The missing piece

President Trump’s sudden decision to withdraw ground troops from Syria has prompted widespread condemnation as well as the resignations of Defense Secretary Mattis and top anti-ISIS coordinator McGurk. Jim Jeffrey, Syria envoy, can’t be far behind. Certainly the manner of the decision merits dismay. Challenged by Turkish President Erdogan to get out of the way of a Turkish operation against Syrian Kurds whom the US has armed and used against ISIS, Trump pulled the plug on the several thousand US special forces in eastern Syria without any serious consultation with his national security advisers or America’s allies and against their collective wisdom. The message to American allies and adversaries alike is that Washington is unreliable and weak. Tehran and Moscow are gleeful. ISIS has already launched a major attack against the Kurds.

In evaluating this decision, we need to distinguish its manner from its substance. The way Trump did this is not just reprehensible but irresponsible. But whether it was better for US interests to stay in Syria or leave is far less clear.

The US gained control of one-third of Syria, along with its Kurdish and Arab allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces, as a consequence of its operations against ISIS, in particular in Raqqa.  The result was a devastated city. Staying would have meant stabilizing and eventually reconstructing it and other population centers. That process had begun, but hadn’t gotten very far, before the President’s announcement on Saturday. The Administration had gotten the Saudis and others to ante up several hundred million dollars for the purpose, but more than that was eventually going to be needed. Withdrawal avoids that responsibility.

Jim Jeffrey’s strategy, as I understood it, was to try to make Raqqa and the surrounding area livable and even attractive relative to the regime’s autocratic control of most of the rest of Syria. That would have given the US continued opportunities to do damage to ISIS as well as leverage over the political process, enabling Washington to trade withdrawal for commitments from the regime, Turkey, Iran, and Russia. Jim was aiming for complete Iranian withdrawal and beginning of a political transition, but likely would have had to settle for less. A longer stay in Syria would also have given the US time to make arrangements with Turkey and the Kurds to avoid their clash in the aftermath of withdrawal and continued commitment to the fight against ISIS.

This was a pretty good strategy, even if the US were to be forced to settle for much less than its stated goals. We might at least have gotten something on release of prisoners, accounting for the disappeared, protection of civilians, withdrawal of non-Arab Shia militias, and maybe something on revising the constitution to reduce the powers of the Syrian security agencies and holding internationally supervised elections.

President Trump preferred an abrupt withdrawal. In this he is not unlike his predecessor. President Obama did not want to go into Syria and tried to limit the numbers of American troops there. He withdrew from Iraq before it had been adequately stabilized. American presidents do not like what they pejoratively call “nationbuilding.” It is admittedly a difficult, expensive, and time-consuming process. Witness Afghanistan, from which Trump is said to have decided to withdraw much of the American troops presence. The war there started 17 years ago. No one would pretend that Kabul is yet capable of containing the Taliban and extremist presence there.

Avoiding long-term commitments of this sort is understandable, especially if the maneuver is done with adequate preparation, without undermining friends and allies, and without emboldening enemies. The way to achieve those prerequisites is through diplomacy. That’s what’s missing here.