By Ameen Izzadeen
Less than a month after United States President Donald Trump declared that the US troops in Syria would be called back, four Americans, including two soldiers, were killed on Wednesday in a suicide blast carried out by ISIS, the very terrorist group he had claimed to have routed.
According to reports, Wednesday’s toll matched the largest number of American deaths from hostile fire in a single incident overseas since Trump became president.
The anticipated US exit from Syria is replete with complexities. It does not appear to be as easy as the US troops’ entry into the Syrian conflict. The announcement prompted Defence Secretary James Mattis to resign. It has put the US and Turkey on a confrontational course, with Ankara planning a major military campaign against the very Kurdish militias with whom the US military had allied to fight ISIS. It is also being seen by Trump’s critics as another Trump move to placate the Russians, while recent reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post gave credence to claims that Trump was working for Russia.
But it must be mentioned that the US military presence in Syria is illegal. Whereas the Iranians, the Russians and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah entered Syria with invitations from the Syrian government, the US troops had no such invitation. The US boots on the Syrian ground were illegal and in violation of international law.
True, terrorism is a global scourge and should be eliminated, but no international norm or convention allows a nation to go after a terrorist target in another country without obtaining that country’s permission. But powerful states such as the US, Russia and Israel, in pursuit of their national interest goals, have no qualms about violating the sovereignty of other nations.
In the Syrian conflict, the US involvement was initially auxiliary. It played a supporting role in the Saudi-Qatari project to oust the Bashar al-Assad regime. The project was marketed as an Arab Spring uprising aimed at ousting a dictator, though the projects’ authors themselves were averse to democracy and free thought. The schemers thought that just as they got rid of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, they could easily topple the Assad regime. But Syria was a bigger geostrategic pivot for countries such as mighty Russia, rising regional power Iran and the Middle East’s only nuclear power, Israel.
Beneath the Arab Spring façade of the Syrian conflict are Big Oil and Saudi Arabia’s fears about a rising Iran. Saudi Arabia and Israel believed if Syria was cut off, Iran would not be able to send supplies to the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, a formidable military force which scored a moral victory resisting Israel during a month-long invasion in 2006. Then there was a botched Saudi-Qatari bid to build energy pipelines across Syria and Turkey to Europe. Syria opposed the proposal as it went against the national interest of its ally Russia, which accounts for nearly 60 percent of the European energy market. Russia did not want Middle Eastern oil to glut the market and erode its clout on European nations. This explains Russia’s military involvement in the Syrian conflict. Besides, Russia also has a military base in Syria.
There is another oil chapter: The oil discovered in the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. Israel is unable to export this oil as international law prohibits it to sell the resources of an occupied territory. Israel wants Assad ousted and set up an Israeli-friendly regime which will cede the Golan Heights to Israel.
Then there is the ISIS issue. In hindsight, it now appears that the rise of ISIS was not a coincidence but was part of the project to oust Assad. The project worked as planned initially, with some Gulf nations providing military and financial support to the rebels. To win international legitimacy, they were called moderate rebels, despite their ISIS and al Qaeda links. The US trained them in camps in Jordan. But the project began to crumble, first with the entry of Iranian revolutionary guards and Hezbollah militia into the Syrian conflict, then with the arrival of the Russian troops and then with ISIS behaving like a Frankenstein’s unruly monster or a brutish evil force. With public opinion in support of a tough military response against ISIS building up in the US and other Western nations, the Barack Obama administration was compelled to act.
Washington’s war on ISIS began in Iraq. During this campaign, the US found itself on the same side as Iran which was providing military and material support to Iraqi paramilitary groups fighting ISIS.
After defeating the ISIS in Iraq, the US in late 2015 took the war to Syria, where it teamed up with Syrian Kurdish and a ragtag group of Arab fighters, dubbed the Syrian Democratic Forces. But in Syria, the ISIS rout is not solely an American feat. A bigger portion of the credit is due to the Russians, the Syrian government troops, the Iranians and the Hezbollah.
As Trump agrees to withdraw the 2,000-strong US military force from Syria, the Syrian Kurdish group YPG which allied with the Americans has become a military target for Turkey. This is because the YPG now controls a large swathe of territory bordering Turkey. Ankara sees this as a security threat because the YPG is an ally of the Kurdish separatists in Turkey.
Reacting angrily to Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton’s call that Turkey guarantee the security of the YPG militia, Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan said his government saw no difference between ISIS and the YPG.
As the US-Turkey war of words continued, Trump warned Erdogan that if Turkey dared to attack America’s allies in Syria, he would take measures to devastate Turkey’s economy. This week, the two leaders had a telephone conversation, following which Turkey decided to set up a security zone along the border and defer the military campaign.
It now appears that the US is phasing out the withdrawal from Syria, although Trump has said he is determined that the troops leave sooner rather than later. While Trump has succeeded in cajoling Erdogan to hold fire, the Russians, the Syrians and their Iranian allies are now on the outskirts of Manbij, taking on ISIS remnants. It is only a matter of time before they subdue the YPG, through military means or a surrender deal. The good news is that an end to the Syrian conflict is on the horizon. But the bad news is the conflict’s causes such as the Saudi-Iran rivalry and oil-driven politics remain unaddressed.
(This article first appeared in the Daily Mirror, Sri Lanka)
-
Recent Posts
- What Netanyahu is trying to achieve by provoking Iran
- Attack on Iran: Amid lies and deception, Gaza war may escalate into a regional conflict
- Gaza genocide, ISIS and the tailpiece of Moscow terror
- Rachel Corrie and USS Liberty: The Hannibal Doctrine in US diplomacy
- Gaza famine: Food aid before the slaughter
Archives
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
Categories
Meta