Article

2019-10-15 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Goodbye to the Middle East by Peter Zeihan

This day was always going to happen.

On October 7, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a partial withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria. Soon after, Turkish forces began moving south across the border to strike Kurdish forces which had been until extremely recently under American protection. Two days later the partial American withdrawal was upgraded to a full evacuation of all forces.

Wailing and gnashing of teeth across the American political spectrum quickly erupted, with many condemning the tactical and political aspects of the president’s decision. I’m of mixed minds:

On the one hand, the Kurds ‐ whether in Syria or Iraq ‐ have been America’s only reliable regional allies since America’s first major confrontation with Iraq back in the early 1990s. When we have asked, they have answered. Every single time. In many cases U.S. forces didn’t even do the heavy lifting, but instead relegated themselves to providing intelligence and materiel support. Without the Kurds’ assistance the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would have been far nastier affair, post-Saddam Iraq would have been far less stable, the defanging of ISIS and the destruction of the ISIS caliphate would not have happened. In Syria in specific, the Kurds habitually provided at least five times the forces the Americans did.

On the other hand, the United States was always going to leave Syria. If the Americans were unwilling to commit 100,000 troops to the overthrow of Syria’s Assad government and its subsequent forcible reconstruction, then there was little reason to become involved in a decades-long, grinding multi-sided civil war.

The primary reason American forces remain in Syria at this point is to limit Iranian penetration. That battle was lost six years ago when then-President Obama allowed the Syrian government to cross Obama’s own red line on the use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians. Obama made it crystal clear that any U.S. military action would be small scale, focused on Special Operations Forces, and largely dedicated to backing up the Syrian Kurds. Whether under Obama or Trump, an American withdrawal has always been inevitable. It’s just taken seven years of Syrian-Russian-Iranian victories on the battlefield and the large-scale dismemberment of the ISIS Caliphate to make it imminent.

Aside from the Iranian vector, American national and strategic interests in Syria are utterly nonexistent. Syria ‐ even backed up by Iran ‐ is a military pigmy that Israel could easily shatter. If Jerusalem really wanted to, it could roll into Damascus in a long weekend. (Sticking around, of course, would be a barrel of shiv-wielding monkeys.) American interests in Lebanon are less than American interests in Syria. Jordan has been a de facto Israeli client state for years. And that is quite literally all she wrote.

The far more important fact ‐ comfortable or uncomfortable depending upon your view ‐ is that the evolving American view of Syria is really little more than a microcosm of an evolving American view of the Middle East writ large. American troop deployments throughout the region have been plunging for a decade and are now down to about one-tenth of their peak. America now has more troops in Afghanistan than the rest of the region combined, and that deployment is well on its way to a complete phase out. CENTCOM HQ in Qatar will almost certainly be closed soon (you don’t need a forward command center if there’s nothing to command). The Iraq advisory force is leaving. Kuwait, once the launchpad for multiple wars, has been reduced to lilypad status. The Turks are certain to eject U.S. forces from the Incirlik base within a year.

Within two years the total regional deployment figure will be in the low-to-mid single digits of thousands, at most one-fifth of what is there today.

Posted by DarthVader 2019-10-15 10:22|| || Front Page|| [16 views ] Top

#1 [The US] ...didn’t even do the heavy lifting, but instead relegated themselves to providing intelligence and materiel support.

Without intel and materiel the Kurds otherwise didn't have, there would be no "lifting" at all, heavy or otherwise.

On the other hand, the United States was always going to leave Syria. If the Americans were unwilling to commit 100,000 troops to the overthrow of Syria’s Assad government and its subsequent forcible reconstruction, then there was little reason to become involved in a decades-long, grinding multi-sided civil war.

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

Posted by M. Murcek 2019-10-15 11:18|| 2019-10-15 11:18|| Front Page Top

#2 "forcible reconstruction" only seems to work on non-tribal civilisations.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2019-10-15 11:46|| 2019-10-15 11:46|| Front Page Top

#3 "forcible reconstruction" only seems to work on non-tribal civilizations.

There are tribal-civilizations?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-10-15 12:15|| 2019-10-15 12:15|| Front Page Top

#4 Middle East was semi-peaceful when the Europeans controlled the place.
Middle East was semi-peaceful when the Ottomans controlled the place.
Europe isn't up for the task, but I'm willing to give the Ottomans another chance. Let them start with Syria and see how it goes.

Posted by ruprecht 2019-10-15 12:28|| 2019-10-15 12:28|| Front Page Top

#5 American national and strategic interests in Syria are utterly nonexistent.

American national and strategic interests in Syria are utterly nonexistent.

American national and strategic interests in Syria are utterly nonexistent.

Worth repeating.

Posted by Herb McCoy 2019-10-15 12:33|| 2019-10-15 12:33|| Front Page Top

#6 If Trump's moves re Syria upset people like Fareed Zakaria and Thomas Freidman I'm for what Trump is doing 100%.

Posted by M. Murcek 2019-10-15 12:39|| 2019-10-15 12:39|| Front Page Top

#7 Aside from the Iranian vector, American national and strategic interests in Syria are utterly nonexistent.

Bingo. Not, "create an autonomous Kurdish region [for yet another of the Kurds' many factions]", not "reconstitute the Syrian government."

Just keep the Iranians down and smash ISIL, and restrain Turkey's involvement through diplomatic means. Not with American troops.

Can't we learn, once, maybe, from the endless war in Afghanistan?

Posted by Lex 2019-10-15 12:47|| 2019-10-15 12:47|| Front Page Top

#8 It'll be interesting to see the Dems take the war monger position against Trump.

Posted by ruprecht 2019-10-15 13:08|| 2019-10-15 13:08|| Front Page Top

#9 "MBS is not a friend, nor is Saudi Arabia an ally. America used to have to put up with this sort of activity from the Saudis during the Cold War because without Saudi oil, the global trading system would have collapsed and taken the American alliance network with it. Courtesy of America’s shale revolution, those days are over."

Man, Zeihan is just hitting these out of the park.

Posted by Herb McCoy 2019-10-15 13:52|| 2019-10-15 13:52|| Front Page Top

#10 I'm willing to give the Ottomans another chance.

Erdogan is Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey. His ultimate goal is a worldwide caliphate with himself as caliph. In typical MB style, he is willing to use the soft jihad of the law to move in a step-wise progression that doesn’t scare the frogs out of the heating pot. For the past few years we’ve watched him driving secularists and Gulenists out of public life at home and taking over all the Gulenist private schools around the world, whose excellent curriculum looks to Turkey as the center and definer of Islam. According to Russia Today, Turkey is building a second military base in Qatar, in addition to which this chronically nearly bankrupt country has bases or military personnel

...in Azerbaijan, Northern Cyprus, northern Iraq, Somalia and northern Syria.

And Turkey has been on a mosque building spree around the world — including a $100 million behemoth on 60 acres in Maryland — funded by the Diyanet, the government office of Muslim religious affairs, with an annual budget around 2 billion Euros the biggest item in the Turkish budget, plus another 100 million or so Euros in zakat extracted from current congregations “donated” to the project.

In the old days ribats were caravanserais on the Muslim trade routes, also serving the quietly invading force as fortresses and weapons depots. What odds these modern, donated Turkish mosques are not planned to serve a similar duty by the man who proudly said, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers,” and has told Turkish immigrants in Germany that "assimilation is a crime against humanity."

Posted by trailing wife 2019-10-15 19:11|| 2019-10-15 19:11|| Front Page Top

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