US personnel changes raise questions about Middle East strategy
Two senior US officials at the Department of Defence and the White House who deal with Middle East issues left their positions in the past week, raising questions about the administration’s policy on regional challenges.
Victoria Coates, the longtime deputy national security adviser at the White House, was reassigned to the Energy Department last week after rumours that she was the anonymous author of a New
York Times piece criticising President Donald Trump.
Ms Coates’s role was instrumental on Mena issues. She led a meeting with Libya’s Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar last November, drove a hawkish policy on Iran and maintained good working relationships with Gulf partners and Turkey.
Also leaving last week was John Rood who was dismissed from his role as undersecretary of defence for policy.
Mr Rood was sacked after disagreements with the White House over its policy on Ukraine and after briefing Congress during the impeachment process into Mr Trump.
He played a major role in the inter-agency process between the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department on issues related to Gulf security, Turkey and counter-terrorism.
Mr Rood’s departure follows the resignation of seven defence officials since December.
Experts in Washington regard the changes as a threat to the inter-agency process within the government and for the ability of the administration to formulate a coherent strategy on the roles of Russia, Turkey and Iran in Syria.
Aaron Stein, director of the Middle East Programme at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said Mr Rood’s resignation would weaken the Pentagon’s position on Turkey.
“The Pentagon, and Mr Rood specifically, have sought to tap the brakes on some of the more aggressive anti-Assad ideas floated in the US inter-agency process, arguing that the US government needs to focus on great power competition, not little wars of choice,” Mr Stein told The National.
He said that with Mr Rood’s departure, the Pentagon loses ground in the Syria debate to more aggressive voices, but they still “have to filter up to Donald Trump, who, as always, is a wild card”.
Differences on Syria between the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon have been aired in the open.
While Special Representative for Syria James Jeffrey has pushed an anti-Assad and pro-Turkey line in pursuing US interests, he was contradicted by US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and the Pentagon.
During Mr Jeffrey’s last trip to Turkey, in mid-February, he commemorated Turkish “martyrs” and stressed a unified front with Ankara in Idlib where Turkish forces are is fighting alongside Syrian rebels against the Bashar Al Assad regime and Russia.
But back in Washington, Mr O’Brien told a US audience that Washington is not the policeman in the conflict.
“What are we supposed to do to stop that?” he said at the Atlantic Council think tank. “We’re supposed to parachute in as a global policeman and hold up a stop sign and say, ‘Stop this, Turkey. Stop this, Russia. Stop this, Iran’.”
Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington expected splits to widen with Ms Coates’s departure.
“There’s clearly a division within the administration on Syria,” Mr Lister said.
“James Jeffrey’s biggest challenge is that the president of the United States doesn’t really have a foreign policy. He doesn’t know Syria exists unless he sees it on Fox News in the morning.”
He said another division is between the Pentagon and the State Department.
The spokesman for the US-led coalition against ISIS, Col Myles Caggins, told Sky News last week that Idlib was “a magnet” for terrorist groups”.
“He is parroting the Assad regime talking points,” Mr Lister said.
He said such statements and uncertainty from the White House undermine the State Department.
“There is no process; there is no structure,” Mr Lister said.
Another issue that is expected to be affected by the reshuffle is Turkey’s possible acquisition of Patriot missiles. A Pentagon official told The
National that no decision has been made.
James Anderson has been appointed as a temporary replacement for Mr Rood. The White House has not yet announced a replacement for Ms Coates.