How Israel's overreach in Syria could be its downfall

A year has passed since the fall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Many of the foreign players in Syria were attending the Doha Forum as Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Damascus fell like a house of cards to advancing rebel forces. 

I was watching Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, as he took in the news from a television screen. Even the poker face of the world’s longest-serving foreign secretary could not hide what he was thinking. His face fell like a stone.

On stage as a “newsmaker”, Lavrov became irritably averse to being questioned about the news and demanded he talk about Ukraine instead.

No sooner had Abu Mohammad al-Jolani taken off his fatigues and become Ahmed al-Sharaa than the interim Syrian president was preaching peace.

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