Israel's army chief opined that "the American decision to withdraw troops from Syria is a significant event, but there's no need to overstate it... the IDF has been working independently this whole time, including during the period of American and Russian presence". He went on to assess that "the Iranian vision for Syria for the day after [the war]... was to build a force of 100,000 ground troops", adding that "the desire is to build a combined ground, aerial, naval and intelligence capability, really to construct a line of military positions along the Golan".