The Problem With America’s Syria Policy Isn’t Trump. It’s Syria.

Syria is taking a back seat in the news cycle to things that anyone who's seen the ATS front page can see.

2019 projections are at 15.3 billion dollars spent in Syria. But alas, we will just have another pointless war in the Middle East with nothing to gain.

The following are excerpts from an article in Foreign Policy from yesterday.

There’s a reason why two such disparate presidents have suffered this common dilemma: For Washington, the Syrian civil war is a no-win situation. If you want to back the rebels, you end up supporting radical Islamists who could exploit yet another dysfunctional Arab state and harbor anti-American terrorists. If you seek to support the only force capable of defeating the rebels, you end up backing a war criminal and Iran’s close friend, President Bashar al-Assad.

On the whole, U.S. policy through both Obama and Trump has become one of tolerating Assad over the alternative while not saying so and looking the other way. Certainly one could argue the United States should be supplying more humanitarian aid, but there is not much else Washington can do. If the Russians and Iranians have no compunctions about propping Assad up, then they’re essentially doing America’s dirty work—killing radical Islamists (along with many thousands of innocents, tragically)—and at little cost to the United States, except in terms of its image as a global benefactor.

This is America’s unspoken (and largely bipartisan) Syria policy. It’s the best that Washington can muster, many analysts say, and in the coldest of national interest calculations it hasn’t produced the worst of outcomes. For the last several years, various U.S. enemies have been knocking each other off in great numbers there: Sunni jihadis in Syria, joined by Iraqi Sunni insurgents across the border, on the one hand, and Iran-backed Hezbollah Shiites, as well as the Assad government, on the other.

Beyond that, there is little in Syria for U.S. interests but “sand and death,” as Trump put it bluntly last week. It has no real strategic value. True, Syria is a horrific humanitarian disaster, but Washington really isn’t in the business of intervening in those anymore, not since the catastrophe of Iraq and the blowback from Libya. Indeed, by fudging and hedging for years over what to do—and giving limited support to rebels—Washington has probably only prolonged the war and made the humanitarian crisis worse for Syria and for Europe, which has suffered from the huge refugee outflow.

Foreign Policy

Interestingly enough, if we remove Trump from the picture, this is largely a bi-partisan stance that we stay in Syria.

Establishment Washington loves them some war, and even though Trump said we would be pulling out, it wasn't but a few days later Bolton contridicted the stance claiming we wouldn't leave until ISIS was defeated. Funny enough, Bolton said that when we do pull out, we'd assure protection of the Kurds via Turkey. Erdogan canceled the meeting the two had planned momemts before it was supposed to take place over this flagrant claim that had no basis in reality as the Turks view the Kurds as terrorist.

The Kurds have turned into the point of contention for arguing against a withdrawal. As if our presence does anything beyond giving them temporary protection, the only end game I could see would be the formation of Kurdistan (imagine how that would fly).

At the end of the day, I doubt we'll be leaving with current events brushing talk of Syria under the rug.

But it's a shame, because our presence only makes things worse and drags out the civil war with very little end game objectives.

a reply to: CriticalStinker


I personally think the geo-strategy du jour is no longer the middle east and hasn't been for some time, we need to focus on China/Asia and leave this part of the world alone so they can party like it's 799.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

FBI director Wray says China is our biggest threat.

We have espionage (mostly corporate) cases against Chinese nationals in every state right now.

They'll exceed our GDP in ten years, and even if those numbers are off because they fluff their numbers, they've already been flying under the radar and projecting foreign interests. They built their first foreign military base in the horn of Africa. They've also got a large footprint in Africa for business ventures.

I'd wager this is the largest reason for the Trump backlash and removal attempts. I'm not sure why we have to keep bringing democracy to middle eastern nations that just happen to have planned pipelines and all, but my guess is the American people aren't really into new wars, and Trump doesn't seem to be into new wars, so the only logical answer is to remove Trump and get back a puppet that has nice short strings.

It's a damn shame the deep state is as powerful as they are. It sounds nice to go against them, but I don't think it will end well.

a reply to: network dude

I hope this doesn't derail the thread with the recent hot talking points...

But as much teeth pulling as I've seen recently over a few billion dollars, I can't help note the hypocrisy in people of both sides of aisle in screeching about dialing back our involvement in the Middle East.

15.3 billion projected in Syria next year, and so far post 9/11 we're at a cool 6~ trillion in the Middle East. I'll beat the dead horse I always do, but the infrastructure is 5~ trillion past due. Everyone wants spending for programs that fit their platform, but they want it at the expense of more spending, not reduction in other areas. Well look no further than our useless wars.

The problem is once again so-called US-lead imperialism and greed take control...

If China grows enough crops of their own, and can sustain them self’s then why do they need to import our crops?

They have been eyeballing Africa for quite some time, land is cheap.