The world will soon be asking whether the attack on Iran worked.

Every damage assessment, every cable news countdown clock, every retired general with a television booking is focused on the same question. For Americans watching this unfold, it is tempting to ask the same thing. It is the wrong question, and we have been here before.

In December 2024, Syria’s Assad regime collapsed with a speed that stunned everyone who had watched it survive fourteen years of civil war. 

The question that consumed American attention was: how did it fall so fast? That was interesting. It was not important.

The important question was where Syria would land. And Syria landed in a Turkish-Islamist orbit, with the organization that grew from al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise now governing Damascus, and Turkey and Qatar shaping the new architecture of Syrian power.

Nobody was asking that question in real time. Everyone was watching........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)