran to choke off maritime traffic between the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

Western coverage of the Yemen war has tended to focus on the humanitarian issue. While this is undoubtedly important, it does not follow that the strategic problems cease to be urgent. It is imperative that the government cause in Yemen not be defeated.

Incensed by recent government gains, the Iranians seek to intimidate the UAE into reversing course. At this juncture, it is therefore vital that both the United States and – through quieter channels – Israel offer explicit support for the UAE's cause.

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The return of the Houthis to the US list of designated terror organizations and the resumption of active support for coalition efforts in Yemen would be helpful first steps.

Dr. Jonathan Spyer is the author of "Days of the Fall: A Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars," and "The Transforming Fire: the Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict." He is a regular contributor to "Jane's Intelligence Review," has published in leading journals and media outlets, including "Middle East Quarterly," "The Times (of London)," "Foreign Policy," "The Wall Street Journal" and "The Guardian. He is also a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Featured on JNS.org, this article was first published by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

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This is the latest phase in an operation that has brought the Turkish armed forces to 30 kilometers (18 miles) inside Iraqi Kurdish territory. Operation Claw-Tiger was launched on June 17, following Turkish air attacks on targets Ankara identified as associated with the PKK at a number of sites in the Kurdish Regional Government-controlled area. The areas destroyed in the airstrikes included a number of Yezidi villages in the Mount Sinjar area. A refugee camp at Makhmur was also targeted.

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Elements of the 1st and 5th Commando Brigades, both elite Turkish airborne formations, are taking part in the operation on the ground. Iranian artillery shelled the Choman area of the Qandil Mountains on June 16th, in a move widely interpreted as supportive of the Turkish offensive. Iranian cooperation with Turkey derives from immediate shared interests: both countries have restive and alienated Kurdish populations living in geographically distinct areas.

Both wish to see the weakening of both the PKK and the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq. The PKK originated among Turkish Kurds, but also has a franchise among Iranian Kurds (PJAK). Beyond the Kurdish issue, Iran has huge hydrocarbon reserves, while Turkey has a need for oil and gas. As a result, Turkey has been assisting Iran in avoiding US sanctions.

Turkey's ongoing gas imports from Iran were suspended on March 31, 2020, due to a PKK operation that temporarily disabled the pipeline. Supplies are set to recommence this month. Iran and Turkey both seek the end of the US-led security structure in the region, and are similarly opposed to the various allies in the region of that structure. Hence, there is at present a great deal of common ground between the two countries.

The PKK is a pan-Kurdish organization, and the fighters in Qandil come from across the Kurdish area. The organization was formed in Turkey, however, and its top leadership remains dominated by Turkish Kurds. Despite the considerable dimensions of the current offensive, Kurdish sources do not consider that it represents the beginning of a long-awaited general Turkish attempt to destroy the PKK in Qandil.

Rather, it is seen as continuing an established pattern of ongoing Turkish operations into Kurdish controlled northern Iraq, conducted without inquiry as to the wishes of the local Kurdish authorities, and intended to establish a widening Turkish military infrastructure in the area adjoining the border.

Turkish media reports largely concur. According to a recent article in the Hurriyet newspaper, 12 permanent observation posts had already been established in the KRG controlled area in the period between 2016 and the present operation.

Hurriyet quoted Turkish security officials who depicted the PKK as seeking to establish a corridor from their forces on the Iranian border in Suleimania province, via Sinjar, to the Kurdish controlled area in northeast Syria. In this regard, it is worth noting that both PJAK and other Iranian Kurdish military groups opposed to the Iranian regime, such as the Iranian Kurdish Democratic Party (PDKI) maintain bases and positions inside KRG territory, adjoining the border with Iran.

Ankara considers the YPG (Peoples' Protection Units), which is the main force in this area, to be a franchise of the PKK. The Turkish operation, according to Hurriyet, is intended to break this corridor from Syria to the Iranian Kurds. It should be noted that the current deployment of Turkish forces is not sufficiently deep to cut any such notional line.

The Turkish newspaper likened the current effort to previous Turkish operations in northern Syria in 2016 and 2019 which resulted in Turkish occupation of two non-contiguous blocs of territory along the Syrian Turkish border. Turkey hopes to expand the easternmost of these areas, which cuts directly into Kurdish controlled northeast Syria.

Kurdish sources, meanwhile, suggest an additional, domestic political motivation for the current operation. They note the dire state of the Turkish economy, and the consequent loss of public support indicated in a number of recent polls, for the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its main ally, the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP). According to this perspective, the Turkish operation is intended to rally the government's political base through its fear of and hostility to Kurdish aspirations and to distract from socio-economic failure.

Read more: Erdogan stuns religious world, declares Hagia Sophia a mosque

This element notwithstanding, Operation Claw Tiger fits into an arc of Turkish military assertiveness currently extending from northern Iraq, across northern Syria, going down via the Mediterranean and via Israel, and reaching Libya. Turkey also has a military presence to the south and east of this area, in Qatar, in Sudan and in Somalia. In the Mediterranean, Turkey is challenging Greece, Cyprus and Israel for the gas riches beneath the water.

