We're Allowed to Celebrate Trump's Withdrawal From Syria
Gage Skidmore / Flickr
This piece originally appeared on anti-war.com.
"Impulsive, irresponsible, and dangerous." Such was the way, just this
morning on CNN, that Democratic Representative, and House Minority Whip,
Steny Hoyer described President Trump's recent announcement that he's
bringing home the 2,000 U.S. troops currently in Syria. Last night,
Republican Senator Lindsay Graham - a true hawk's hawk - declared on the
Senate floor that Trump's decision is a "disaster," and a "stain on the
honor of the United States." Two points here, one minor, one major - let's
begin with a semantic quibble: when maintaining national "honor" becomes a
last ditch argument for continuing indecisive, perpetual war, perhaps it
really is time to leave. And, more importantly, there's this: anytime that
Steny Hoyer and Lindsay Graham are in agreement and share a disdain for a
foreign policy decision - even a Trump decision - well, then, the president
might just be on to something.
My point is this: the bipartisan interventionist/militarist consensus of
centrist Dems and hawkish Republicans has brought only disaster, death,
humanitarian crisis, exploding debt and endless war for nearly two decades.
For ample evidence see Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, etc. So, why are we
still listening to these folks? Well, partly because the United States is an
increasingly militarized (ostensible) republic in which a world-leading
domestic arms industry all but owns Congress and the corporate media. Then
there's the matter of Trump - a man that the bipartisan Washington
establishment simply loathes. Indeed, The Donald can do no right as far as
these folks are concerned. Now, few authors - especially serving on
active-duty in the military - have been as (constructively) critical of this
president as I have, but occasionally the man demonstrates good sense,
especially in foreign affairs. Fairness demands that we recognize this,
whatever we think of the president's general personality.
Let us return, then, to Syria, and take Representative Hoyer's assessment
apart one piece at a time. In point of fact there was nothing particularly
"impulsive" about President Trump's announcement. More than six months ago,
in May, he announced that the US military would be withdrawing from Syria
"like, very soon." In fact, arguably the only reason American troops have
remained in the country as long as they have can be attributed to poor
advice from the last "adult-in-the-room," Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
Candidate Trump ran on a largely anti-interventionist platform, and - during
the Obama presidency - regularly tweeted that the US should "stay out" of
Syria. So there's nothing exceptionally impulsive or surprising about
Trump's latest decision on troop withdrawal.
Next, Hoyer called Trump's decision "irresponsible." But is it, really? One
could, in fact, argue the exact opposite. Besides the originally stated
mission to defeat ISIS's physical caliphate - which has essentially been
accomplished - ever more expansive, unachievable, and flimsy justifications
for a perpetual US troop presence in Syria have begun to creep in. Trump's
own cabinet members, and the usual (perennially wrong) Beltway insiders have
alternately argued that America must stay in Syria to check Russia, counter
Iran, deter Turkey, protect the Kurds, and on and on. No one, not Trump nor
his "grown-up" advisors, seemed capable of articulating a cogent,
sustainable strategy or communicating an exit strategy. And military
occupation of a sovereign country - sanctioned neither by the US Congress
nor the United Nations - ought to be driven by more than policy inertia.
Only that's become the norm in US Mideast policy. We stay because we don't
know what else to do - remaining not for positivist goals but out of fear of
negativist what-ifs. When policy goals are muddled and end-states unclear,
now that's "irresponsible." If Trump's team can't enunciate a vital national
interest in maintaining a military intervention - which they've proven time
and again that they can't - then the president has a duty to pull the plug
on the latest forever war.
Then there's Hoyer's claim - echoed by Senator Graham, every pundit on CNN
and MSNBC, and just about every vacuous D.C. analyst - that pulling out of
Syria is "dangerous." It's not, or, put another way, it's at least less
dangerous than staying. This author has argued for over a year that Syria is
the next great Middle East trap, all risk and no reward for the United
States. Let's review just why this is. Here's what the US stands to gain by
staying put in Syria - a temporary denial of Assad and his allies' forces
entering the country's far east, a limited zone of unsustainable Kurdish
autonomy, and tough-guy bragging rights on the international scene.
