There is no reason Syria must put all its eggs in the American and Israeli baskets. In fact, that would be severely counter-productive for Israel as well. It is crucial Syria remains close ally to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran, for it can then help bridge the gaps and bring an end to the regional conflict. What better party to bring Israel and Hezbollah and Israel and Hamas together, than Syria? Same for bringing America and Iran together.

Israel will definitely insist that Syria stopped arming any groups committed to armed struggle against Israel, as a minimum bar for returning the Golan to Syria. However, it is not clear that Israel will also require Syria to cut off all ties with other countries, even if said countries will continue to be unfriendly to Israel. Both Jordan and Egypt have extensive ties with countries that are still considered to be enemies of Israel. It is obvious that as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not resolved, Israel will not be popular in the Arab world. However perhaps after Syria entered a peace treaty with Israel it will be able to stir the Israelis and Palestinians towards peace in a more constructive way than the one it currently engages in, and with a unified Arab position which is pro-peace and at the same time pro-Palestinian.

America has been an extremely reliable ally of all countries that have consistently thrown their lot with America. Let us not forget that NATO is still alive and expending long after the Warsaw pact has been dissolved in defeat.

On the contrary, the alliances Syria has struck with Hamas, Hizballah and Iran are all short-term and will not prove to be stable in the face of shifting interests, since all three entities are fundamentally religious and thus antagonistic at their core to Syrian secularism. Let’s not forget that Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, an enemy of the Syrian regime. Similarly, Iran is using Syria as a staging ground for its Shiaa takeover of Lebanon, in  a manner not always consistent with Syrian interests. This alliance has been limiting Syrian independence. Syria will have little reason or desire to support Hizballah after the Golan is returned to Israel and the Shebaa farms are returned to Lebanon.

Turkey, which is currently in good terms with Syria, has been threatening war against Syria a decade ago.

Israel’s reliability will be proportional to the extent of normalization that Israel enjoys. At any rate, a peace treaty with Israel will ensure Israel doesn’t use force anymore in regional disputes. This is the main factor of Israeli unpredictability, which will be removed from the equation.

This all indicates that conventional wisdom with respect to reliable vs. unreliable partners needs to be reconsidered on an ongoing basis.