Twice in the past week, members of the Iran-Russia-Syria alliance challenged the U.S. and its allies. On February 7, a formation of pro-Assad units—apparently led by Iranian officers and comprising local Iran-backed militias, Afghan troops imported by Tehran, Syrian government troops, Russian mercenaries, and Russian-backed “Islamic State hunters”—crossed the Euphrates river and opened fire on the U.S. backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). They thereby violated the “deconfliction” agreement prohibiting them from operating east of the Euphrates. Then, Iran sent a drone into Israeli airspace. Michael Eisenstadt and Michael Knights argue that the Islamic Republic is deliberately probing its adversaries and taking stock of their reactions:

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) appears to have spearheaded both of these recent provocations, in line with its long track record of conducting drone operations inside Syria and its leading role in coordinating the Assad regime’s offensive operations south of Deir Ezzour. The question is how the two tests are related, if at all.

[Furthermore], both incidents occurred against a background of growing Iranian confidence that the Syria intervention has saved the Assad regime, limited the United States to a tenuous foothold in the northeast [of the country], and allowed Tehran to establish a forward base of operations against Israel. The IRGC is now able to collect intelligence on Israel directly, reinforce and resupply Hizballah by land, and potentially transform the Golan Heights into an active military front.

Moreover, while Syrian and Hizballah drones have flown over Israel in the past, this is the first known incursion by an Iranian drone. . . . [T]he incident demonstrates that Iran is now willing and able to use Syria as a base for operations inside Israel, marking a new phase in tensions between the two adversaries. . . .

Given the likelihood that Iran will continue testing American and Israeli redlines in Syria, the Trump administration should pursue a more coherent approach. [One priority is] policing U.S. redlines more consistently. The United States might consider resuming strikes in response to future chemical-weapons incidents; these could justifiably be broadened to include nearby Iranian or proxy elements supporting Assad regime forces. Moreover, strikes on high-value Iranian targets not directly connected to such provocations would further complicate Iran’s calculations and make U.S. strikes less predictable. . . .

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.