When the Toll Comes Due: U.S. Failures in Syria and Next Steps
When the Toll Comes Due: U.S. Failures in Syria and Next Steps by Melissa Dalton – Center for Strategic and International Studies
Both the Obama administration and now more acutely the Trump administration have made catastrophic mistakes in Syria that are costing the United States. Both administrations underestimated the extent to which NATO ally Turkey would go to protect its own interests, how Russia and Iran would rally behind Bashar al-Assad, and that the Assad regime’s pernicious form of governance was the central driver of conflict in Syria—of which the Islamic State is a symptom.
Instead, the United States chose to focus narrowly on countering the Islamic State by working with local partners alongside a coalition of international allies. The coalition was successful in eliminating the Islamic State’s territorial control and building a semblance of inclusive, subnational governance until last week’s rupture. The United States worked most closely with the highly capable and reliable People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian Kurdish arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that both Turkey and the United States consider a terrorist organization. For Turkey, the PKK is an existential threat. With devastating irony, this was the tragic flaw in the U.S. approach—the foundation upon which U.S. presence in Syria was built was cracked from the outset. Coalition efforts to strengthen it held longer than expected and likely could have lasted long enough to achieve U.S. objectives and depart responsibly. But it could not withstand a precipitous decision to leave the field entirely. So, it collapsed.
The implications of U.S. failures in Syria are grave…