Trump’s envoy warns against escalation after Israeli strike on Syrian base

The Trump administration just did something it almost never does: publicly criticize Israel. Tom Barrack, the US Special Presidential Envoy for Syria and Iraq, condemned Israeli airstrikes on Syria’s Abu al-Duhur Airbase on August 18, calling them an “unnecessary escalation” that risks destabilizing a region already running on fumes of goodwill. The strikes, which involved eight separate sorties targeting runways and storage facilities, produced no reported casualties but plenty of diplomatic fallout. The airbase sits roughly 40 to 70 kilometers from the Turkish border. That proximity is the crux of the problem. Why a Syrian airbase matters to three countries at once Israel reportedly justified the strikes based on intelligence suggesting a potential Turkish military buildup near the base. Barrack dismantled that rationale on August 22, confirming that the claims of imminent Turkish troop movements were simply untrue. The intelligence was flawed, and the strikes proceeded anyway. That’s a particularly awkward sequence of events for Washington, which has been trying to thread a needle between supporting Israel’s security concerns and nurturing a new diplomatic opening with Syria’s g...