Since May, American forces in Syria have attacked a supply convoy of Iranian troops and Iran-backed militias and shot down two Iranian drones and one Syrian fighter jet. In each of these cases, Iran and its allies had first violated the U.S. zone of operations established by agreement with Russia; in two cases, aircraft directly attacked American troops. Tehran also fired ballistic missiles at Islamic State (IS) targets in the Euphrates River Valley, a move, Nader Uskowi writes, “signaling to all [Iran’s] opponents, including the United States and its allies, its intention to compete in the area after the Islamic State falls.” Thus, Uskowi argues, as IS is on the verge of crumbling, Washington must seek to thwart Iran’s plan to consolidate its influence throughout Syria:

Iran-led forces . . . will present arguably the greatest future threat to U.S. military personnel and interests in Syria. In the Iraq-Syria border region, Iran is executing a strategy centered on establishing a land bridge to Syria through Iraqi territory. Such a plan will inevitably cause direct conflict with U.S.-backed Sunni opposition forces. . . . [Their] big battles will thus be fought against the Shiite militias, led by Iranian special forces. . . .

The new battlespace in formerly IS-held territories . . . calls for a new U.S. policy, the chief component of which should be a strategy targeting Iran’s Qods Force and its Shiite militias. . . . Iranian strategy unmistakably focuses on defeating U.S.-supported opposition forces and pushing the United States out of Syria. Absent a new strategy that addresses Iran’s involvement in Syria, U.S. and allied forces could [do little more than] resort to self-defense tactics when under attack. In the process, such relative passivity could embolden Iran to raise the temperature in hopes of booting U.S. forces from the country. . . .

Iran-led forces are, with strong backing from Russia, already in control of Alawite-led western Syria. Their expansion into the Sunni-majority east and south could prolong the civil war and risk widening it further, . . . pitting major powers against each other. . . . Any attempt by Iran to extend the Sunni-Shiite conflict into those regions should be stopped in its tracks.

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.