US troops will stay to counter Iran
UNITED STATES: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has committed the US to an indefinite military presence in Syria, citing a range of policy goals that extend far beyond the defeat of Islamic State as conditions for American troops to go home.
But a crisis unfolding on the Syria-Turkey border that threatens to embroil the US military in a wider regional conflict underscores how hard it will be for the relatively small American presence in Syria to influence the outcome of the conflict there.
Speaking yesterday in a major Syria policy address hosted at Stanford University by the Hoover Institution, Tillerson listed vanquishing al Qaeda, ousting Iran and securing a peace settlement that excludes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as among the goals of the continued presence in Syria of about 2000 American troops, who are currently deployed in a Kurdish-controlled corner of northeastern Syria.
His comments represent the most comprehensive and ambitious articulation of Washington’s often contradictory policy in Syria since President Donald Trump took office a year ago, and underline the extent to which the war against Isis has entangled the US in the region’s other conflicts.
The US troops in northeastern Syria were initially deployed during the Obama presidency to aid local Kurdish forces in the fight against Isis. Their presence now appears to be evolving into a wider regional policy aimed, among its goals, at fulfilling the Trump administration’s promises to get tough on Iran.
Tillerson said the experience of the US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, which was followed by the rise of Isis and the US military’s return to the region, necessitated an open-ended American presence in Syria to prevent a revival of the jihadist terror group. ‘‘We cannot repeat the mistake of 2011.’’
But he also indicated that one of the biggest challenges of the postIsis era was Iran’s enhanced role in the region.
With Isis now beaten back into a small pocket of territory along the Iraq-Syria border, the US had to address the reality that Iran’s support for Assad in Syria had given Tehran a vastly expanded reach, he said.
‘‘Iran has dramatically strengthened its presence in Syria by deploying Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops; supporting Lebanese Hezbollah; and importing proxy forces from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. Through its position in Syria, Iran is in a stronger position to extend its track record of attacking US interests, allies and personnel in the region.’’
Squeezing Iran would therefore be one of the foremost goals of the continued US troop presence in Syria, Tillerson said, acknowledging that the project would be difficult.
One of the starkest illustrations of the risks of the entanglement is unfolding now, as Turkey escalates threats to attack the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria. The area is controlled by Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), who are allied to the US but did not directly participate in the fight against Isis. They are closely tied to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is waging war against Nato member and US ally Turkey.
The latest threat from Turkey was triggered by US military plans to train a 30,000-strong border force to protect the Kurdishcontrolled area of northeastern Syria. Turkey regards such a force as a threat to its national security.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said yesterday after meeting with Tillerson in Vancouver that any resulting damage to Turkey’s ties with the US could be beyond repair.