Trump and Administration Need Unified Syria Strategy that Prioritizes Limiting Iranian Influence

The Trump White House’s approach to Syria is beset by contradiction, with the Commander in Chief’s impulses diverging from his defense and foreign policy principals, and at times, even from his own prior pronouncements. This policy incoherence has dramatically played out this month, as Trump swung from declaring his desire to disengage from Syria one day to leading missile strikes against Syrian targets involved in the research, production, and storage of chemical weapons less than two weeks later.

Trump’s penchant for unpredictability has served the President’s foreign policy well in some cases, for instance, compelling North Korean despot Kim Jong-Un to come to the negotiating table for talks on his nuclear weapons program and long-range ballistic missile capabilities. On Syria, however, the Trump administration’s haphazard approach has made a chaotic situation worse. President Trump must get on the same page as his advisers and present a clear, unified vision of what his administration perceives are the U.S.’s core objectives and interests in Syria, and clarify the U.S.’s commitment to seeing these through. At present, the president’s preference for withdrawal seemingly outweighs curtailing long-term Russian and Iranian influence in Syria. A Syria strategy which cedes control of Syria to Iran is insufficient, and will create grave unforeseen dangers for the U.S. and its regional allies down the road. 

In a January speech at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laid out a whole-of-government approach to Syria centered on five key objectives: the defeat of ISIS and Al Qaeda, a political resolution centered around the U.N. Geneva process that would involve a post-Assad transition, rolling back Iranian influence, creating conditions for the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, and ensuring a Syria free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Tillerson’s vision of an expansive U.S. role in Syria hinted at an open-ended military commitment. At the beginning of April, President Trump expressed his fundamental opposition to the strategy enumerated by Tillerson, indicating that he views the U.S. role in Syria as limited to the defeat of ISIS and opposes an open-ended commitment. On April 3, Trump intoned “I want to get out – I want to bring our troops home.”

Seemingly emboldened by Trump telegraphing his eagerness for withdrawal and that he sees no U.S. interest in Syria beyond the eradication of ISIS, the Assad regime carried out a chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Douma days later on April 7. Moved by the images of the apparent chlorine and sarin attack, Trump pulled an about-face, tweeting, “President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay." Less than two weeks after announcing his desire for American withdrawal, the U.S. carried out airstrikes, with British and French participation, targeting three Syrian facilities engaged in the research and production of chemical weapons. The targeted facilities were the Barzeh Research and Development Center outside Damascus, operated by the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), the organization behind the development of Syria’s chemical and unconventional weapons programs, and two facilities that were part of the Him Shinshar chemical weapons complex outside of Homs. The U.S. led missile strikes indicated that Trump has, for now at least, expanded his view of U.S. interests in Syria to include enforcing international norms against the use of chemical weapons.

While President Trump triumphantly tweeted “Mission Accomplished!” following the strikes, it is debatable whether even the limited objectives of degrading the Assad regime’s ability to deliver chemical weapons and deterring their future use were met by the U.S.-led military action. According to a statement by director of the Joint Staff Lt. Gen. Keith McKenzie, “We believe that by hitting Barzeh in particular we’ve attacked the heart of the Syrian chemicals weapon program.” Notably, McKenzie’s statement did not declare that the strikes had destroyed Syria’s chemical weapons program, and the  limited scope of the strikes did not hit Syria’s chemical stockpiles, target their scientists or researchers, or strike a decisive blow to the planes used to deliver chemical payloads. On Thursday, McKenzie acknowledged that Syria retained a “residual capacity” to produce chemical weapons, and concluded that, “They still have ability to conduct attacks; I would not rule that out.”  An Israeli intelligence assessment following the U.S.-led strikes further determined that not all of the chemical weapons facilities known to Israel were destroyed, and that Assad was unlikely to be deterred from further chemical attacks due in part to Trump’s stated desire to withdraw U.S. troops and comments from American military officials that there are no further strikes planned, such as Defense Secretary James Mattis’s declaration that this was a “one-time shot.”

