President Trump's sudden decision to withdraw from Syria has left his advisers and allies aghast. It's no surprise that the much-more circumspect and highly-respected Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned. The Washington D.C- based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released several insightful analyses on why this abrupt decision is "losing all fronts". At the heart of it all is the lack of any sustainable and effective American strategy, or rather, the absence of any strategy, properly defined.
In Losing on All Fronts: The Failed Trump Strategies for America's War, Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy with CSIS, opines -
"More broadly, the U.S. will now leave in a way where it did not consult any of its strategic partners, including France, Jordan, and Israel, and at a time its role in the region is deeply distrusted in Iraq and the Arab Gulf. It will give the Hezbollah a major boost in Lebanon by default and a similar boost to Iran throughout the region. It has effectively betrayed its Kurdish partners, the impact on the Iraqi Kurds and Pesh Merga will be highly negative, and it will compound its problems in dealing with other strategic partners in the MENA region."
In The Implications of the U.S. Withdrawal from Syria, Jon B. Alterman, Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, and director of the Middle East Program, points out that President Trump's abrupt decision resulted from a deal over the telephone with Turkish President Erdogan:
"The decision fits into a pattern of moves taken by the Trump administration to appease Turkey, which objects to the United States arming and training Syrian Kurdish forces that have been fighting the ISG in eastern Syria, but which also have links to the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group in Turkey. Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened an imminent Turkish incursion into Kurdish-controlled areas in Syria, which would have put U.S. troops at risk. Turkey, a NATO ally, also had been flirting with the idea of buying an S-400 Russian missile defense system rather than the U.S.-built Patriot system. Following President Trump’s phone call with Turkey on Friday, Turkey agreed to buy the U.S. system for $3.5 billion. In addition, the White House confirmed that President Trump is considering extraditing the Turkish dissident religious leader Fethullah Gulen."
He concludes that the withdrawal clearly benefits Russia, Iran, and Turkey, as well as the Assad government.:
"Russia has been a big winner in Syria, where the commitment of 5,000 troops and a few dozen fixed-wing aircraft have saved the regime, dealt a blow to Islamist groups with links to Chechnya, secured its only naval and air bases in the Mediterranean, given battlefield experience to its troops, and re-established Russia as a military force for the first time since the end of the Cold War. The precipitous withdrawal of U.S. troops means that the Russians will decide on their military future in Syria with the Syrian government alone, and without meaningful U.S. input. Iran, too, is a big winner, as the U.S. withdrawal helps consolidate Iran’s ground links between Iran and its allies in Lebanon and gives Iran an unobstructed path to retaining a significant military and intelligence presence in Syria. Turkey seems to have gotten everything it wanted—advanced weapons systems, a decisive voice in Syria’s future, and a clear path to attack Kurdish forces—while giving up very little. Of course, the Assad government will be able to expand its control over the entire country, including the oil-rich areas that had been hosting U.S. troops, and have an unconstrained hand re-imposing its jurisdiction."
Alterman thinks that the losers are Israel, the Kurds, and allies such as Jordan and Lebanon:
"Israel is among the most important losers, as Israel had been deeply concerned at the permanent presence of Iranian forces across the border. The Kurds who had allied with the United States to fight the ISG are big losers as well. For U.S. allies such as Jordan and Lebanon, the evisceration of U.S. leverage in negotiations over Syria’s future—where many important decisions will be made, yet few have yet been made—could have devastating consequences."
In all this, perhaps the most important strategic implications are -
(a) As a long-term ally, the Trump administration is as reliable as the President's next tweet. The Kurds, who have been fighting alongside US forces, are suddenly and without prior notice, hung out to dry. The Israelis, who are supposed to be America's cast-iron ally, are not given the courtesy of prior notice, let alone consultation. There is no lack of other examples in American behavior.
(b) President Trump is not interested, nor does he seem capable of, any grand design or long-term strategy. Nor does he seem to care about the traditional lofty qualities of a world leader. The raw power of American hegemonic coercion seems the only game in town. Nothing beats immediate gains for America First. To hell with the rest, allies included. As evident from his latest tweet, "Does the USA want to be the Policeman of the Middle East, getting NOTHING but spending precious lives and trillions of dollars protecting others who, in almost all cases, do not appreciate what we are doing? Do we want to be there forever? Time for others to finally fight....". Sounds like leaving allies to stew in a mess created by America's recklessness. To a certain degree, all adversarial democracies suffer from a similar incapability to think and act far beyond the next electoral cycle. But President Trump perhaps stands out as an exaggerated example.
(c) Cordesman compares the U.S. extraction from the Middle East with the "follies" of the Vietnam War. But such follies are not isolated in recent decades of American military intervention. After achieving an immediate objective by brute force, either regime change or destruction of "insurgents", a political and socio-economic mess is often left behind. There are few success stories of nation-re-building. There is a common amnesia that modern Vietnam has emerged not because of the Vietnam War. It has become a nation on the move not because of politics, but economics.
No doubt such strategic implications are open to exploitation by the United States' more long-term savvy adversaries.
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