About the people involved, Barak is an unsavoury character and Epstein was of course evil on a different level. Of course they are totally eclipsed by Assad and Putin who are many orders of magnitude more evil.

Looking back at their plans from a historical point of view. They were only partially successful and it's true that until the recent war Russia and Israel at least communicated quite closely over Syria even if they didn't necessarily see eye to eye.

Earlier this year Israel finally achieved what they wanted with the collapse of the Assad regime. It doesn't hurt that Russias influence is dramatically weakened. Best of all the new order has no great love for Iran or their Hezbolla affiliates and are not openly hostile to Israel and are trying to court the West. I can only hope their situation will genuinely improve.

Finally, of course the US at long last bombed Irans nuclear program hopefully permanently ending it or setting it back a decade or two. So there you have it, a decade long story of intrigue, politics and scandal enough to fill a novel, with plenty of morally grey areas because real life isn't black and white.