US troops, national interest and the Middle East
President Donald Trump’s surprise decision to withdraw United States military forces from Syria has generated intense controversy, and encouraged Turkey’s incursion seeking to destroy Kurdish forces. Analysis benefits from placing developments in historical context.
In 1973, military and diplomatic efforts of the Nixon administration were crucial to Israel’s successful defense against a combined attack by Arab states. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger led efforts to ease tensions in the region.
Major peace agreements followed
President Jimmy Carter’s determination and discipline achieved the historic 1978 Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel.
In March 1991, following expulsion of Iraq’s army from Kuwait, President George H.W. Bush addressed Congress. His speech emphasized the goal of achieving lasting stable peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Secretary of State James Baker demonstrated extraordinary energy and dedication in the sustained diplomacy that followed. The Madrid conference at the end of October 1991 led to the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians, and a Palestinian state, confirmed at the start of the Clinton administration. This in turn facilitated the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan in 1994.
Bush and Baker deserve enormous credit for exceptional energy, discipline and intelligence dedicated to defeating one nation’s military aggression. They did not destroy the Iraq government, confirmed America’s regional leadership and established a partially independent Palestine territory.
’56 Suez Crisis remains instructive
President Dwight Eisenhower used economic leverage and astute diplomacy to end a secretly planned old-style colonial military invasion by Britain, France and Israel to recapture the Suez Canal, which had been nationalized by Egypt’s new military regime, and seize the Sinai Peninsula.
As usual, Ike’s instincts were on target, and our alliance relationships survived. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden was replaced by Harold Macmillan, who acknowledged that the U.S. had succeeded Britain as the principal source of diplomatic and strategic leadership, supply of weapons and other forms of foreign aid and sales, and capacity for military intervention in the Mideast.
Approximately two years after the Suez disaster engulfed Britain, France and Israel, Eisenhower intervened directly in Lebanon with a sizable military force. Given the volatile nature of the region generally, and armed conflict then taking place in Lebanon, the intervention was regarded with unease.
American troops suffered only one soldier killed by hostile fire. Our forces were concentrated in Beirut’s city center, the port and the airport. The crisis did not escalate, and Eisenhower withdrew our forces. In Washington, opposition to the operation was largely partisan in nature.
Eisenhower had made his name early in his career in military logistics, supply and planning, then strategy, finally diplomacy. This rarely discussed incident in U.S. Cold War history is worth reviewing any time our forces are to be directly engaged in the explosive, unpredictable Middle East.
Iran, Russia and Turkey steadily expand influence in the region. The first is a long-established opponent. The second was our principal enemy during the Cold War. The last is a formal ally but now antagonistic to us.
After the Suez crisis, the Soviet Union cemented ties with Arab states. These ended with the Cold War, except with Syria, and Bush and Baker established U.S. leadership.
Trump has abandoned that leadership.
Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of “After the Cold War” (NYU Press and Palgrave/macmillan). Contact acyr@carthage.edu