The Assad regime, and for that matter its Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah backers, clearly feel they got off lightly and were relieved following the limited nature of U.S.-led strikes. By tweeting days before the strikes that missiles would be “coming, nice and new and ‘smart,’” Syria, Russia, and Iran were able to take advantage of the opportunity to move their military assets, aircraft, personnel, and possibly chemical weapons stockpiles out of harm’s way into Russian zones of influence, where attacking them would risk setting off the sort of larger conflagration that Trump is clearly keen to avoid.

Thus, the limited strikes did nothing to alter the course of the war, nor were they designed to. According to British Prime Minister Theresa May, the strikes were “not about regime change,” and a Pentagon spokeswoman stated that the attack “does not represent a change in U.S. policy, nor an attempt to depose the Syrian regime.” The April 7th chemical attacks in the Eastern Ghouta town of Douma appear to have been a shrewd gambit and calculated risk by Assad which had their intended effect of speeding up the regime’s takeover of the last rebel bastion in the Damascus suburbs. Indeed, the day after the U.S.-led retaliation, the Assad regime declared that the last holdovers had fled Eastern Ghouta and their brutal, two-month offensive to recapture the enclave was complete.

Assad’s calculus that he could use chemical weapons to hasten his objectives and withstand a limited, surgical western response, proved prescient and is likely to color his thinking going forward on the use of chemical weapons. The U.S. response, with its care given to avoiding escalation with Assad’s Russian and Iranian enablers, was largely symbolic and exposed the U.S. as a risk-averse actor. If and when Assad pushes the envelope again, the U.S. will be left with a menu of bad options: not responding; responding again in a limited fashion, setting off a tit-for-tat; or a more muscular response which risks drawing the U.S. into a conflict with Russia and/or Iran. In the meantime, Assad has gotten the message that he can carry on with business as usual, targeting Syrian civilians with barrel bombs and other conventional means with impunity. Only visceral images of the aftermath of chemical attacks seem sufficient to compel a Western kinetic response.

And so, it seems the U.S. is prepared to let Syria fall completely to the Assad-Russia-Iran-Hezbollah alliance, a huge boon for Iran’s expansionist project which will allow it to complete its land bridge from Tehran to the Mediterranean and project power into the Levant, enhancing the threat to Israel and America’s Sunni allies. Defense Secretary Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford held a classified Congressional briefing on Tuesday that conveyed to attendees that this month’s events in Syria have not led President Trump to abandon his isolationist impulses for withdrawal, and that the U.S. has no meaningful plans to push back against Russia and Iran’s expanding influence in Syria. This state of play ensures that the U.N.’s Geneva process will never get off the ground. As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) put it, “To think that you have any leverage under the current construct is insane. Why would Russia and Iran and Assad go to Geneva when they are winning on the battlefield uncontested?”

President Trump should change course and pursue a strategy more in line with the one laid out by Secretary Tillerson in January which would push back against Iranian influence and retain a degree of U.S. leverage in Syria by keeping a limited number of troops. Both the president and U.S. electorate have made clear they have no stomach for a costly, open-ended military entanglement in Syria, but withdrawal and ceding Syria to bad actors will reduce U.S. global influence and further destabilize the Middle East, putting our allies at risk and ultimately threatening U.S. national security interests. Rather than telegraphing withdrawal, the U.S. should signal that it is committed to maintaining a military presence in Syria. According to former Admiral James Stavridis, previously the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, “An actual strategy would see the U.S. remain engaged in Syria with up to 5,000 troops. … The allies would also push on Russia’s economic weaknesses -- Moscow doesn't have the money to rebuild Syria under Assad -- to force real negotiations, under United Nations auspices, on a diplomatic resolution.” There are no good options left for the U.S. in Syria, but there are measures that can be taken far short of a large-scale military incursion which may still prevent a complete Russian-Iranian takeover that would be disastrous for the region and U.S. interests.

 Jordan Steckler is a research analyst at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI).