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In the view of many Washington policymakers, Syria is like the Hotel California: You can check out, but never leave. President-elect Donald Trump should remedy his first-term mistake and withdraw American troops from Syria.<\/p>\n
Bashar al-Assad, whom successive American administrations sought to oust as Syria\u2019s president, has been swept away with little fight. The Islamic State, or ISIS, the other target of American military action, remains but a bad memory. Washington\u2019s adversaries\u2014especially Russia and Iran\u2014suffered a major geopolitical defeat. There no longer is any excuse for U.S. involvement in Syria.<\/p>\n
The Arab Spring hit Syria in 2011 as demonstrations broke out against Assad, who responded violently, yielding a multi-sided civil war. Although Syria was never a serious American security interest, the Obama administration leaped into the fray, assuming that it could micro-manage a brutal, multi-sided civil war.<\/p>\n
Washington sought to oust Assad, discouraging negotiation. Yet its efforts to support moderates foundered.\u00a0A half-billion-dollar Pentagon program<\/a>\u00a0delivered just\u00a0four or five<\/em>\u00a0fighters in the field.\u00a0The CIA spent<\/a>\u00a0a billion dollars with somewhat better results, but extremists ended up dominating the fight, causing U.S. officials to limit aid.\u00a0According to<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, \u201cthe equipment to be provided to the rebel groups would not include antitank rockets or other high-end equipment that could eventually cause serious damage if they fall into the hands of groups that commit acts of terrorism against the United States or its allies.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevertheless, reported journalist\u00a0Mehdi Hasan<\/a>, the U.S. government was among \u201cthose responsible for arming and backing some of Syria\u2019s most thuggish rebel groups.\u201d Agency-trained insurgents were little better than their adversaries,\u00a0having<\/a>\u00a0\u201csummarily executed prisoners and committed other violations of the rules of armed conflict.\u201d Even the al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, or the al-Nusra Front,\u00a0indirectly received<\/a>\u00a0U.S. aid, often captured from or gifted by other American trainees.<\/p>\n Washington also intervened to destroy the ISIS \u201ccaliphate,\u201d relying on the Kurdish-dominated coalition Syrian Democratic Forces. Turkey, a NATO ally, opposed Assad, but initially\u00a0aided ISIS<\/em>. Ankara later united two score insurgent factions into the Syrian National Army, which\u00a0launched several<\/a>\u00a0brutal offensives against the Kurds and their militia, the People\u2019s Defense Units (YPG). The\u00a0SNA committed<\/a>\u00a0\u201ca host of violations, including summary killings of Kurdish forces, political activists, and emergency responders, and looting and confiscation of property,\u201d and even threatened U.S. personnel.<\/p>\n Although Washington decried Turkey\u2019s intervention, half of\u00a0the SNA factions<\/a>\u00a0\u201cwere previously supported by the United States, three of them via the Pentagon\u2019s program to combat DAESH [ISIS]. Eighteen of these factions were supplied by the CIA \u2026 . Fourteen factions of the 28 were also recipients of the U.S.-supplied 16 TOW anti-tank guided missiles.\u201d Even more bizarrely, Syrian groups funded by the CIA sometimes battled those funded by the Pentagon.\u00a0Reported the<\/a>\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em>, these insurgents \u201chave begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained.\u201d<\/p>\n Washington\u2019s sole success, the Islamic State\u2019s defeat, ended any meaningful role for U.S. troops in 2017. Special envoy James Jeffrey admitted\u00a0misleading the president<\/a>\u00a0to keep U.S. troops in Syria. Trump\u2019s aides preyed on\u00a0his desire to seize Syrian oil<\/a>. Although Washington formally justified its presence as containing ISIS remnants, it occupied oilfields belonging to the Damascus government,\u00a0illegally transferring<\/a>\u00a0petroleum to the Kurds. Today 2,000 Americans,\u00a0more than twice<\/a>\u00a0the number long admitted by the Pentagon, are at risk for no good reason. They were fired on and obstructed by Russian and Syrian forces and threatened by Turkish proxies. They also have been frequently targeted by Iranian-backed militias in neighboring Iraq,\u00a0suffering more than<\/a>\u00a0125 attacks since October 2023.