The Russians on Friday claimed to have killed the self-declared caliph of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in an airstrike in ISIS’ capital Raqqa. As the BBC reports:

The [Russian defense] ministry said an air strike may have killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and up to 330 other fighters on 28 May.

It said the raid had targeted a meeting of the IS military council in the group’s de facto capital of Raqqa, in northern Syria. [….]

This is the first time…that Russia has said it may have killed the IS leader. Other media reports have previously claimed he had been killed or critically injured by US-led coalition air strikes.

There are any number of reasons to doubt the Russian claims here. Reports in March suggested that ISIS’ leadership was already fleeing Raqqa. An Iraqi intelligence official told Reuters in response to the claim that they believe that Baghdadi is hiding somewhere in the sparsely populated Iraq/Syria border area. A gathering—as the Russians claim—of 30 ISIS field commanders, 300 guards, and Baghdadi himself all in one place would also be an uncharacteristic lapse in operational security for a man who survived the relentless pursuit of U.S. special operations forces in the late 2000s when the Islamic State of Iraq was nearly obliterated. Nor are the Russians above simply fabricating such claims—last August they falsely claimed responsibility for a U.S. airstrike which killed a prominent ISIS leader .

In other words, while we can hope that Baghdadi is dead, Russia’s claims may instead be part of an effort to take last minute credit for the approaching victory against ISIS in Raqqa.

In reality, it was the Kurdish SDF—backed by the U.S.-led coalition—that have done virtually all of the heavy lifting to attain that victory in defeating ISIS in Syria. The SDF’s methodical assault on Raqqa appears to be going well. Following President Trump’s decision to green-light an Obama Administration plan to provide the SDF with heavier weapons, they have surrounded the city on three sides and are squeezing ISIS from east and west.

Syrian Democratic Forces captured parts of al-Baryd district and reached the Military Intelligence Department

Map: https://t.co/QeXZATbIdy pic.twitter.com/Mcqiw4B7q6

— Syrian Civil War Map (@CivilWarMap) June 16, 2017

In Iraq, the Iraqi Army is now in control of almost the entirety of Mosul, once largest city under ISIS control, except for the warren-like Old City which still has as many as 100,000 people trapped inside.

What is clear is that while tough fighting against ISIS still lies ahead of us, we are looking at a situation in both Iraq and Eastern Syria where the unifying threat of ISIS is receding. While that has long been America’s goal, we now face a more confusing and potentially deadlier situation than the one posed by ISIS.

Iran’s goal in Eastern Syria appears to be to establish a land corridor linking Tehran with its clients in Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut. Following a U.S. coalition airstrike against Syrian and Iranian-backed forces along the Baghdad-Damascus highway near the U.S. base al-Tanf last month, the Syrians have now reached the Iraqi border, effectively cornering our base.

Map from syriancivilwarmap.com.

While the U.S. is sitting on the main highway at al-Tanf, Russian media are reporting that the first Iranian weapons shipments bound for Damascus are already flowing across the Iraqi border. That has not yet been confirmed, and Iraqi control of western Anbar province on the opposite side of the Syrian border is tenuous, but is likely to improve. The precise danger of such a corridor compared with existing airlifts from Tehran to Damascus is probably unknown to anyone except analysts at CIA and the Pentagon (and their counterparts in Tel Aviv and Riyadh), but it would be easy to imagine Iran shipping heavier weapons, in greater volume, more frequently to Hezbollah and Assad.

Despite this apparent fait accompli, there’s no sign that the U.S. intends to withdraw from Southeast Syria. On the contrary, this week we deployed a sophisticated rocket artillery system to the base at al-Tanf for the first time. U.S. backed rebels could still, in theory, break out of the pocket and contest Syrian control of the border and try to link up with the SDF in the north. That would involve a race between the SDF and U.S.-backed rebels from the north and south against the pro-Syrian forces from the west towards the Euphrates and the border, likely converging on what will be ISIS’ last major city—Deir ez-Zour. White House officials reportedly want to go on the offensive against the Syrian and Iranian-backed forces in Eastern Syria despite resistance from Secretary of Defense Mattis and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dunford.

Whether or not we want to contest that territory is one decision we will have to make soon about what we want in a post-ISIS Syria, before Syrian and Iranian-backed forces can solidify their control.  To do so would involve a significant re-definition of the U.S. mission in Syria, a potential high-stakes confrontation with Iran and the Syrian regime, and an effective commitment to support our rebel proxies in holding that territory indefinitely. If the President seeks such a role for the U.S. in Eastern Syria, he should ensure that he has the support of Congress and is relying, as he so often claims, on the best advice of his generals and Secretary Mattis.

The other looming decision is what to do about the Kurds. The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq has set the date of its independence referendum for September 25^th, 2017. There is no indication that the KRG, which has good relations with Turkey, is looking to include the Syrian Kurdish territories in an independent Kurdistan. The Syrian Kurds’ assurances that they want only greater autonomy within Syria, not independence, will be of little comfort to the Turks, who regard the Syrian Kurds as inseparable from the PKK insurgency inside Turkey. Above all other issues, our backing of the Syrian Kurds has driven a wedge between the U.S. and Turkey on the Syrian question and it’s not clear how they might react to either an independent Iraqi Kurdistan, or the Kurdish SDF gaining control of the entirety of Syria north of the Euphrates, as they seem poised to do.

Turkey’s President Erdogan has ominously hinted at an incursion into Northern Iraq which would effectively separate Iraqi Kurdistan from the Syrian Kurds. That would bring the Turks into conflict with some combination of the SDF and the Iranian-backed militias that control much of the Iraqi border area west of Mosul. The Iraqi government would be under intense popular pressure to resist any Turkish incursion into that territory and, once Iraqi Army troops are freed from the battle for Mosul, will soon have greater means to do so. The Turks did not inform the U.S. ahead of their initial incursion into Syria, which was likewise intended to thwart the Syrian Kurds, and would be unlikely to give us much warning ahead of an incursion to cut the link between the Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish regions.

While some of these scenarios are unlikely, they remain dangerously plausible. There is much that the U.S. can do now to press our interests while trying to prevent a wider conflagration. Should that fail, we also need to decide where our true interests lie should a much broader conflict break out in Eastern Syria and Northwest Iraq. As it stands, we have significant troop presences and military bases in Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan, the Syrian Kurdish territory, surrounding Mosul, and in Southeast Syria. All of these would be under threat in such a conflict, with U.S. troops potentially based among both sides of opposing forces. These decisions won’t wait for Secretary of State Tillerson to implement his grand reorganization plans at the State Department next year, and they’re of far greater geo-political consequence than the President’s latest scandal du jour. The countdown has begun on the Iraq-Syria border, and we’re the only ones who don’t know what we want when it reaches zero.