Don't Hold Your Breath on US Troop Withdrawal from Syria
December 19, 2018
It would be nice to think the president has final say on foreign policy,
given the U.S. Constitution. But the misleading troop withdrawal
announcement, followed by Trump's boastful tweet, suggests the exact
opposite, says Patrick Lawrence.
By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News
The announcement on Wednesday that the U.S. will withdraw all remaining
troops from Syria within the next month looked at first like a rare victory
for Donald Trump in his admittedly erratic opposition to senseless wars of
adventure. "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there,"
the president tweeted with an unmistakable air of triumph.
Don't get your hopes up. Just about everything in these initial reports is
either wrong or misleading. One, the U.S. did not defeat the Islamic State:
The Syrian Arab Army, aided by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah militias did.
Two, hardly was ISIS the only reason the U.S. has maintained a presence in
Syria. The intent for years was to support a coup against the Assad
government in Damascus-in part by training and equipping jihadists often
allied with ISIS. For at least the past six months, the U.S. military's
intent in Syria has been to counter Iranian influence.
Last and hardly least, the U.S. is not closing down its military presence in
Syria. It is digging in for an indefinite period, making Raqqa the
equivalent of the Green Zone in Baghdad. By the official count, there are
503 U.S. troops stationed in the Islamic State's former capital.
Unofficially, according to The Washington Post and other press reports, the
figure is closer to 4,000-twice the number that is supposed to represent a
"full withdrawal" from Syrian soil.
It would be nice to think Washington has at last accepted defeat in Syria,
given it is preposterous to pretend otherwise any longer. Damascus is now
well into its consolidation phase. Russia, Iran, and Turkey are currently
working with Staffan de Mistura, the UN's special envoy for Syria, to form a
committee in January to begin drafting a new Syrian constitution.
U.S. forces conducted a precision airstrike near Sarmada in northwest Syria
Nov. 18 that Pentagon says killed a senior al-Qaida leader. (Army photo by
1st Lt. Daniel Johnson)
It would also be nice to think the president and commander-in-chief has the
final say in his administration's policies overseas, given the constitution
by which we are supposed to be governed. But the misleading announcement on
the withdrawal of troops, followed by Trump's boastful tweet, suggest
something close to exactly the opposite.
As Trump finishes his second year in office, the pattern is plain: This
president can have all the foreign policy ideas he wants, but the Pentagon,
State, the intelligence apparatus, and the rest of what some call "the deep
state" will either reverse, delay, or never implement any policy not to its
liking.
Blocking Few Good Ideas
Syria is a case in point, but one among many. Trump announced in March that
he would withdraw American troops as soon as the fight against ISIS was
finished. By September the Pentagon was saying no, U.S. forces had to stay
until Damascus and its political opponents achieved a full settlement. From
the new HQ in Raqqa, The Washington Post tells us, U.S. forces will extend
"overall control, perhaps indefinitely, of an area comprising nearly a third
of Syria."
This is how 2018 has gone for Trump. This president has very few good ideas,
but we can count on his foreign policy minders to block those he does have
if they fail to conform to the orthodox playbook-the foreign policy "blob,"
as Barack Obama famously called it.
Reversal on Military Budget
Earlier this month Trump complained about the Pentagon's out-of-control
budget and pledged to cut it, if marginally, from its current $716 billion
to $700 billion in the 2020 fiscal year. "I am certain that, at some time in
the future," he said in one of his inevitable tweets, "President Xi and I,
together with President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a
meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race. The
U.S. spent 716 Billion Dollars this year. Crazy!"
Raqqa Internal Security Force Training Class receive their initial issue of
equipment after training in Ayn Issa, Syria, July 31 2017. (U.S. Army photo
by Sgt. Mitchell Ryan)
Days later the president had a meeting with Defense Secretary James Mattis
and the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee. The White
House announced immediately afterward that the three had agreed on a 2020
defense budget of $750 billion: from a 2 percent cut to an increase of
nearly 5 percent in the course of one meeting.
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Trump's idea of improving relations with Russia has faced a wall of
opposition from the first, needless to say. His summit with President Putin
in Helsinki last July ignited a fresh uproar-and his suggestion that Putin
come to Washington in the autumn still another. With Director of National
Intelligence Dan Coats in the lead, that invitation was mocked to death
within days. A New Year's prediction: There will be no second summit with
Putin, probably for the duration of Trump's term in office.
Among the biggest disappointments of the year has been the administration's
failure to build on Trump's effort to advance a settlement with North Korea
after seven decades of tension in Northeast Asia. The Trump-Kim summit in
Singapore last May did what initial encounters between heads of state are
supposed to do: It established a working rapport. By that measure, any
detached judgment of the meeting would have to count it a success.
But the U.S. press uniformly criticized Trump nonetheless for not coming
home with the full details of the North's nuclear disarmament. These same
media have since treated us to the usual stories, sourced from the
intelligence agencies, that the North is misleading us once again. Result: A
second summit appears to have fallen off the White House's agenda despite
Trump's statement at the UN last autumn that the two leaders would meet
again "quite soon."
One does not have to entertain any liking for Donald Trump to find this
pattern disturbing. It suggests that our foreign policy cliques, wedded to
an orthodoxy devoted more or less entirely to U.S. primacy, have positioned
themselves-over the course of many administrations-to dictate America's
conduct abroad even to our presidents. There is danger in this, no matter
who the occupant of the White House happens to be.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the
International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, author, and
lecturer. His most recent book is Time No Longer: Americans After the
American Century (Yale). Follow him @thefloutist. His web site is
www.patricklawrence.us. Support his work via www.patreon.com/thefloutist.