What Does ‘America First’ Mean in Syria?

By Jonathan S. Tobin

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

When President Donald Trump said last week that he was committed to a complete U.S. withdrawal from Syria, critics zeroed in on the contradiction between his off-the-cuff comments and the opinions of his top military advisors and national-security staff, who reportedly argued that the U.S. must stay in Syria after the defeat of ISIS in order to prevent its resurgence.

The problem wasn’t just Trump’s instinctive resistance to staying on script. The gap between the president’s positions and those of his staff with respect to Syria was wide. What the president said reflected not only his own beliefs but also what his instincts told him were the opinions of most Americans. After more than 16 years of wars in the Middle East, it’s likely that most of the people who voted for Trump, as well as many of those who didn’t, agreed when he said America’s involvement in the Middle East since 9/11 had produced only debt, death, and devastation. Despite critics across the political spectrum who pointed out that leaving Syria to Russia and Iran was dangerous for the U.S., Israel, and the region, Trump was signaling that he remained as instinctively isolationist as he seemed during his presidential campaign.

Yet the talk of withdrawal was quickly forgotten after reports emerged Saturday of a chemical attack carried out against civilians in the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Douma by the forces of the Bashar al-Assad regime. As he did after a similar attack a year ago, Trump reacted emotionally. He denounced the Syrian dictator, placed responsibility for the atrocity on both Russia and Iran, and promised a strong response within days.

After more than a year of presidential flattery directed at Moscow, Trump’s willingness to speak ill of Russian president Vladimir Putin is something of a breakthrough. Though the administration has at times acted against Russian interests with respect to Ukraine and other issues, the president’s belief in the possibility of better relations with Russia — as well as his sensitivity to charges about Russian collusion with his campaign — had until now caused him to avoid personal criticisms of Putin or even to speak frankly about Moscow’s aggressive behavior abroad and its attempts to interfere in U.S. elections.

Assad’s atrocity seemed to jolt Trump. He appeared, in its aftermath, to be finally waking up to the glaring contradiction between his soft attitude toward Russia and his hostility to Iran. In Syria, the two countries are partners. Getting tough with Iran and restraining its quest for regional hegemony as well as the activities of its terrorist auxiliaries like Hezbollah and allies like Assad required a more clear-headed approach to Russia than Trump had previously been willing to accept.

On Monday, Trump assured the world that a “very tough” response to the Douma attack was on the way. It’s not clear whether the U.S. reaction will be a one-off attack on Syrian targets or something more far reaching. Either way, the real question isn’t how many missiles are fired but whether the president is prepared to abandon his illusions about détente with Putin and recognize that pulling out of Syria isn’t a viable option. The answer will tell us all what exactly an “America First” foreign policy means in a world in which the president’s desire to avoid more Middle East wars and entanglements cannot be reconciled with the defense of America’s interests and values or those of its allies.

In assessing the situation in Syria, Trump has rightly placed most of the blame on his predecessor. President Obama’s retreat from his “red line” threat to attack Assad if he used chemical weapons was a critical moment for both U.S. foreign policy and the course of the war in Syria. By passing responsibility for the control of the regime’s chemical weapons to the U.N., Obama allowed Moscow to replace the U.S. as the pre-eminent power in the region, enabled Russian and Iranian intervention in the civil war, and made America complicit in the atrocities that these powers would commit. Though Obama would be forced to commit the United States to the fight against ISIS terrorists who gained power as a result of his withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and his unwillingness to intervene in Iran, the lackluster results from those efforts were also a function of his lack of interest in the conflict.

Given his own reluctance to commit the U.S. to “nation building” as well as his desire for a new détente with Russia, there was a great deal of continuity between Trump’s policies in Syria and those of Obama. However, there was one major difference. Trump’s enthusiasm for the battle against ISIS was far greater than that of Obama and his decision to loosen the rules of engagement for U.S. forces was a major factor in the rout of ISIS in 2017, after two years of stalemate under Obama’s leadership.

But Trump also thought ISIS’s defeat could be followed by a U.S. withdrawal that would allow him to concentrate on nation building at home. What he has been slow to realize is that while Obama should shoulder the blame for the current mess in Syria, another retreat on his watch would create an even bigger disaster. With Iran now entrenched in Syria and threatening Israel, and Turkey threatening the Kurdish forces that played a key role in defeating ISIS, the price of U.S. disengagement has gone up. That means what is needed is not just an effort to punish Assad and his allies for their chemical attacks, but a U.S. message to Russia and Iran that America will not allow the region to spiral further out of control.

The irony for Trump is that in December the administration issued a 68-page foreign-policy position paper that sought to define “America First” in a manner that would be consistent with a continued U.S. commitment to its Middle East responsibilities. That document provided a loose outline of a policy of American engagement in the region along with a robust military response to threats to U.S. interests, allies, and values. It gives plenty of intellectual cover for a strong response to Douma and a course correction that will involve Trump putting Russia on notice that the United States will not allow Syria to become a playground for Iranian mischief with regard to Israel, attempts to crush the Kurds, or further Assad atrocities.

To send that message, the U.S. will need to maintain its troop presence in the areas reclaimed from ISIS and be willing to use sanctions to place pressure on both Russia and Iran.

It’s been a century since the Atlantic and the Pacific were the boundaries of U.S. national defense. If Trump’s “America First” instincts lead him to treat any response to Assad as a one-time gesture rather than a policy shift, he will be heading down the same disastrous path trod by Obama. Like it or not, punting Syria to Russia and Iran involves consequences that are every bit as unpalatable as the notion of continued American commitment to the region. If Trump fails to do more than firing a few missiles, it will create future troubles much more difficult to overcome.