Via its SADAT military private company, Ankara is deeply engaged in support of Hamas against Israel. SADAT, sometimes referred to as Erdogan's "Revolutionary Guards," is involved in other, similarly more murky ends of Turkey's regional assertion. The company, founded by the Turkish President's military advisor General Adnan Tanriverdi, took responsibility for the training of Syrian Islamist and jihadi rebels under Turkey's flag. These forces were subsequently deployed against the Syrian Kurds in 2019-20.

They are now engaged in Libya, fighting against the Libyan National Army of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. SADAT, incidentally, is currently also involved in training Sunni Islamist forces loyal to the Government of National Accord in Libya. The Africa Intelligence website and Sharq al Awsat newspaper reported this week that the Turkish company has signed an agreement to this end with Security Side, a Libyan security company headed by one Fawzi Abu Kattaf, a Palestinian Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood supporter with close ties to Qatar.

So, what does this flurry of overt and semi-covert Turkish regional military assertion amount to? Can a common theme be established?

In Syria and Iraq, obviously, Ankara is on the face of it challenging its old PKK enemy. But there are additional layers. Erdogan was first to support the Syrian Sunni Arab insurgency. He has proved its last and most faithful ally. Western states, discouraged by the insurgency's Islamist and jihadi nature, peeled away from it years ago. Turkey, untroubled by these loyalties because it shares them, has remained.

The enclaves in northern Syria do serve to bisect the area of Kurdish control, and in Afrin a large-scale ethnic cleansing of Kurds has taken place. But Turkey is now pouring money and forces into northwest Syria, in an effort to shore up this enclave and ensure its semi permanence. This is not only about opposing Kurdish aspirations. It is about establishing a corner of Syria intended to be forever Turkish (and Sunni Islamist). The Turkish Lira has now been introduced as the currency in these areas, to replace the devastated Syrian pound. The Turkish postal service has even opened branches in a number of towns in northwest Syria.

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In Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Erdogan wants to lay claim to the cause of recovering al-Aqsa from non-Muslim custodianship. Covert military support to Hamas runs alongside active soft power efforts. These are managed by the government aid agency TIKA. Tens of millions of dollars are spent each year, via such projects as the Turkish Culture Center on Hashalshelet Street in Jerusalem's Old City.

In the Mediterranean, the interests, of course, are related to Turkey's need for gas supplies. But the bald assertiveness of laying claim, together with the client government in Tripoli of a massive swathe of the east Mediterranean and thus stymying plans by Israel, Greece and Cyprus to pipe gas to Europe has the additional advantage for Turkey of depicting itself as the regional dominant force.

In Libya, finally, again geo-strategic and ideological aspects coincide: Serraj is kept in place by Muslim Brotherhood associated forces. He represents a last remnant of the hoped for alliance which Erdogan had thought to lead, before the military coup in Egypt of 2013, the departure of the En Nahda party from power in Tunisia and the revival of Bashar Assad's fortunes in Syria.

So, all the way from Zakho Province in north west Iraq, to Tripoli on Libya's African coast, assisted by Qatari direct financial investment, Turkey is flexing its muscles. It is an independent, ambitious foreign policy, without the slightest nod to the supposedly 'pro-Western' and 'pro-NATO' orientation that Turkey's Western apologists like to recall. It has its origin in a combination of nationalist assertiveness, tinged with Ottoman-era nostalgia, and the ambitions of MB-style Sunni political Islam. This is a potent mix, which is not required to place itself before the judgement of the Turkish voter until 2023. As of now, its main impact is an arc of destabilization, stretching across land and sea from Iraq to Libya.

Dr. Jonathan Spyer is an expert on Syria, Iraq, radical Islamic groups, and the Kurds.

This article was originally published by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

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On the tactical level, if a Turkish invasion of Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria is launched, this will have the likely effect of delivering a large part of northeast Syria into the hands of the Assad regime and its Iranian allies. This is because the Syrian Kurds, if faced with a choice between Assad or the Sunni jihadi forces currently fighting under the Turkish flag, will choose the former. Assad and the Iranians will suppress all independent Kurdish political and cultural activity. But they will almost certainly not carry out wholesale ethnic cleansing of Kurdish populations.

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The Turks and their Sunni Islamist allies cleansed 200,000 Kurds from their homes in the Afrin Kurdish enclave, which Turkey destroyed in January 2018. The Kurds, with good reason, believe that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan plans a similar fate for the Kurds of the northeast. So they are likely to fight to hold the Turks back in the north for as long as possible while arranging a rapid surrender to Assad to enable the Syrian regime to take control of the areas further south. The result: Syria east of the Euphrates, currently an American protectorate and a barrier against Iran and ISIS, will be divided up between the Turks/Islamists in the north and Assad/the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the south. The southern part would then form part of the famous Iranian "land bridge" to the Mediterranean, Lebanon, and the Quneitra Crossing (Syria's border with the Israeli Golan Heights).

On a strategic level, the American move confirms that the current US administration is not interested in heading an alliance of regional forces against Iranian expansionism or Sunni political Islam, as some had fondly believed. Rather, the administration, like its predecessor, is in the business of managing imperial decline (albeit with very different rhetoric from that of the Obama administration). This will be a lesson well learned by both allies and enemies of the US in the Middle East.

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