Up against this are the truly "dangerous" - and arguably unacceptable -
risks of perpetual military occupation. As if the latest (unnecessary)
iteration of Cold War with Russia in Eastern Europe isn't treacherous
enough, in Syria today US troops (and allies) face-off with Russian troops
(and their allies) on an unstable front along the Euphrates River. Despite
some limited deconfliction measures in place, we now know that American and
Russian soldiers have - according to the special US ambassador - exchanged
gunfire "more than once" along this precarious boundary. In one particularly
disturbing incident several months back, US airstrikes killed "dozens" of
Russian mercenaries in a four-hour battle. Luckily Putin showed restraint
after that exchange. Can we count on that in the future? Who knows. What's
certain is that Russia holds the stronger hand in Syria, has been invited
there by Assad, and possesses thousands of nuclear weapons. De-escalation
seems more than prudent given these undeniable truths.
Then there's the minor matter of Turkey, a treaty ally with the
second-largest army in NATO. President Erdogan has repeatedly threatened US
troops, actually invaded Northern Syria, and refuses to recognize any sort
of Kurdish autonomous entity (and he never will). All this bluster led the
Pentagon, in November, to announce a new strategy of placing outposts along
the Turkish border to deter Ankara. Tell me how this risky "strategy"
contributes to the stated mission of US troops in Syria - the defeat of
ISIS? It doesn't. Again, plentiful risk, scant reward.
Finally, if 17+ years of indecisive war in the Greater Middle East should
have taught Washington anything, it'd be this: prolonged ground-force
occupation of sovereign Islamic states or regions is ultimately
counterproductive. The longer the US stays in Syria - or anywhere for that
matter - the greater the chance of an outbreak of armed insurgency. Turns
out (gasp!) that folks don't appreciate being occupied by a foreign
superpower. Sure, the Kurds want our protection, but Eastern Syria is home
to more than just a Kurdish minority. Indefinite US military presence could
enflame Sunni tribal hostilities, reestablishing that perilous, if
ubiquitous, alliance between nationalist Sunnis and Islamist jihadis -
something we've seen percolate in both Afghanistan and Iraq. And just wait:
should such an insurgency break out - and I predict it eventually would -
well then the Pentagon and professional DC pundits would tell us we have to
stay and sprinkle some magic counterinsurgency dust on that new enemy. It is
thus that America's post-9/11 wars have become self-sustaining quagmires.
US strategy, especially military strategy, should be undergirded by realism,
policy sobriety, and facts. And here's the most relevant, if inconvenient,
fact: Bashar al-Assad's regime - backed by Iran and Russia - has already won
the civil war. Nothing the US has done, can do, or is willing to try, will
change that salient truth. The endgame in Syria - just as in Afghanistan
someday soon - will be messy, uncomfortable, and optically unsettling. Syria
will remain what it's been for half-a-century, a minor "adversary's" ally
stably situated in the Russian and, to a lesser extent, Iranian camp. So it
has been and so it shall remain. Assad's Syria is eminently containable - as
is Iran, for that matter - and presents no existential threat or vital
interest to U.S. security. Indeed, though Assad is undoubtedly a monster,
his secular regime is actually morelikely to suppress transnational terror
threats than a divided Syria at war with itself. Extremism feeds on
instability and division - precisely what continued American military
intervention would ensure.
It is long past time to leave behind childish things - excessive optimism,
sentimentality (for the Kurds, for example), and the foolish fantasy of
America's special mission to transform the world - in the interest of sound
strategy. Love Trump or hate him, his decision on Syria is neither
"impulsive," "irresponsible," or unacceptably "dangerous." The president is
delivering on his - albeit muddled - campaign promise to eschew risky
interventionism and put American interests first in foreign policy. Let us
give credit where credit is due.
Maj. Danny Sjursen
Maj. Danny Sjursen is a U.S. Army officer and former history instructor
