Trump says Syria “is not our fight.” Staying out of it may not be so easy

When Donald Trump sat with world leaders in Paris last weekend to marvel at the restored Notre Dame Cathedral, armed Islamist fighters in Syria were in jeeps en route to Damascus, ending the fall of the Assad regime.

In this split-screen moment of global news, the US president-elect, sitting between the French first couple, still had one eye on the surprising turn of events in the Middle East.

“Syria is a disaster, but it is not our friend,” he posted the same day on his Truth Social network.

He added: “AMERICA SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT BE PLAYED. DON’T GET INVOLVED!”

This post, and another the following day, were a reminder of the president-elect’s powerful mandate not to intervene in foreign policy.

It also raised big questions about what comes next: Given the way the war has drawn in and affected regional and global powers, can Trump really have “nothing to do” with Syria now that the government of President Bashar al- Has Assad fallen?

Will Trump withdraw US troops?

Do your policies differ drastically from President Biden’s? And if so, what’s the point of the White House doing anything in the five weeks before Trump takes office?

The current administration is engaged in a frantic round of diplomacy in response to the fall of Assad and the rise to power of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Syrian Islamist armed group that the United States designates as a terrorist organization.

I write this aboard Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s plane, as he travels between Jordan and Turkey trying to get key Arab and Muslim countries in the region to back a series of conditions Washington is imposing to recognize a future Syrian government.

The United States says it must be transparent and inclusive, must not be a “base for terrorism,” cannot threaten Syria’s neighbors and must destroy any chemical and biological weapons arsenal.

For Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, who has not yet been confirmed, there is one guiding principle of his foreign policy.

“President Trump was elected with an overwhelming mandate not to further involve the United States in any more wars in the Middle East,” he told Fox News this week.

He went on to list America’s “core interests” there, such as the Islamic State (IS) group, Israel and “our Arab Gulf allies.”

Waltz’s comments were a clear summary of Trump’s view of Syria as a small piece of his large regional policy puzzle.

Their goals are to ensure that the remnants of IS remain contained and to see that a future government in Damascus cannot threaten Washington’s most important regional ally, Israel.

Trump is also focused on what he sees as the biggest prize: a historic diplomatic and trade deal to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which he believes would further weaken and humiliate Iran.

The rest, Trump believes, is the Syrian “disaster” that must be resolved.

Trump’s rhetoric dates back to how he talked about Syria during his first term, when he derided the country – which has an extraordinary cultural history stretching back millennia – as a land of “sand and death.”

“I think Donald Trump himself really wanted to have very little to do with Syria during his first administration,” said Robert Ford, who served as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014, and who advocated within that administration for greater American intervention. in the form of support for moderate Syrian opposition groups to counter Assad’s brutal repression of its population.

“But there are other people in his circle who are much more concerned about counterterrorism,” he told the BBC.

The United States currently has about 900 troops in Syria east of the Euphrates River and in a 55-kilometer (34-mile) “deconflict” zone bordering Iraq and Jordan.

Its official mission is to counter the IS group, now greatly degraded in camps in the desert, and to train and equip the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, Kurdish and Arab allies of the United States that control the territory).

The SDF also protects camps housing IS fighters and their families.

In practice, the American presence on the ground has also gone further, helping to block a possible arms transit route for Iran, which used Syria to supply its ally Hezbollah.

Ford, like other analysts, believes that while Trump’s isolationist instincts work well on social media, the realities on the ground and the opinions of his own team could end up moderating his stance.

Wa’el Alzayat, former Syria adviser to the US State Department, echoes that view.

“He’s bringing some serious people into his administration who will handle his Middle East file,” he told the BBC, noting specifically that Senator Marco Rubio, who has been nominated for secretary of state, “is a serious player in the foreign policy”. “.

These tensions – between isolationist ideals and regional goals – also came to a head during his first term, when Trump withdrew remaining CIA funding for some “moderate” rebels and ordered the withdrawal of US forces from northern Syria in 2019. .

At the time, Waltz called the move “a strategic mistake” and, fearing a resurgence of ISIS, Trump’s own officials partially reversed his decision.

Trump also departed from his non-interventionist ideals by launching 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield after Assad allegedly ordered a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians in 2017.

It also redoubled sanctions against Syria’s leaders.

Waltz summed up the blurred lines of Trump’s “not our fight” promise.

“That doesn’t mean I’m absolutely not willing to intervene,” he told Fox News.

“President Trump has no problem taking decisive action if the American homeland is threatened in any way.”

Adding to the possibility of tension is another key figure, Tulsi Gabbard, whom Trump has nominated as director of national intelligence. The controversial former Democrat turned Trump ally met Assad in 2017 on a “fact-finding” trip and at the time criticized Trump’s policies.

Your nomination She is likely to come under intense scrutiny from US senators amid accusations (which she has denied) of being an apologist for Assad and Russia..

Anxiety about the continuation of the mission in Syria and the desire to be able to end it is not unique to Trump.

In January, three U.S. soldiers were killed at a U.S. base in Jordan in a drone strike by Iranian-backed militias operating in Syria and Iraq, as the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza threatened to spread further into the region.

This attack and others have continued to raise questions for the Biden administration about US force levels and their exposure in the area.

In fact, many of the positions of the outgoing Biden and Trump administrations on Syria coincide more than they diverge.

Despite stark differences in tone and rhetoric, both leaders want Damascus to be governed by a government responsive to American interests.

Both Biden and Trump want to take advantage of the humiliation of Iran and Russia in Syria.

Trump’s “this is not our fight, let it play out” is his equivalent of the Biden administration’s “this is a process that should be led by the Syrians, not the United States.”

But the “main” difference, and the one causing the most anxiety among Biden supporters, is in Trump’s approach to U.S. forces on the ground and U.S. backing for the SDF, said Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat in Washington who helped opposition figures flee. the Assad regime.

“Biden has more sympathy, connection and passion towards (the Kurds). Historically, he was one of the first senators to visit the Kurdish areas (of northern Iraq) after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait,” he said.

“Trump and his people don’t care that much… they take it into consideration so as not to leave out their allies, they understand that, (but) the way they implement it is different.”

Barabandi, who said he supports Trump’s non-interventionist rhetoric, believes the president-elect will “safely” withdraw U.S. troops, but on a gradual timeline and with a clear plan in place.

“Within 24 hours it will not be like Afghanistan,” he said. “He will say within six months, or however long, a deadline for that and to fix everything.”

Much may hinge on Trump’s conversations with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with whom he is believed to have a close relationship.

US support for the SDF has long been a source of tension with Turkey, which considers the People’s Defense Units (YPG), the Kurdish force that forms the military backbone of the SDF, to be a terrorist organization.

Since Assad’s fall, Türkiye has been carrying out airstrikes to force Kurdish fighters out of strategic areas, including the city of Manbij.

Trump may want to reach a deal with his friend in Ankara that would allow him to withdraw American troops and could further strengthen Türkiye’s position.

But the possibility of Turkish-backed groups taking control of some areas worries many, including Wa’el Alzayat, a former US State Department Syria expert.

“You can’t have different groups governing different parts of the country, controlling different resources,” he added.

“There is the political process, in which I think the United States has a role to play, or something more, and I hope they avoid that last scenario.”