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Syria: Second on the List, Broken by War, Fallen in 2024

Evidence rating: CONFIRMED that Syria was second on the list General Wesley Clark described, that the United States struck the Syrian government in 2017 and 2018 and kept troops in Syria for years, that the Assad government fell on December 8, 2024, and that Israel then took and has refused to leave Syrian ground. STRONG that breaking Syria was a written Israeli objective from 1982 on, and that Syria's destruction served Israel's aim of cutting Iran off from Hezbollah.

In one paragraph​

Syria was "Israel's primary target on the Eastern front," in the words of the 1982 Yinon essay, which expected it to "fall apart" into Alawi, Sunni, and Druze statelets. The 1996 Clean Break paper for Benjamin Netanyahu called for "weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria" and "striking at select targets in Syria proper." After 9/11 it was second on the Pentagon list: "starting with Iraq, and then Syria." After the Iraq invasion a senior U.S. official said Syria would be next. It took longer than five years. A war that began in 2011, fed with American money and weapons, ended with Assad's fall on December 8, 2024, and Israeli troops on Mount Hermon. As economist Jeffrey Sachs put it, the U.S. "has by now led or sponsored wars against ... Syria (CIA operation during 2010's)."

On paper for Israel, then for America​

  • 1982, Yinon: "Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi'ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan." See Yinon: key passages.
  • 1996, A Clean Break: "Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria," including "striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper." Its author's companion paper spoke of "expediting the chaotic collapse." See A Clean Break: key passages.
  • January 2001, Wurmser: "strike fatally, not merely disarm, the centers of radicalism in the regions of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran and Gaza."
  • September 20, 2001, PNAC to President Bush: demand that "Iran and Syria immediately cease all military, financial, and political support for Hezbollah," and if they refuse, "consider appropriate measures of retaliation."
  • September 30, 2001, Rumsfeld to Bush: "Syria out of Lebanon" (see Rumsfeld's memo).
  • Fall 2001, the memo Clark described: "starting with Iraq, and then Syria" (Democracy Now, March 2, 2007).

The paper trail of regime change, 2003 to 2017​

One researcher laid out the steps in December 2024, the week Damascus fell (@TheoGregoire on X, December 6, 2024); the entries are his summary:

  • 2003: "Syria will be next," John Bolton, then U.S. Under Secretary of State, to the BBC after the Iraq invasion.
  • 2003–2005: the Syria Accountability Act, which The Nation tied to the Clean Break line on striking targets in Syria proper.
  • 2006: a U.S. embassy cable, released by WikiLeaks, on destabilizing the Syrian government through sectarian tensions.
  • 2008: a RAND Corporation study on how to destabilize Syria using its sectarian divisions.
  • 2009: U.S. funding for Syrian opposition groups through the Middle East Partnership Initiative.
  • 2011: former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas: "These rebellions in Syria were planned in Washington."
  • 2012–2017: Timber Sycamore, the CIA program funding "moderate rebels," at more than $1 billion a year.

Other records point the same way. Journalist Seymour Hersh reported that "the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's arsenals into Syria" after the Libya war (as quoted by @amborin on X, November 10, 2025). Leaked emails of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton included an Israeli intelligence adviser's assessment that "The fall of the House of Assad could well ignite a sectarian war between the Shiites and the majority Sunnis of the region drawing in Iran, which, in the view of Israeli commanders would not be a bad thing for Israel and its Western allies" (@Partisangirl on X, December 29, 2025). Colonel Richard Black, former head of the Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon, described how the U.S. sponsored armed groups against Syria and punished its people with sanctions (Li Jingjing on X, February 17, 2023).

Israel's view: "Let them both bleed"​

Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York, told The New York Times in September 2013: "This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don't want one to win -- we'll settle for a tie,....Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that's the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there's no real threat from Syria" (quoted by Common Dreams, October 10, 2015).

That is the Yinon method stated by an Israeli diplomat: a neighbor bleeding in civil war is no threat.

U.S. forces in Syria​

  • April 2017 and April 13, 2018. President Trump: "a short time ago, I ordered the United States Armed Forces to launch precision strikes on targets associated with the chemical weapons capabilities of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad" (White House, April 13, 2018). Critics noted that the U.S. and its allies bombed "the night before international inspectors arrive" (RT op-ed).
  • October 27, 2023. "US attacks facilities in Syria linked to Iran, Pentagon says" (Al Jazeera English on X).
  • The troops. Critics describe U.S. forces holding Syria's oil fields and an exclusion zone around the Al Tanf base. Journalist Patrick Henningsen argued in January 2024 that their real missions included holding Syria's oil and preventing "a common market between Iran, Iraq, Syria & Lebanon," which "also benefits Israel's strategic objectives" (@21WIRE on X, January 10, 2024).
  • "Approximately 2,000." On December 19, 2024, days after Assad fell, the Pentagon's spokesman said: "We have been briefing you that there are approximately 900 US troops in Syria," then, "I learned today that in fact there are approximately 2,000 US troops in Syria" (@Osint613 on X). Journalist Jeremy Scahill asked: "How does the Pentagon "recently learn" that it has more than double the number of US troops in Syria than it claimed to have a day earlier?" This is the pattern of the whole list: the public is told a smaller number, and the truth comes out later.

December 8, 2024: the fall, and Israel moves in​

On the day the Assad government fell, a U.S. defense official said: "We have nothing to provide regarding the recent events in Syria ... the US mission in Syria remains unchanged" (ABC's Luis Martinez on X, December 8, 2024). The Jerusalem Post reported: "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flees Damascus, whereabouts unknown" (Jerusalem Post, December 8, 2024). The same day one account posted Clark's list with the words: "7 countries. Only Iran is left" (@ivan_8848 on X).

Israel moved into the demilitarized buffer zone on the Syrian side of the Golan and onto Mount Hermon. Haaretz's editor-in-chief, Aluf Benn, wrote three days later that Netanyahu "seems to be angling for a legacy as the leader who expanded Israel's borders from Gaza in the south to Syria and the Golan Heights in the north" (Haaretz, December 11, 2024). On September 23, 2026, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said: "We will not withdraw from Mount Hermon and the security zone" (Times of Israel, September 23, 2026). The 1996 Clean Break paper had rejected "land for peace" on the Golan; thirty years later Israel holds more of Syria than it did then. See Greater Israel.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, as journalist Ben Swann summed it up, "Syria is now led by a former al-Qaeda leader" (Ben Swann on X, September 14, 2026).

Why Syria mattered: the road to Iran​

The Clean Break paper said it plainly: the point of Iraq and Syria was "severing the Shia-Syrian-Iranian axis," the supply line from Iran through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. With Iraq broken in 2003 and Syria's government gone in 2024, only Iran was left standing. Six months after Assad fell, Israel and the United States bombed Iran. See Iran.

Status: Bashar al-Assad is alive. Alon Pinkas is alive. Israel Katz is alive. Aluf Benn is alive. John Bolton is alive. Wesley Clark is alive. Donald Trump is alive. Nothing on this page states that any living person committed a crime.

Sources​

Research captures: twitter/t36__v421.md through t36__v432.md

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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