Syrian President, Ahmad al-Sharaa aka “former” Al-Qeida leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani is in Washington D.C. for. meetings in the hopes of anchoring a security agreement with Israel. This of course is part of President Trump’s broader vision in the Middle East, one that will see Saudi Arabia sign a normalization agreement with Israel.
The immediate concerns of the developing security agreement between Israel and Syria are really two points. Israel’s retention of the summit of Mount Hermon - essentially the tallest place in the Middle East west of the Euphrates and the safety of the Druze population in southern Syria.
One of the ways Trump wants to handle the Druze issue is to establish a US base in Damascus that will oversee Syria’s demilitarization of southern Syria. The base would also give assurances to Israel that the Syrian threat would be neutralized, and therefore, the IDF would not need to be on the Hermon summit.
All of this is, of course, predicated that the Al-Sharaa regime will either stay in power or even play ball to begin with. Trump’s team wants a “new” Middle East, but the strategy is more about balancing the present powers off one another. This is not much different than Kissinger’s philosophy. After all, if the US were to allow Israel to actually win and control the ground, it would not gain the sort of leverage it needs to have control in the Middle East.
Trump wants peace in the Middle East, but not for the altruistic reasons he projects. Behind the scenes, he has made it clear that his goal is to open an alternative trade route from the East through the UAE and Saudi Arabia, ending in either Haifa or Ashdod before going to Europe. This will bypass China’s Belt and Road initiative and the Houthis’ control of choke points in the Red Sea.
With this in mind, Trump needs Israel to play ball with Syria, despite it being ruled by an Islamist and seeming Turkish puppet. Trump’s team is hoping that if Israel can be appeased and sign on, then Saudi Arabia will be next. The problem with Trump’s vision is that it is based on illusions. Jihadists do not stop being Jihadists overnight, if ever, and at the end of the day, after the last two years, Israeli society has changed. The old assumption that the force of mutual interests would provide safety along Israel’s borders has given way to the need to actually control the opposing side’s territory indefinitely. Trump’s vision is about to run head on into the reality of Middle Eastern geopolitics and religious ideology