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Trump’s Syrian Withdrawal is Undermining Our Allies

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Donald Trump has again managed to stump political observers, pundits, and most of the world by announcing the US forces imminent withdrawal from Syria. Out on the limb hang our Kurdish allies who are putting everything on the line to fight against ISIS. Trump’s statement on the Syrian withdrawal undermines our allies, and prematurely reduces our dwindling regional influence. 

Clarity in the Chaos

The Syrian Civil-War intertwined with the hunt for ISIS, mixed with NATO allies who label our allies as terrorists, tossed with two world powers is a bowl of confusion. Add in a POTUS who may have a foreign policy, but not one he follows, and heads start spinning. The heads belong to our frustrated and annoyed allies. The nations can pull back their forces and easily regroup within their borders.  The ally bearing much of the weight is smaller, tribal, and has no national borders. The Kurds inhabit parts of Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. The region overlaps the borders of three countries. None of those countries is especially friendly to the Kurds, but tolerates them.

The Middle East, is not a welcoming region to the USA. Our influence is weak, and often repetitive actions render the same ineffective results. The inroads to nudge and influence the future of the region are closing. An alliance with the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) provided an avenue to shift the direction of course in the region. Trump’s Syrian withdrawal announcement may have closed that road.

Allies With a Blood Lust for ISIS

Our allies on the ground include the Kurds. A group whose tribal area overlaps into Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The withdrawal of Iraqi forces from their Syrian border regions left Kurdish Peshmerga forces to hold off Syrian based ISIS fighters. ISIS gained territory in Iraq, resulting in the Kurdish Yazidis genocide. Survivors raped, sold as slaves, executed, or left to starve on a mountaintop. Thousands remain enslaved or missing.

The brief recap of the Kurds is to highlight where today’s announcement leaves them in this power play. They formed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and helped by US-led airpower, are driving ISIS out of Syrian territory. They have borne the brunt of this war on terror “over there, so we don’t fight it back here.”

Walk through cemeteries in Kobani and Qamishil and see the white marble rows remembering daughters and sons killed battling ISIS. These are the young people who have sacrificed all to free territory from ISIS control.  And these are the people who still today are fighting ISIS and seeking to bring real stability for the women and men who survived the horror of ISIS. These forces risk their lives every day in the ISIS fight. And their work has allowed visitors to drive across the region for hours without getting shaken down or ripped off, or far worse, because of the security they have brought to the ground. This is the tempered victory against ISIS that will be jeopardized if U.S. troops leave the region.

~Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Defense One December 19, 2018

A Bad Deal for SDF

Here we are again, in a situation where the Kurds are fighting against ISIS, and their US support is leaving them behind. By his unilateral announcement today, Trump accomplished the feat of screwing our allies after pulling out.

The military asymmetry between the SDF and the Assad regime means that as the Syrian civil war moves into its final phase, the Kurds [SDF] are now at the mercy of the United States. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has pegged its Syria policy to its broader conflict with Iran and views the Iranian-Syrian alliance as a long-term threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East. To combat this threat, the administration has indicated that it intends to stay in Syria until the Iranian issue is dealt with. Yet this official position is oddly divergent from that occasionally expressed by Trump himself, who has consistently called for the rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. Uncertainty over Washington’s commitment to the SDF will undoubtedly hasten negotiations with the regime and could undercut Kurdish leverage.

The US support gave the SDF leverage to negotiate its position in post civil war Syria. The diminished position puts the SDF where they must scramble to make a deal with Syria.

Making a deal will be hard. The SDF wants to preserve its hard-fought autonomy in the Kurdish regions of eastern Syria, while the [al-Assad] regime will be looking to reassert centralized control over the entire country. And as a nonstate actor dependent on a finite U.S. security guarantee, the SDF cannot risk a direct military confrontation with the regime or its two allies, Russia and Iran. Instead, it will have to use what leverage it has, while it has it, in order to reach a negotiated settlement.

With a tweet, the future of the world may have just shifted. Certainly the world as it applies to the Kurds.

The Art of War is More Useful Than You Think

The US, SDF, and al-Assad have a shared enemy in ISIS. The name may change, but ISIS purpose remains the same. Destabilize a region, and rebuild the caliphate to infect the world with the most warped and barbaric form of Islam. Mr. President, there is no eradication of ISIS, but a mere rebranding of the same system. Al-Assad understands this. The Kurdish SDF members paid a very high price for this lesson. As Sun-Tzu said, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This was a golden opportunity to engage Syria, and potentially put some daylight between them and Iran. The Iran that you so often mention as being the focus of your Middle East policy.

Raqqa’s [former ISIS Stronghold in Syria] stability exists because of that partnership [US and SDF], but it remains extremely fragile. ISIS sleeper cells are trying to find footholds, take advantage of Raqqa’s shortage of services, and make it harder for the U.S.-backed coalition stop their reemergence. If Raqqa is not to become Baghdad in its worst moments, the pressure must be continued. If those U.S.-backed forces are forced to go it alone, there will be four winners: ISIS, the Syrian regime, Russia and Iran.

~Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Defense One December 19, 2018

Our allies are risking their lives, regional experts disagree on the eradication of ISIS, and exiting the conflict reduces our regional influence. With US forces on the ground to provide support in the search for ISIS, we had a presence in a region that is happy to shut us out. Turkey is an often reluctant partner for basing US forces. Often necessitating the full brunt of NATO to obtain restrictive and specific cooperation. But we had a presence there for this operation.

The Elephant in the Room isn’t from the GOP

A seemingly rash comment has set in motion a potential for serious consequences. Turkey is potentially looking to expand its southern border in SDF held Syria. ISIS prisoners held by SDF may be released into Syria, because their home countries don’t want them back. The SDF pulling back to self protect mode, and vacating the front line fight against ISIS. This is the legacy of rash words Mr. President. Please, refocus tweets about Rosie O’Donnell and allow the adults in the room to pick up this mess?

Thousands of foreign fighters, among them some the most radical members of ISIS, are held in SDF prisons. Their home countries, fearing that they cannot successfully prosecute them, are unwilling to take them back. Such a mass release could revive the ISIS insurgency, which had been on its last legs. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) also reported the SDF is considering withdrawal from its frontline positions against ISIS and redeploying to northern and western areas to hold off a feared Turkish intervention. Turkey had been dissuaded from launching an operation east of the Euphrates by the US military presence in Manbij and northeast Syria. The US withdrawal changes the arithmetic on the ground. An SDF withdrawal from the front with ISIS, which holds a shrinking pocket of territory, could allow the jihadists to regroup.

~Rudaw December 20, 2018

 

~ Featured Image Credit: Dianne Kett License under ~ CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

The post Trump’s Syrian Withdrawal is Undermining Our Allies appeared first on Victory Girls Blog.


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