Getty Washington And The World Trump Has Big Plans for Syria. But He Has No Real Strategy.

Charles Lister is senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and author of The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency. William F. Wechsler is senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combatting terrorism.

Few noticed it amid the usual frenzy over something President Donald Trump did, but the United States is now committed to staying in Syria for the long haul—with unforeseen consequences for America’s role in a turbulent and dangerous Middle East.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a Jan. 18 speech that received shockingly little coverage given the stakes involved, laid out what he termed “the way forward for the United States in Syria.” Tillerson outlined five laudable goals that—assuming he speaks for the president—would secure substantial U.S. national security interests: (1) the lasting defeat of ISIS and al Qaeda and any terror threat to the U.S. at home or overseas; (2) the resolution of Syria’s broader conflict through a U.N.-led political process that secures the departure of President Bashar Assad; (3) the diminishment of Iranian influence; (4) the safe and voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced peoples; and (5) a Syria free of weapons of mass destruction. Broadly speaking, this mirrors how the Obama administration publicly framed its policy on Syria.


For many former Obama officials, their handling of Syria is a tale of tragedy and frustration—a story of opportunities missed, deals not done, disasters not averted. But could Trump’s approach end up differently? After all, Tillerson made clear that this time, even with ISIS near defeat, the U.S. “will maintain a military presence in Syria.” In comments that turned a few heads among Middle East watchers, he said “it is vital for the U.S. to remain engaged in Syria… a total withdrawal of American personnel at this time would restore Assad and continue his brutal treatment against his own people.”

The Trump administration should be praised for bringing clarity to an issue of significant strategic concern. It is encouraging to have America’s policy priorities now clearly laid out in public, and it’s reassuring that the administration has overcome its internal advocates for disengagement. That is the good news. The bad news is that the objectives set out by Tillerson are just that: objectives; and wildly unrealistic ones at that. As with Obama—who declared in 2011 that Assad must go yet consistently rejected calls for a more assertive approach—there is no indication that Trump’s team has developed or begun to implement a strategy to match its grand goals, nor that it plans to deploy the resources necessary to accomplish them.

For the U.S., counterterrorism will always be a priority and the effective defeats delivered to ISIS represent a significant achievement. Just as the Russian air campaign has been decisive for saving the Assad regime, the U.S. air campaign has been decisive in pushing back ISIS. Moreover, since September 2014, the U.S. military has been supporting a collection of groups on the ground now known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. Dominated in both number and command by a Kurdish militia known as the YPG, the SDF control more than 50,000 fighters and now rule over 25 percent of Syrian territory. Maintaining a troop presence in northeastern Syria and continuing to train and equip the SDF could potentially help stabilize that region, a stretch of territory measuring some 45,000 square kilometers known for its agriculture and oil.

By seeking to stabilize Syria’s northeast, the U.S. is going some way towards minimizing the risk of an ISIS comeback. However, in doing so through the SDF, we continue to enrage nearly every other actor involved in Syria. Problem No. 1: Turkey, which perceives the YPG as a component of a Kurdish militant group known as the PKK, which Turkey views as an existential national security threat. Earlier this year, the CIA returned to labeling the YPG as the Syrian wing of the PKK, which the U.S. have considered a designated terrorist organization for over 20 years. Turkey’s understandable frustration has been realized in the form of two successive Turkish invasions of northern Syria, both of which have fundamentally challenged the viability of U.S. strategy in the country’s northeast and caused a crisis between two longtime allies. Today, U.S.-backed SDF forces are engaged in an all-out war with a fellow member of NATO.

In northwestern Syria, meanwhile, al Qaeda and likeminded groups are thriving – according to our latest estimates, the group’s members there now number more than 15,000 – largely on the other side of the country, far from the U.S forces in the east. Tillerson said the U.S. seeks to defeat this threat, but the administration has no strategy or means to do so. In fact, the Trump team’s decision in mid-2017 to cease all support to vetted opposition groups saw these jihadists exploit the resulting weakness to expand further. Other than making broad rhetorical statements, the administration has shown no inclination to meaningfully confront al Qaeda in Syria’s northwest.

Tillerson’s four other objectives speak to the broader realities of the nearly 7-year-old conflict in Syria. To his credit, the secretary clearly acknowledged that as long as Assad remains in power, Syria will remain an unstable environment producing troubling and dangerous effects. However, his suggestion that the withdrawal of America’s 1,500 troops from the northeast would “restore Assad” implied that America’s small anti-ISIS presence actually endangers the rump Syrian regime’s survival. It does not. Assad has not been more secure in Damascus since the conflict’s early days. Quite how 1,500 American troops in the rural northeast will “diminish Iranian influence” requires an even greater stretch of the imagination.

The Iranian issue is something the Trump administration appears to care about a great deal—and rightfully so. So too is the security of America’s closest ally in the region, Israel and our indispensable partner, Jordan. In Syria, Iran is arguably the most influential actor of all, exerting an iron grip over the future of the country thanks to a 150,000-strong militia force under its control and not of the regime in Damascus. Iran controls Syrian military bases and manages multiple ballistic missile factories, and its social and economic investments have secured it irreversible influence. Iran is following the playbook it originally wrote in Lebanon and is carrying forward in Iraq, and it will not willingly give up its new ability to project power from Syria.

The resulting threat to Israel may turn out to be greater than anything it has faced in decades. Thus, while the world’s attention focuses on the continued fighting in the northwest or the future of the Kurds in the northeast, the most dangerous area of Syria over the longer term may be its southwest, where Iran and Hezbollah’s menacing presence risk sparking a wider war with Israel down the road. The U.S. played a key role in negotiating a de-escalation deal along Israel’s border, which could have gone some way to minimizing some of that threat, but the terms as finally presented by Russia were far from sufficient and even they appear now to be eroding.

The Trump administration has repeatedly applauded the importance of de-escalation zones in creating conditions for a political settlement. What it fails to acknowledge, however, is that these zones are designed by Russia to allow a slower, more subtle rate of regime gains against the opposition. The State Department knew this from the outset, having designed its own in-house maps forecasting these regime gains as early as mid-2017. By lending its political support to a Russian-led initiative designed only to strengthen Assad’s position, the Trump administration has directly abetted Assad’s survival, Iran’s expansion and threat to Israel, and continued civilian displacement. And even after President Trump took welcome action to enforce Obama’s red line on chemical weapons use last year, the regime nevertheless has continued using often deadly chlorine gas, as recently as January 22.

“Assad or we burn the country” — the Syrian regime has long trumpeted this threat, and it has never failed to follow through. The U.S., on the other hand, has declared the need for Assad’s removal for nearly seven years, but it has never determinedly sought to realize it. Continuing to declare grand goals without deploying the necessary means will only further erode American credibility. When the cornerstone of U.S. influence in Syria – our relationship with the SDF in the northeast – has sparked a war with a NATO ally, we need to raise serious questions about our path forward. And when Iran emerges from the conflict with a newfound ability to project power against our allies Israel and Jordan, it is time to reassess the priorities of our Syrian strategy, or to ask whether we indeed even have a strategy at all.