Mossad warned Damascus. Washington was mediating. Syria denied the deployment and gave assurances.
Then Israel bombed the airbase anyway.
Veteran war correspondent Elijah Magnier thinks the interesting part is not the strike itself, but who Netanyahu chose to address afterward.
He could have said Israel spotted Syrian pilots, Sukhois or a rebuilt air force and decided to destroy them. Instead, he publicly framed the strike around Turkey.
Magnier's reading: the real audience was Israeli voters.
Because he does not believe Netanyahu actually wants a war with Turkey.
Turkey has a million-man NATO military, ballistic missiles, serious air defences and one of the region's most capable drone fleets. It also happens to be a country Israel has continued doing business with throughout the Gaza war.
So publicly, the two sides trade threats. Privately, the trade keeps moving.
And Turkey's military presence in Syria is hardly new. Ankara has been operating there since 2016. Israel tolerated it for years.
Magnier's argument is that the problem was never Turkey being in Syria, but what Turkey might now be doing there.
His broader theory is even more uncomfortable for Israel: Syria's collapse created a power vacuum, but the vacuum is no longer necessarily working in Israel's favour.
That also explains why Magnier believes Israel has little interest in a real deal with Damascus. Because a sovereign Syria eventually raises the Golan Heights.
Then comes Iran.
Magnier says Turkey has become Tehran's most important route around US sanctions, while Ankara has consistently refused to enforce Washington's unilateral sanctions.
His logic is brutally practical: why sacrifice billions in trade and a strategic neighbour to satisfy a U.S. president who may have only two years left?
And if Iran is being invited into a regional security pact, Magnier thinks Tehran is unlikely to show up merely to become another signature on somebody else's document.
Iran survived the war. It controls the pressure point at Hormuz.
If it joins a new regional security architecture, his argument is simple: Iran won't be signing the rules.
Iran will be writing them.
@ejmalrai
