OPINION
Exiting Syria For once, Trump got it right
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BY ROBERT FORD
.S. policy on Syria has had plenty of twists and turns, but President Trump’s October 6 announcement that he would pull a small American military force back from the Syria-Turkish border in northeastern Syria created unprecedented confusion. The President’s abrupt decision surprised the State and Defense Departments. The implementation was incredibly clumsy and there oddly seems to have been no military contingency plan. We even had U.S. jets bomb American ammo dumps that couldn’t be evacuated in time. I have never seen such anger from U.S. military personnel towards a presidential decision as was expressed openly in the American media. But was Trump’s decision so shocking? Trump since his 2016 campaign has repeatedly stated that American military engagement in the Middle East is a mistake and that he would get out of what he calls “endless wars.” He repeated this several times in 2017 and 2018. The question is not where Trump stands but why the military and the diplomats keep making policy statements that are some distance from the President. Senior Syria policymaker at the State Department, James Jeffrey, said in June 2019 that U.S. forces would stay “indefinitely.” U.S. military personnel on the ground in northeastern Syria formed close bonds with their Kurdish allies who in turn called with American withdrawal in the face of the impending Turkish attack a “betrayal.” Is the President betraying the Kurds? The short answer is no. Kurdish fighters and their Arab allies in the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were not doing us a special favor fighting ISIS. They themselves wanted to repulse ISIS as far away from their communities as they possibly could. They wanted to do so for entirely understandable reasons, and they shared that specific interest with the United States. By contrast, we have no clearly identifiable national security interest in defending the Kurdish-run autonomous region in eastern Syria. The region is not strategically vital. The Syrian affiliate of a Kurdish organization on the American, EU and Turkish terrorism lists established the autonomous zone under the American military W W W. P E AC E C O R P S C O N N E C T.O R G
umbrella over the fight against ISIS. The autonomous administration has operated schools, hospitals, municipalities and police as well as a hardnosed intelligence service. It has maintained stability and promoted gender equality but it is not democratic. Its security apparatus harassed and arrested Kurdish and Arab political opponents, journalists, and civil society activists. The Syrian government rejects the autonomous administration as part of Assad’s drive to recapture all territory he lost in the civil war. Turkey, whose government fears it will stir up such problems with Turkey’s Kurdish population that Turkey’s own territorial integrity will be at risk, is also ready to fight the autonomous administration. Given the President’s clear preference for withdrawing from Syria, one has to wonder why State and Pentagon personnel were not warning the Kurds to expect an American withdrawal sooner, not later, and urging the Kurds to cut a deal with Assad. After Trump’s October 6 announcement, the autonomous administration allowed the Syrian government to enter into some of its towns to protect against Turkey while it finally negotiates with the Syrian government over the future of the administration itself. It’s a little late now. After much gnashing of teeth in Washington and in the field in Syria, the American military and diplomats, as they had done after Trump’s December 2018 withdrawal announcement, clawed back policy space and secured Trump’s approval to keep a small foothold in Syria. Now the U.S. military will maintain about five hundred soldiers in eastern Syria, near the Iraqi border, to control several oilfields. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley said the troops need to stay in Syria as long as ISIS is present in Syria. That could be a long time. ISIS is not the threat it was in 20142017, to be sure. It has lost its territories and the vast majority of its financing. It has lost much credibility among Sunni Arab communities in Syria. It still has small guerrilla bands in parts of central and eastern Syria. ISIS could remobilize larger numbers of fighters over time, drawing from, for example, detention centers housing thousands of ISIS fighters and tens of thousands of ISIS families. Moreover, WO R L D V I E W W I N T E R 2 0 1 9
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