Posts
Endgame
in Syria: Trump Signals Withdrawal of US Troops
30
March, 2018
In
a momentous announcement at an event in Ohio on Thursday, Donald
Trump said, “We’re knocking the hell out of ISIS. We’ll be
coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care
of it now.”
What
lends credence to the statement that the Trump administration will
soon be pulling 2,000 US troops out of Syria – mostly Special
Forces assisting the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces – is that
President Trump had recently announced to sack the National Security
Advisor Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.
McMaster
represented the institutional logic of the deep state in the Trump
administration and was instrumental in advising Donald Trump to
escalate the conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria. He had advised
President Trump to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan
from 8,400 to 15,000. And in Syria, he was in favor of the Pentagon’s
policy of training and arming 30,000 Kurdish border guards to patrol
Syria’s northern border with Turkey.
Both
the decisions have spectacularly backfired on the Trump
administration. The decision to train and arm 30,000 Kurdish border
guards had annoyed the Erdogan administration to an extent that
Turkey mounted Operation Olive Branch in the Kurdish-held enclave of
Afrin in Syria’s northwest on January 20.
After
capturing Afrin on March 18, the Turkish armed forces and their Free
Syria Army proxies have now cast their eyes further east on Manbij
where the US Special Forces are closely cooperating with the Kurdish
YPG militia, in line with the long-held Turkish military doctrine of
denying the Kurds any Syrian territory west of River Euphrates.
More
significantly, however, the US bombers and Apache helicopters struck
a contingent of Syrian government troops and allied forces in Deir
al-Zor on February 7 that reportedly killed and wounded dozens of
Russian military contractors working for the private security firm,
the Wagner group.
In
order to understand the reason why the US brazenly attacked the
Russian contractors, we need to keep the backdrop of seven-year-long
Syrian conflict in mind. Washington has failed to topple the
government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. After the Russian
intervention in September 2015, the momentum of the battle has
shifted in favor of the Syrian government and Washington’s proxies
are on the receiving end in the conflict.
Washington’s
policy of nurturing militants against the Syrian government has given
birth to the Islamic State and myriads of jihadist groups that have
carried out audacious terror attacks in Europe during the last three
years. Out of necessity, Washington had to make the Kurds the
centerpiece of its policy in Syria. But on January 20, its NATO-ally
Turkey mounted Operation Olive Branch against the Kurds in the
northwestern Syrian canton of Afrin.
In
order to save its reputation as a global power, Washington could have
confronted Turkey and pressured it to desist from invading Afrin. But
it chose the easier path and vented its frustration on the Syrian
government forces in Deir al-Zor which led to the casualties of
scores of Russian military contractors hired by the Syrian
government.
Another
reason why Washington struck Russian contractors working in Syria was
that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – which are
mainly comprised of Kurdish YPG militias – had reportedly handed
over the control of some areas east of Euphrates River to Deir al-Zor
Military Council (DMC), which is the Arab-led component of SDF, and
had relocated several battalions of Kurdish YPG militias to Afrin and
along Syria’s northern border with Turkey in order to defend the
Kurdish-held areas against the onslaught of Turkish armed forces and
allied Free Syria Army (FSA) militias.
Syrian
forces with the backing of Russian contractors took advantage of the
opportunity and crossed the Euphrates River to capture an oil
refinery located east of Euphrates River in the Kurdish-held area of
Deir al-Zor. The US Air Force responded with full force, knowing well
the ragtag Arab component of SDF – mainly comprised of local Arab
tribesmen and mercenaries to make the Kurdish-led SDF appear more
representative and inclusive – was simply not a match for the
superior training and arms of Syrian troops and Russian military
contractors, consequently causing a massacre in which scores of
Russian citizens lost their lives.
It
would be pertinent to note here that regarding the Syria policy,
there is a schism between the White House and the American deep state
led by the Pentagon. After Donald Trump’s inauguration as the US
president, he has delegated operational-level decisions in conflict
zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria to the Pentagon.
The
way the US officials are evading responsibility for the incident, it
appears the decision to strike pro-government forces in Deir al-Zor
that included Russian contractors was taken by the operational
commander of the US forces in Syria and the White House was not
informed until after the strike.
Notwithstanding,
it bears mentioning that unlike dyed-in-the-wool globalists and
“liberal interventionists,” like Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton, who cannot look past beyond the tunnel vision of political
establishments, it appears that the protectionist Donald Trump not
only follows news from conservative mainstream outlets, like the Fox
News, but he has also been familiar with alternative news
perspectives, such as Breitbart’s, no matter how racist and
xenophobic.
Thus,
Donald Trump is fully aware that the conflict in Syria is a proxy war
initiated by the Western political establishments and their regional
Middle Eastern allies against the Syrian government. He is also
mindful of the fact that militants have been funded, trained and
armed in the training camps located in Turkey’s border regions to
the north of Syria and in Jordan’s border regions to the south of
Syria.
According
to the last year’s March
31 article [1]
for the New York Times by Michael Gordon, the US ambassador to the UN
Nikki Haley and the recently sacked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
had stated on the record that defeating the Islamic State in Syria
and Iraq was the top priority of the Trump administration and the
fate of Bashar al-Assad was of least concern to the new
administration.
Under
the previous Obama administration, the evident policy in Syria was
regime change. The Trump administration, however, looks at the crisis
in Syria from an entirely different perspective because Donald Trump
regards Islamic jihadists as a much bigger threat to the security of
the US.
In
order to allay the concerns of Washington’s traditional allies in
the Middle East, the Trump administration conducted a cruise missiles
strike on al-Shayrat airfield in Homs governorate on April 6 last
year after the chemical weapons strike in Khan Sheikhoun. But that
isolated incident was nothing more than a show of force to bring home
the point that the newly elected Donald Trump is an assertive and
powerful president.
Finally,
Karen De Young and Liz Sly made another startling revelation in the
last year’s March
4 article [2]
for the Washington Post: “Trump has said repeatedly that the US and
Russia should cooperate against the Islamic State, and he has
indicated that the future of Russia-backed Assad is of less concern
to him.”
Thus,
the interests of all the major players in Syria have evidently
converged on defeating Islamic jihadists, and the Obama-era policy of
regime change has been put on the back burner. And after the recent
announcement of complete withdrawal of US troops from Syria by
President Trump, it appears that we are approaching the endgame in
Syria, an event as momentous as the Fall of Saigon in 1975, which
will mark a stellar military victory for Vladimir Putin.
Sources
and links:
1-
White House Accepts ‘Political Reality’ of Assad’s Grip on
Power in Syria:
2-
Pentagon plan to seize Raqqa calls for significant increase in U.S.
participation:
About
the author:
Nauman
Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical
analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions,
neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.
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