President Trump’s gut tells him it’s time to get out of Syria.
Just about everyone else — allies, enemies, Democrats and Republicans in Congress, his own national security advisers and prominent think-tankers — all say a quick withdrawal after the nominal defeat of the Islamic State would be a serious mistake.
But Trump thinks the U.S. has done enough. In fact, be believes it’s done the rest of world a big favor, and if troops are needed in Syria to counter Iran or prevent the return of ISIS, it should be troops from other countries, paid for by other countries, including the very wealthy countries that surround Syria.
The case for staying has many fathers. Yet the case for leaving is an orphan, dismissed by a legion of critics as the whim of an impulsive and impatient president.
“A disaster in the making,” is how Sen. Lindsey Graham put it in an interview on Fox News last month. “All of his military advisers have said we need to leave troops in Syria to work with the Kurds, calm down the conflict between Turkey and the Kurdish fighters who have helped, make sure that Raqqa does not fall back into the hands of [ISIS].
“If we withdrew our troops anytime soon, ISIS would come back, the war between Turkey and the Kurds would get out of hand, and you’d be giving Damascus to the Iranians without an American presence, and Russia and Iran would dominate Syria,” Graham argued. “It’d be the single worst decision the president could make.”
But while last week pundits were crediting French President Emmanuel Macron for warming Trump up to idea of staying involved in Syria post-ISIS, less attention was given to how Trump has effectively nudged Macron closer to his idea of an international force to fill the boots of U.S. troops when they leave.
“It’s not automatically U.S. forces, but that’s U.S. diplomacy,” said Macron, before he left Paris for Washington.
With his constant refrain that the U.S. troops will be “coming home relatively soon,” Trump has effectively shifted the debate about whether the U.S. should leave, to what should come after the eventual, inevitable U.S. departure.
“I think we underestimate how much the GOP has shifted on these issues, and how Trump moved the needle dramatically on foreign policy issues,” said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at The Center for the National Interest.
“In fact, the idea that America would not get itself stuck in even more long-term nation building projects or wars without end is one of the key reasons why he was elected in the first place,” he said.
It was always the Pentagon’s plan to reduce the U.S. troops presence in Syria once ISIS no longer held any significant territory, paring the current force of roughly 2,000 U.S. troops down to perhaps several hundred U.S. advisers and security forces.
“There are three good reasons for getting U.S. troops out now: the original mission of defeating ISIS is nearly finished, staying longer would involve us in an intractable civil war, and the risk of conflict with Russia or Turkey looms,” said Mark Cancian, a senior national security adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “That said, we’d need to continue to support the Kurds and other Syrian allies with supplies and weapons.”
Trump has been pushing for countries in the region to take over for U.S. troops, and said last week the U.S. has already been in discussions with some possible donor nations.
“They will pay for it. The United States will not continue to pay. And they will also put soldiers on the ground,” he said.
In mid-April, Saudi Arabia confirmed it is one of the countries approached by the U.S. and indicated a willingness to contribute troops.
Other possible contributing nations include Jordan, Egypt and the U.A.E.
But the Pentagon is highly skeptical that any of the Middle Eastern countries are up to the task, and privately senior military officials scoff at the idea that a regional force could be anywhere near as effective as even a small number of highly-trained American special operations forces.
“Set aside the question of the training and proficiency of the soldiers these other actors might provide,” said Stephen Biddle, who teaches military strategy at George Washington University. “The bigger problem is whoever does this job is going to be subject to insurgent activities by people who distrust the motives of the stabilizers. And the motives of regional actors are going to distrusted even more than ours will be, and ours are subject to this problem, too.”
Pentagon officials say Trump has given senior leaders clear marching orders to figure out the fastest way to bring the troops home, but has not asked for a timeline or imposed a deadline.
“President Trump correctly has prioritized the defeat of ISIS and ruled out mission creep that would expand U.S. military goals to include regime change,” said Jim Phillips, a senior fellow at the Heritage foundation.
“But to permanently nail the ISIS coffin shut, the U.S. must coordinate with allies who are being asked to step up their military presence to help stabilize eastern Syria. This would allow the Pentagon to gradually draw down its forces,” Phillips added.
Ultimately, the Syria policy could prove another test of the uncanny ability of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to subtly refine the raw imperative of his impetuous boss into a compromise plan that preserves the overarching goal, articulated by the State Department.
“We will not leave a vacuum that can be exploited by the Assad regime and its supporters,” said Acting Secretary of State John Sullivan at a meeting of the G-7 in Toronto last week.
“I think [President Trump’s] goal of trying to get regional partners to shoulder the burden, whether in Afghanistan or Syria, is a noble one. I think he will have some success, and might even have threatened a withdrawal in Syria to get it,” Kazianis said. “One thing is for sure, the Middle East is listening, and that itself is progress.”
