Move comes as a surprise to many analysts that believe American pull-out could plunge the country into renewed chaos
United States President Donald Trump announced that American soldiers will be removed from Syria, with reports suggesting he is aiming for a “rapid” and “full” withdrawal of an upwards estimate of 4,000 troops. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump presidency,” the U.S. leader asserted Wednesday. More specifically, a U.S. official quoted by American media claimed Washington is aiming to complete the pull-out within 60-100 days, and that the State Department is evacuating its Syria-based personnel immediately.
The decision came as a surprise to many analysts given the U.S. has for the past six months seemingly been laying the groundwork for a long-term presence in the war-torn country. While President Trump has on numerous occasions expressed a desire to end militarily operations in Syria, his defense secretary and other senior advisers advocated against the move which they contend could lead to the strengthening of what remains of the Islamic State terror group and give free reign to Russia and Iran.
“To have influence in a place like Syria, you need to have a direct and indirect influence. Russia and Iran have the former with forces [on the ground] and the latter due to [political sway] over the Assad regime,” Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli envoy to Washington and chief peace negotiator with Syria, explained to The Media Line. “The larger meaning [of the decision] is that it shows the U.S. is not willing to take a risk, not willing to extend itself throughout the region.”
Dr. Sanam Vakil, Senior Consulting Research Fellow in the Middle East & North Africa Program at the London-based Chatham House think-tank agrees that “the American move changes the balance of power in Syria and leaves Iran and foremost Russia as the post-war operators.
“In this respect,” she elaborated to The Media Line, “the U.S. is abdicating its responsibility and the perception of its departure from Syria is very damming because it is going to exacerbate insecurities among Washington’s allies about America’s commitment to them.”
Notably, as part of the so-called Astana peace process, representatives from Russia, Iran and Turkey this week agreed to form a committee to draft a new Syrian constitution, an indication that the White House will indeed have little influence over future developments in Damascus.
Since a U.S.-led coalition ousted ISIS from its “capital” Raqqa last year, American forces have been primarily stationed in eastern Syria where many terrorists fled. Despite President Trump’s assertion that the Islamic State has been eradicated, some researchers peg the number of ISIS members still embedded in remote desert regions in Syria in the thousands.
“ISIS may very well re-emerge,” Prof. Rabinovitch opined, “as the Sunnis are unhappy with Shiite domination in Iraq and Syria and the Islamic State is a manifestation of that. After all, ISIS is a branch of al-Qa’ida, which is a Sunni organization very much against the West and Shiite Muslims.”
For her part, Dr. Vakil highlighted the fact that “there have been continued ISIS attacks in Iraq and Syria. To declare it defeated is thus naïve as such an insurgency is not about territory and its acquisition but about other factors like ideology. ISIS not going away because its land is reduced; to defeat it, you need a long-term plan.”
As regards Israel, the government has lobbied the Trump administration to keep soldiers in Syria, foremost to offset Tehran’s ongoing effort to establish permanent military infrastructure therein. To this end, the Israeli military has over the past two years conducted hundreds of cross-border strikes targeting Iranian assets and to inhibit the Islamic Republic from transferring advanced weaponry to its Hizbullah proxy in Lebanon.
Despite concerns in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reiterated that the Israeli army will continue to “protect Israel’s security and defend ourselves from that [Syrian] front.” He added that his government would study the timetable of the proposed American withdrawal and gauge “its ramifications on us.”
The development comes amid heightened tensions between Israel and Russia stemming from the downing in September by Syrian forces of a Russian reconnaissance plane, an incident the Kremlin nevertheless blamed on the Israeli military which minutes earlier had conducted an aerial raid against an Iranian weapons depot.
While there is recent evidence of a rapprochement, including the arrival Wednesday in Israel of a high-ranking Russian diplomatic delegation, Amb. Rabinovitch believes that Moscow, emboldened by the American pull-out, “could possibly try to restrain Israel even more than it is doing which is not good for [the Jewish state].”
Overall, many observers are warning that the U.S. decision could plunge Syria into renewed chaos, with Turkey already threatening an offensive in the northwest against the Kurds. In this respect, American troops have been backing the Syrian Democratic Forces, comprised primarily of Kurdish YPG units that Ankara views as an extension of the banned PKK. This support has, among other issues, caused a strain in U.S.-Turkey relations, which, in turn, has created complications in Idlib Province, the last anti-regime bastion in Syria partially-controlled by Turkish-sponsored rebels.
Further complicating matters is that the American army has completed training only about 20 percent of the 30,000-odd local fighters that are deemed essential to stabilizing Syria after U.S. troops depart.
(Tara Kavaler is an intern in The Media Line’s Press and Policy Student Program)