Long-standing covert ties between Israel and Turkey are becoming increasing overt. The Turkish prime minister is to visiting Israel this month, and Turkey is investing several hundred million dollars to purchase Israeli UAVs.

With their pull-out from Lebanon essentially complete, the Syrians seem to be preparing to redeploy many of the troops to their frontier with Iraq. This would enable them to impose greater control on the frontier, which remains porous to groups supporting the Iraqi insurgency. It would also please the US and the new Iraqi government, and may be seen as a further step in the Younger Assad's efforts to improve ties with the US.