<\/p>\n Standing alone, Assad\u2019s overthrow is an unmitigated blessing. But what now? The dominant insurgent force is\u00a0Hay\u02bcat Tahrir al-Sham\u00a0<\/em>or HTS, which began as al-Nusra. It has ruthlessly governed Idlib and surrounding territory, brooking little dissent and oppressing religious minorities.\u00a0Reported Mackenzie Holtz<\/a>\u00a0of the Center for Strategic and International Studies: \u201cWhile HTS presents itself as less ideologically extreme than al Qaeda or ISIS, the brutal measures HTS uses to maintain control over its territory are a far cry from the benevolent, citizen-led government shown on its media outlets.\u201d<\/p>\n The group\u2019s\u00a0rule eased some<\/a>\u00a0over time and HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has sought to reassure Syrians and foreign governments. In return the U.S. rewarded him by removing the $10 million bounty on his head. On occupying Kabul, however, the Afghan Taliban similarly promised moderation. After Assad\u2019s flight, Christians\u00a0have been<\/a>\u00a0harassed and thousands of religious minorities\u00a0have fled<\/a>\u00a0to Lebanon. The Hudson Institute\u2019s Nina Shea\u00a0points to<\/a>\u00a0the many atrocities committed during the civil war: \u201cSuch brutality stemmed from the fanatical religious hatred nurtured by these same jihadi militants, whether called al Qaeda, ISIS or HTS.\u201d Moreover, hardline Muslim factions aligned with al-Sharaa have refused to disarm and\u00a0criticized him<\/a>\u00a0for laxness in enforcing Islam.<\/p>\n Trump should declare \u201cmission accomplished.\u201d Assad is gone. Mohammed A. Salih\u00a0of the Foreign Policy Research Institute\u00a0and Shukriya Bradost\u00a0of the Middle East Institute claim that a US presence preserves \u201cUS influence\u201d in the region, but fixing Syria is neither Washington\u2019s responsibility nor within its competence. Violent combat might erupt again: multiple factions are in play, including HTS, SNA, YPG, and the apparently revived \u201cmoderate\u201d Free Syrian Army in the south. Syria\u2019s future will be determined by contending domestic factions and surrounding states like Turkey, which have far more at stake than America.<\/p>\n The Islamic State\u2019s power has been broken. After Assad\u2019s fall, the U.S.\u00a0launched an aerial fusillade<\/a>\u00a0on ISIS targets. The group\u2019s military revival is unlikely, and this possibility can be dealt with by others: Every Mideast government and Syrian insurgent group, including HTS, oppose the Islamic State. There certainly is no need for U.S. ground forces in Syria.<\/p>\n Nor need Washington worry about Israel. Steven A. Cook of the Council of Foreign Relations\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe Israelis are capable of taking care of themselves in the Syrian conflict.\u201d Israel long outpaced Syria militarily and enjoyed a\u00a0modus vivendi<\/em>\u00a0with Damascus, which did not oppose Israeli military action in Syria. HTS appears ready to follow suit.<\/p>\n Iran, which poses no threat to America, has been greatly weakened by Assad\u2019s fall and Israel\u2019s earlier battering of Hezbollah. Russia\u2019s modest presence in Syria\u2014which now might disappear of its own accord\u2014also matters little. Washington dramatically overmatched Moscow in the Middle East even during the Cold War, when Damascus became a Soviet client, and is much more dominant today.<\/p>\n Which leaves the Syrian Kurds. After the Islamic State\u2019s defeat Washington nominally maintained its garrison as a prophylactic to an ISIS resurgence, but in practice the Pentagon hoped to protect the Kurds from Turkey. Trump\u2019s first-term order to withdraw American forces from Syria\u00a0generated unusually<\/a>\u00a0sharp,\u00a0even hysterical<\/a>, criticism and was defeated by what amounted to a fifth column within his own administration.