Now that the shock of Mattis' resignation is waning down, the liberal press is starting to praise the decision to get out of Syria and also attack Mattis record. All these attacks are based on ideology and because of the tribalism that has gripped American politics, there is dramatically less demand for facts and logic when reporting on foreign affairs issues.
Let’s look at the facts and objectives.
America has only 2,000 troops in Syria and thus the argument could be made that such a small number of troops could not be effective in the middle of a multiparty civil war. After all, compare that to the ten or even hundred of thousands that the US has deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan without any clear “victory” in these 2 countries. So why not just leaving this dangerous zone and bring the boys back home safe?
As I just mentioned, that’s a valid argument on face value, but it doesn’t pass logical thinking. However, before I elaborate on this, let us stress that Trump has not used that argument to withdraw US troops from Syria, rather he is advancing his now recurring and deeply flawed argument that America is paying for other countries security and that it is about time that America get “respected” again.
Both the first argument and Trump’s argument are flawed on the same level: the objective of having our troops in Syria. The first argument assumes that US troops are there to destroy ISIS and stop the civilian bloodshed, while Trump’s argument assumes that US foreign policy main objective is to make money. Both cannot be farther from the truth.
First let’s look at Trump’s moneymaking argument. Take the example of US troops deployed in South Korea. Trump has repeatedly declared that America is being "ripped off" because the South Korean government doesn’t pay a dime for these troops while America ensures their security. That’s wrong. Yes, the US helps secure South Korea while providing a deterrent to North Korea’s potentially catastrophic behavior. However, the strategic objective for our troops being there is to reduce the US response time from a few hours to a few minutes in case of a North Korea ICBM launch targeting the west coast of the US (ICBMs travel at 4 miles/sec, so it would take about 20 minutes to hit Los Angeles). This example perfectly illustrates how obvious it is that the US power objective around the world is not to make money, in fact it would be extremely dangerous if it were.
Now let’s analyze why despite their relatively small numbers, our troops in Syria have had a big strategic impact. Indeed, the Pentagon’s objective in Syria is not to bring the civil war to an end, otherwise they would have deployed drastically more troops (which would have been a mistake on its own). Their objective is to check Iran’s growing hegemony in the middle east, and by the same token, provide security assistance to America’s strategic allies in that region, i.e. the Sunni Arab countries and Israel. That’s exactly why all these 2,000 troops have been deployed along the border triangle joining Syria, Iraq, and Jordan. By being stationed at that strategic junction, we have blocked Iran from taking over the Iraqi-Syria border and by doing so, preventing Iran from projecting power all the way to the Mediterranean through Iraq (now an Iranian ally), Syria (up for grabs), and Lebanon (a strong Iranian ally through Hezbollah). US troops have also used minimal effort to prevent Iranian-controlled forces from attacking Jordan, a sworn Sunni enemy of the Shia regime. With the US troops out, America is letting, indeed inviting, Iran to take control of a huge swath of land with a Mediterranean port. That may, or may not, bode well for ISIS (ISIS is a Sunni terror group ideologically at odds with Iran), but it certainly doesn’t bode well for the US, Europe and the Arab world.
When one walks back the chain of events that lead us to this point, one gets to the 9/11 attacks orchestrated by Osama Bin Laden, a Sunni terrorist. Bin Laden’s objective was always to push American troops out of the region. It’s ironic that, because of Trump’s lack of strategic compass, Bin Laden is posthumously achieving his goal but also giving Iran, his main enemy, the power to impose its version of Islam, and Islamism, on a growing part of the middle east.
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