The letter of Gen. William H. Sili, commander of US military operations in Iraq, was leaked and then rapidly disseminated among Israel’s most senior security figures Jan. 6. In fact, a translated version in Hebrew appeared only minutes after the letter was leaked to the media, sweeping up the WhatsApp groups of Israel’s most top-secret (coded) defense systems. The content of the letter — that the Americans were preparing to withdraw from Iraq immediately — turned on all the alarm systems throughout the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. More so, the publication was about to set in motion an Israeli “nightmare scenario” in which ahead of the upcoming US elections President Donald Trump would rapidly evacuate all US forces from Iraq and Syria.

Simultaneously, Iran announced that it is immediately halting its various commitments regarding its nuclear agreement with the superpowers, returning to high-level uranium enrichment of unlimited amounts and renewing its accelerated push for achieving military nuclear abilities. “Under such circumstances,” a senior Israeli defense source told Al-Monitor under condition of anonymity, “We truly remain alone at this most critical period. There is no worse scenario than this, for Israel’s national security.”

After a few hours, it became clear that the letter had been leaked accidentally. Nevertheless, the American denial, which began from US Defense Secretary Mark Esper and trickled down from there, did not really calm down Israel’s defense-system sources. “It is sad to see the [US] president’s conduct has also ‘infected’ the military,” a senior Israeli security figure told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “It is not clear how this letter was written, it is not clear why it was leaked, it is not clear why it was ever written to begin with. In general, nothing is clear with regard to American conduct in the Middle East. We get up every morning to new uncertainty.”

Twenty-four hours after the letter, the following assessment formed in Israel: Trump hasn’t decided if he’s staying or leaving. His inclination is to leave; he has no desire to see caskets of US soldiers being airlifted in Washington during an election year. Trump would be happy to leave Syria too, as he promised a long time ago. The US Army is trying to prepare a framework working plan toward an exit. And it was the preparations of this work plan that eventually generated the incident in which the letter was sent and then leaked. That, and perhaps also some unclarities in the American command chain. One way or the other, Israel must prepare for the worst-case scenario, because the odds are increasing that such a scenario may arise. According to this scenario (described in Al-Monitor in an earlier article), Trump would choose to abandon the Middle East and leave Israel alone on the battleground toward the 2020 elections. This would constitute the worst and most dramatic possible timing imaginable, when Iran would gradually abandon the nuclear agreement and inch its way toward the bomb.