Syria US Military

J.E.Dyer: Trump resets his strategic position with an announced Syria pull-out…….


 

Jennifer provides well-needed insight on the recent call by President Trump to remove 2000 US troops from Syria…

 

Setting the clock back to pre-WWII US foreign policy decision making, which placed emphasis on projected offshore power and with heavy-gunned get-away ships always at the ready. We shall see to where it leads, but whatever the outcome will be, it can’t be as bad as US forces bogged down in Afghanistan with no end in sight.

 

I might wish for things to be different at this juncture.  Regular readers know I’ve long advocated cutting off Iran’s land bridge and taking a robust position in Syrian settlement talks in which the U.S. is a counterweight to Russia, and not a bit player.
But if we’re not going to do that, the pull-out is not as bad as lingering on a tether to an outdated policy.  The worst thing to do would be that.  If we don’t need 2,000 troops in Syria to fight ISIS, and there’s no prospect of 5,000 troops in Syria to shape a settlement and drive Iran out, then we don’t need 2,000 troops in Syria for anything.  In fact, 2,000 troops in Syria becomes a liability from almost every standpoint.

 

Trump resets his strategic position with an announced Syria pull-out

Trump resets his strategic position with an announced Syria pull-out

 

Letting Iran consolidate the land bridge to the Mediterranean – pretty much inevitable, with a U.S. pull-out – is as bad a move as ever.  Twitching abruptly out of Syria may not leave the Kurds high and dry, precisely, but it does erode their position and its defensibility.  The same goes for other forces in the anti-Assad Sunni coalition.

 

A U.S. departure will be an open door to Turkey in Syria, although don’t kid yourself: Russia and Iran are well capable of putting limits on that form of enterprise.  Turkey won’t have a free hand.  Turkey will make things messier.  Iran is still the radical destabilizing element.

All that said, I think we may be surprised how quickly Washington will adjust to not having a U.S. foothold in Syria.  For one thing, Trump is, for the time being, right about this: ISIS has been effectively defeated in Syria.

 

That doesn’t mean ISIS is comprehensively defeated.  By no means.  But ISIS began transforming itself into an itinerant “state” builder several years ago, and has been rattling around in South Asia and Northern Africa, reaching out through social media to recruit cadre on six continents to enlarge its base.  The group has gone quiet about shaping Armageddon in northern Syria, and isn’t operating today on the basis of being tethered to that geo-eschatological vision.

 

ISIS presumably hasn’t abandoned the vision.  But the terror-state wannabes have apparently lengthened their horizon on it.

 

The bottom line, however, is that Syria is not now the optimum territory on which to take whacks at ISIS.  Trump seems to see something others don’t: that occupying territory in Syria isn’t about ISIS now – really hasn’t been for months – and it’s actually kind of stupid to hang around in Syria as if that’s the place to fight ISIS.

 

Yet making it about something else is a Johnny-come-lately proposition at this point, because Syria is also the subject of ongoing settlement talks in which Russia is playing the dominant role.

The U.S. leaving Syria won’t mean Syria descending into chaos.  I can’t say I like what it does mean for Syria.  But chaos is not in the offing.

 

In fact, I expect France and the UK to rapidly develop an interest in the Syria settlement talks.  Russia will still be in the dominant position, but the British and French will wander over on a coffee break from their domestic meltdowns, and the Saudis and Egyptians are likely to show fresh interest as well.

 

The U.S. does have national interests in the settlement in Syria.  It will affect the security of the entire “Great Crossroads,” including the maritime chokepoints, the Eastern Med, Europe, the Horn of Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula.  All things considered, I’d rather have a hand in the talks.

 

But there was never a basis for our hand to be a meaningful one, as long as our presence in Syria – and Iraq – was about “defeating ISIS.”  That’s too limited a strategic purpose for the U.S. to make national interests stick in settlement talks.

 

Trump never articulates these things in the language of statesmen, but it has been clear to me that he sees the reality of our position, and in fact sees it better than many of the professionals of statesmanship.  We’ve been overstretched on a limited AUMF for years now, and the elastic is sagging.  Some presidents would try to cobble together congressional support for some hybrid way forward on the same old course.  But that’s not Trump’s instinct.

It would also be a bad move, strictly from the standpoint of his own position vis-à-vis the incoming Congress.  The Democratic House isn’t going to concede him anything.  It will act against America’s interests just to spite him, in more ways than we can foresee.  Trump isn’t going to be able to operate responsibly and with initiative if he’s tethered to an ill-defined operational purpose in Syria.

 

I might wish for things to be different at this juncture.  Regular readers know I’ve long advocated cutting off Iran’s land bridge and taking a robust position in Syrian settlement talks in which the U.S. is a counterweight to Russia, and not a bit player.

 

But if we’re not going to do that, the pull-out is not as bad as lingering on a tether to an outdated policy.  The worst thing to do would be that.  If we don’t need 2,000 troops in Syria to fight ISIS, and there’s no prospect of 5,000 troops in Syria to shape a settlement and drive Iran out, then we don’t need 2,000 troops in Syria for anything.  In fact, 2,000 troops in Syria becomes a liability from almost every standpoint.

 

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