Alarm over US’ Syria exit plan
LAWMAKERS FEAR WITHDRAWAL WILL GIVE FREE REIN TO IRAN, RUSSIA
Congress fears pullout will give free reign to Iran and Russia
Lawmakers from both parties expressed alarm on Wednesday over President Trump’s plans to forge ahead with the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, particularly in the absence of what they see as a viable strategy to secure American objectives there.
In a House hearing, members repeatedly challenged the State Department’s top officials on the Middle East and Russia to explain how the administration planned to reach its stated goals of defeating Daesh, building a stable Syria without President Bashar Al Assad, and keeping his Russian and Iranian backers from taking over.
“As tempting as it is to say ‘enough’ and retreat to our shores, smart, focused and determined engagement in the Middle East must be our approach,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce said.
“We need to talk strategy with the administration.”
Earlier Wednesday, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker said that he was convinced Trump “does plan to leave” Syria despite the advice of many of the president’s senior national security aides.
“But I don’t see this administration in any way trying to shape what’s happening on the ground as it relates to this regime,” Corker said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
Their comments followed a closed-door military briefing on Tuesday night that left lawmakers “unnerved,” according to Senator Lindsey O. Graham.
With no military or diplomatic strategy, Graham told reporters, the administration seems willing “to give Syria to Al Assad, Russia and Iran.”
Senator Christopher A. Coons said after the meeting that “the only thing worse than a bad plan on Syria is no plan on Syria, and the president and his administration have failed to deliver a coherent plan on the path forward,” CNN reported. Congressional willingness to speak out, particularly among leading Republicans, follows confusing recent events that have exacerbated long-existing concerns.
Chemical weapons
To some extent, those concerns began under the previous administration, when President Barack Obama, while voicing support for rebels seeking to oust Al Assad, declined to provide them with substantial assistance, then failed to follow through on a threat to take military action if Al Assad used chemical weapons against his own people.
Trump, although he campaigned on a promise to end US involvement in overseas wars, doubled down on Obama’s separate war against Daesh in both Iraq and Syria, providing the military with broader authorities that have hastened the demise of the militants in both countries.
But while Trump, unlike Obama, has been willing — both last year and again early this month — to use targeted US force to punish and hopefully deter Al Assad’s use of chemical weapons, he faces the same wider dilemma about Syria’s future as his predecessor.
Even as the United States and its allies and partners have largely destroyed Daesh’s physical so-called “caliphate”, Al Assad — with help from Russia and Iran — has decimated the rebels and is close to winning the civil war.
His retention of power, officials in much of the administration and Congress assert,
As tempting as it is to say ‘enough’ and retreat to our shores, smart, focused and determined engagement in the Middle East must be our approach.”
Edward R. Royce | Chairman, House Foreign Affairs Committee
The only thing worse than a bad plan on Syria is no plan on Syria, and the president and his administration have failed to deliver a coherent plan on the path forward.”
Christopher A. Coons | US senator
will leave Syria divided, unstable and at risk of a militant resurgence. At the same time, US allies, including Israel and Arab Gulf states, are worried that a Syria with Al Assad, Moscow and Tehran in control would threaten the security of the entire region. Until recently, the administration’s plan for achieving a different future for Syria was twofold.
Parts of northern and eastern Syria, liberated from Daesh and under the control of the United States and a proxy force of local Kurdish and Arab fighters, would be stabilised as a bulwark against Al Assad and his allies and as leverage in political negotiations. US troops in Syria would remain there to provide security and show that the US meant business.
Defence Secretary Jim Mattis had said in November that, “We’re going to make sure we set the conditions for a diplomatic solution” to the civil conflict. “Not just, you know, fight the military part of it and then say good luck on the rest of it.”
The Syrian government yesterday stepped up its efforts to retake the opposition’s last besieged enclaves, as rebels prepared to withdraw from one and a newspaper reported an ultimatum against another.
President Bashar Al Assad scored a major victory this month by retaking eastern Ghouta, the biggest rebel stronghold near Damascus, putting his forces in by far their strongest position since the early months of the seven-year-old civil war.
Yesterday rebels were continuing to surrender under deals that allow them to withdraw to the opposition pocket in the northwest in return for abandoning territory.
State television showed live footage of buses entering the town of Dumayr, northeast of Damascus, to bring out fighters and their families, while soldiers stood by the roadside.
Twenty buses would be used to transfer about 5,000 people, including 1,500 rebels of the Jaish Al Islam group, to north Syria, after they surrendered their heavy weapons, Syrian state TV said.
A war monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said there were also talks under way between Russia and rebels for the insurgents to withdraw from an enclave in central Syria around the town of Rastan.
The army was also putting military pressure on rebels in the Eastern Qalamoun enclave, near Dumayr, to start negotiations to withdraw, the Observatory reported.
Separately, the pro-government Al Watan newspaper reported yesterday that Daesh terrorists had been given 48 hours to agree to withdraw from an enclave centred around the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees south of Damascus.
“If they refuse, the army and supporting forces are ready to launch a military operation to end the presence of the organisation in the area,” Al Watan said.
Most residents have fled the camp, once Syria’s largest for Palestinian refugees, but thousands of civilians remain. Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which looks after Palestinian refugees said it was deeply concerned for their safety.
A commander in the regional military alliance that backs the Syrian government said the Syrian army had begun shelling the camp on Tuesday in preparation for an assault.
The United States, Britain and France launched a volley of air strikes on Saturday against three Syrian targets in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons strike during the Ghouta assault.
But the limited Western intervention, far from any contested battlefront, has shown no sign of having any impact on the ground, where Al Assad’s forces have pressed on with his offensive.
The last rebels withdrew from eastern Ghouta hours after the Western bombing. Since then, the government has focused on regaining four less populous enclaves which have long been under siege.
Their capture would leave the opposition holding only its two main strongholds located in the northwest and southwest along Syria’s international borders.
Diplomacy this week has focused on the accusations of poison gas use in Douma, the last town to hold out against the government advance in eastern Ghouta.
Western countries say scores of people were gassed to death in the April 7 chemical attack. Syria and its ally Russia deny it. Now that the rebels have surrendered, the area is under government control, and a team of international inspectors have so far been unable to reach it.
The inspectors have delayed their visit to Douma after their security team were shot at during a reconnaissance trip on Tuesday, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said.
The Western countries say Moscow and Damascus are preventing the inspectors from reaching the site and may be destroying evidence. Russia and Al Assad’s government deny this.