As Islamist rebels barreled toward Damascus, prompting longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad to flee the country, President-elect Donald Trump offered the following advice: “This is not our fight. Do not get involved!” U.S. forces did not intervene in the brief conflict, but neither they nor their Israeli counterparts were idle.

The greatest danger to U.S. interests that might come from Assad’s collapse is a power vacuum. This power vacuum would form over the very same soil, with the very same actors, that led to the ISIS terrorist “caliphate” during the Obama administration.

So, while the rebels and Assad were struggling to decide who would hold the reins of power in Damascus, the U.S. acted to ensure that the answer would not be: ISIS.

On Sunday, U.S. aircraft dropped 140 munitions on 75 targets in Syria, U.S. Central Command announced. “The strikes against the ISIS leaders, operatives, and camps were conducted as part of the ongoing mission to disrupt, degrade, and defeat ISIS, in order to prevent the terrorist group from conducting external operations and to ensure that ISIS does not seek to take advantage of the current situation to reconstitute in central Syria,” they stated.

The U.S. military maintains some 900 troops in northeastern Syria, where a semi-autonomous Kurdish government maintains relatively good order and freedom, as well as along the Jordanian border. This U.S.-backed regional government is responsible for 9,000 ISIS fighters in detention centers, as well as tens of thousands of people confined in a refugee camp. The military presence is just enough to occupy the space, so that ISIS cannot reconstitute in the power vacuum.

Meanwhile, Israel also launched “dozens of precision airstrikes” in Syria, targeting the Assad regime’s chemical weapons capabilities as the regime dissolved. “What guides us is the security of the state of Israel and its citizens,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar. “Therefore we attacked strategic weapons, the residual chemical weapons capabilities, long-range missiles and rockets, so they won’t fall into the hands of radicals.” The Syrian rebels issued a statement saying they had no interest in the chemical weapons, which the Assad regime had often cruelly deployed against his own people.

Beyond the airstrikes, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) also crossed the border to occupy territory on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights on Sunday. The border between Syria and Israel features mountainous highlands that offer a strategic military advantage to whoever holds them. If Israel allowed Islamist extremists like Hezbollah to occupy the region, they could use it to launch rockets reaching far into Israel.

The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) has occupied a buffer zone along the border since a 1974 separation of forces agreement. However, this weekend Syrian rebels attacked at least four UNDOF positions in Syria, and the IDF helped them repel the attacks.

Israel has recently communicated to several rebel groups in Syria — which are closer to a salad than a faction — that any move towards the border violates the Israeli-Syrian truce and would lead to a forceful IDF response. An Israeli spokesman said the country is “not looking to permanently occupy more parts of Syria” and told the Biden administration it only planned to remain there a few days to a few weeks, until the security situation stabilizes.

“We send a hand of peace to all those beyond our border in Syria,” declared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “If we can establish neighborly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that’s our desire.”

Netanyahu added, “The collapse of the Assad regime … is the direct result of our forceful action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad’s main supporters. It set off a chain reaction of all those who want to free themselves from this tyranny and its oppression.” Perhaps that might help smooth over ideological differences and ease into diplomatic relations.

There are reasons to believe such diplomatic overtures may be necessary. A major element in the Turkey-backed rebel coalition that toppled Assad is Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization that merged with elements of al-Qaeda. Its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, descends from Syrians who escaped the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and said he first embraced Islamist extremism during the 2000 Palestinian war with Israel.

It remains to be seen whether the loose coalition that overthrew Assad will focus on rebuilding the country, or whether its jihadist elements will channel their energies into attacking Israel. At least for now, they are hoping to gain the world’s confidence by promising to protect religious and ethnic minorities — similar to promises the Taliban made and broke over the past three years. “They are saying the right things now,” said an unusually skeptical President Joe Biden. “But as they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words but their actions.”

Meanwhile, a credit-hungry Biden told his own version of history, attempting to paint Assad’s downfall as the result of his foreign policy. “Our approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East,” he claimed.

This boast sustained a swift rebuke from The Wall Street Journal. “None of this is the result of President Biden’s foreign policy. Like Mr. Obama, his Middle East priority has been appeasing Iran. This culminated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas that led Iran and its proxies to imagine they had Israel on the run,” wrote the editors.

“But Israel turned the tables, first by diminishing Hamas in Gaza, then by eliminating Hezbollah’s leadership, and demonstrating it can strike even heavily defended targets in Iran,” continued the Journal. “Tehran’s mullahs couldn’t protect Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas’s leader Yahya Sinwar, and now Mr. Assad in Syria. All of this is the result of Israel’s daring and fortitude in self-defense, even in the face of Mr. Biden’s opposition.”