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Intelligence Estimate and Forecast: The Syrian Theater
[Institute For The Study of War] EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThe United States will continue to risk its vital strategic interests in the Middle East unless it changes its policies in Syria and Iraq. President Donald Trump and his administration inherited a weakened U.S. position, with Russia imposing constraints on American freedom of action and options. The Trump administration has taken initial steps to advance U.S. prestige in the region by reassuring America’s traditional allies and acting more firmly against its enemies and adversaries. The tactical tasks of recapturing Mosul and liberating Raqqa from the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) are complete and nearly complete, respectively. Nevertheless, its efforts to define and execute policies that secure America’s vital interests are moving more slowly than those of America’s enemies, adversaries, and spoilers who are more agile than the U.S. These actors include Russia, Iran and its proxies, Turkey, ISIS, al Qaeda, and some Kurdish elements, who are pursuing goals that threaten American objectives and are exploiting the current situation to make strategic gains as the U.S. champions short-term gains and tactical success. The Trump administration has not yet broken with its predecessor’s approach to the Middle East, particularly in Syria and Iraq. It has prioritized conducting counterterrorism operations against ISIS to recapture ISIS’s territory. American military forces have accelerated this campaign by relying on the most readily available local forces, including Kurdish forces in northern Syria that are aligned with terrorists targeting Turkey. The administration has eschewed a U.S. role in addressing the regional war’s underlying drivers, including the role of the Bashar al Assad regime in Syria and sectarianism in Iraq stoked by Iran. The main effort of the counter-ISIS fight must become preventing the organization from reconstituting and its rivals from inheriting its leadership of the Iraqi and global jihad. ISIS re-emerged from a defeated al Qaeda in Iraq and controlled Iraqi cities only three years after American troops departed in 2011. The Trump administration has also acquiesced to an expanding Russian and Iranian ground campaign in Syria and a growing role for Iran inside Iraq. Its diplomatic efforts to end the wars have focused on the most expedient political outcomes shaped by dominant local and regional actors. It does not appear committed to shaping a long-term stabilization congruent with a wider set of American regional interests. The administration has expressed that it will confront and roll back Iran’s destabilizing campaign but has neither set the conditions for such a campaign nor undertaken sufficient policy action that will set conditions for such an outcome. The Russo-Iranian coalition is exploiting the continuity in American strategy from President Obama to President Trump’s administration. It is now strengthening its grip in Syria while enabling the Assad regime to extend its positions. Vladimir Putin’s dependence on Iran for securing Russia’s most important interests in Syria ‐ its airbase at Latakia and naval base at Tartous ‐ will continue to ensure that he will remain intertwined in a deepening partnership with Tehran. The "de-escalation" agreements brokered in Syria will allow Russia to remain in the driver’s seat for shaping the overall political settlement. These agreements will also fail to prevent Iranian expansionism. Russian and Iran share the ambition to weaken and ultimately expel the U.S. from the region. They are continuing to position themselves to make that outcome a reality. Posted by: Besoeker 2017-09-29 |
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