<\/p>\n Similar demands that America remain are advanced after Assad\u2019s collapse. For instance,\u00a0argue<\/a>\u00a0Salih and Bradost, \u201cthe United States must support its Kurdish and Arab SDF partners to avert an impending humanitarian and security crisis, mediate between the SDF and Turkey, and maintain leverage in shaping Syria\u2019s future amid evolving regional geopolitics.\u201d<\/p>\n Sinan Ciddi of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies\u00a0would go even further<\/a>, \u201cbolstering U.S. presence in Kurdish held territory in Rojava, and clearly communicat[ing] to all actors that the U.S. stands by its partners and will not permit harm to come to them.\u201d<\/p>\n A\u00a0relatively liberal<\/a>\u00a0and democratic community, especially when compared to its neighbors, the Kurdish population deserves special sympathy. The Kurds avoided conflict with Damascus, which lacked the military force to reassert control over the north. With Assad\u2019s fall the Kurdish authorities are\u00a0nervously confronting<\/a>\u00a0HTS and especially the SNA. The latter\u00a0attacked around<\/a>\u00a0Manbij, which the YPG yielded, and Kobani, where the Kurds famously defeated an ISIS offensive a decade ago.\u00a0Radio France Internationale reported<\/a>: \u201cTurkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan says Turkey is determined to prevent the YPG and its [Turkish] affiliate the PKK from exploiting a power vacuum following\u201d Assad\u2019s fall.<\/p>\n The U.S. should exit this messy denouement. First, the U.S. made no security commitment to the Kurds, which appropriately requires a treaty, negotiated by the president and, after the public has weighed in, ratified by the Senate. Second, Americans have no obligation to the Kurds. ISIS threatened them, not America; they fought for themselves, not America. The U.S. helped them more than they helped America. Third, to the extent there was a partnership, it was against ISIS, not Turkey. For good or ill (I tend to think the latter<\/a>), Ankara has superior standing with the U.S. Turkey may be a dubious ally, but it remains one of more than seven decades.<\/p>\n Fourth, 2,000 Americans are not going to stop the SNA. A few years ago Rep. Eliot Engel argued that Washington\u00a0should consider<\/a> kicking Ankara out of Syria. How? Sen. Lindsey Graham recently threatened sanctions, but that likely would backfire, intensifying Turkey\u2019s commitment to an independent \u201cneo-Ottoman\u201d foreign policy. Should Washington use force to prevent Ankara from protecting what it views as an existential interest? It would be reckless to forever entangle the U.S. in the Turkish-Kurdish imbroglio,\u00a0in which<\/a> 30,000 to 40,000 and perhaps more people died in the initial combat rounds starting in the mid-1980s, and thousands more have perished since the<\/a>\u00a0resumption of hostilities a decade ago.<\/p>\n Hopefully the Syrian civil war has entered its endgame, instead of begun a new round of conflict. After so much death and destruction, the Syrian people deserve a stable, prosperous, and liberal peace. Unfortunately, US policymakers have repeatedly demonstrated that achieving such a result is beyond their abilities. Remember Haiti, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. As for Syria,\u00a0observed<\/a>\u00a0Rosemary Kelanic of Defense Priorities: \u201cThe fact that the U.S. military mission in Syria was rooted in the failures of the Iraq war should serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers of imprudent interventions.\u201dTrump has the right idea. As the Assad regime tottered,\u00a0he proclaimed<\/a>\u00a0that the U.S. \u201cshould have nothing to do with\u201d Syria, which \u201cis not our fight.\u201d It\u2019s time for Americans to come home and leave Syrians and their neighbors to build a better future.<\/p>\n Link : https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/leave-syria-to-the-syrians\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the view of many Washington policymakers, Syria is like the Hotel California: You can check out, but never leave. President-elect Donald Trump should remedy his first-term mistake and withdraw American troops from Syria. Bashar al-Assad, whom successive American administrations sought to oust as Syria\u2019s president, has been swept away with little fight. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policy"],"yoast_head":"\n