President Jo Biden trumpeted his administration’s role in bringing about the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, by weakening his allies Iran and Hezbollah. In fact he underplayed Washington’s role. The US has imposed severe economic sanctions on Damascus and anyone who dealt with it under the Caesar Act; it also controlled, with the help of Kurdish militias, the oil regions in the east of Syria, depriving the state of its revenues. As for the role the US played in supporting, arming, and training the rebel groups or pushing the Syrian army to retreat without a fight, it is difficult to determine exactly what it got up to along with questions over the roles of Israel, Turkey and other countries.
With a month to go before President-elect Donald Trump enters the White House for his second term, thoughts have turned to the strategic dimensions of what happened in Syria and how it will impact the US.
The most important lesson to be learned from the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, no matter how hideous his rule was, opened the door onto an even worse situation. In 2007, tens of thousands of US reinforcements had to be sent to Iraq, known as the “Surge”, to quell a devastating civil war there, and then again to support Iraqi forces in confronting the Islamic State (ISIS) in the early 2010s. It is logical to ask therefore whether Washington is prepared for the post-Bashar era and why is it so positive about the end of his rule while objective circumstances raise fears of an even worse scenario than Iraq, given Syria’s patchwork of competing sects and ethnicities.
The Biden administration no doubt recalls how Paul Bremer, interim governor of Iraq, committed a serious error by signing off on the dismantling of the Iraqi army, which practically led to the collapse of the state. Nevertheless, the administration stood by while Israel destroyed the greater part of the Syrian army which could have been reorganized and rehabilitated to ensure the cohesion of the state. Syria now faces the possibility of armed clashes between different factions—although this is in itself a goal for Israel so it can proceed with occupying additional parts of Syria and dominating the rest of the country, making Syrian unity and territorial integrity impossible.
What about the incoming Trump administration? As his former National Security Advisor John Bolton stated, the president-elect has no philosophy or policy framework. All he thinks about is what benefits Trump at any particular moment. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understood this equation and he did not hold back in his dealings with Trump. Another national security adviser, Gen HR McMaster, said Netanyahu exploited Trump’s ignorance of the issues and manipulated him to get whatever he wanted from him.
A second-term Trump may be more knowledgeable about international affairs, but he will be no less self-absorbed and self-promoting. Trump’s position on Syria can be summed up through his dismissive phrase of 2019 that “we’re talking about sand and death”. After the latest outbreak of fighting, he posted on his Truth Social network “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT… DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”
Trump has a clear isolationist streak and an instinct to stay out of wars, but he is not averse to measures that risk starting them, such as the assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani. But looking at his picks for key roles in defence, foreign affairs, and national security, they are all hawks; or as the host of the Judging Freedom YouTube channel, Andrew Napolitano, has observed, a bunch of neocons dressed up in Maga gear.
The neoconservative movement is known to be tightly connected with Israel. It was the neocons who dragged George W Bush into the war in Iraq and who wanted to repeat the experience in Iran. Trump has often criticized the 2003 war, but it is not certain he will be able to contain the same momentum in his new administration. One notable exception from this group is Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's nominee for director of national intelligence. She visited Bashar al-Assad in Damascus in 2017 and praised his role in confronting Islamic extremism. Gabbard is facing great difficulties in convincing senators to approve her selection as a result and, even if she gets the appointment, she will be alone among the of hawks. However, she remains the closest to Trump's personality and thinking, which will give her some influence.
Regardless of Trump’s instincts, he cannot completely turn his back on Syria because of its impact on American interests. As Thomas Friedman observed, Syria is the type of place that explodes outwards rather than implodes in on itself, and therefore has an impact on its neighbours, including Israel.
Although the US does not yet seem to have a clear strategy for dealing with Syria, it can be said that it has several basic axes:
First, combating terrorism. Any direct intervention by the US has been focused on attacking ISIS targets in Syria, about 75 of them, which confirmed Washington's determination not to allow it to exploit the security vacuum to raise its head again. It also wants to send a clear message to the rest of the armed factions not to approach or cooperate with it, lest it become a target for American military operations.
Trump will have to decide how to deal with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which his administration classified as a terrorist organization in 2018, but which is now at the forefront of the armed factions that seized control of Damascus and most major cities. Official sources in Washington say HTS has become more pragmatic and moderate, and its leader Abu Muhammad al-Julani (Ahmad al-Sharaa) speaks in an acceptable language. There is talk the possibility of removing HTS from the list of terrorist organizations. Washington has said it will look at the actions and behaviour of the group before judging and making a decision. Perhaps this is also what Trump will do to influence the situation. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has confirmed there has been direct contact with HTS, mostly through intelligence channels, but what is certain is that there is a US desire to create a direct official contact that gives it greater influence over Ahmed al-Sharaa and his entourage, away from the Turkish channel that gives Erdogan’s government great influence and detracts from Washington’s role. This is at a time when Kurdish forces allied with Washington are being attacked by factions loyal to Turkey.
In public, the Trump administration is likely to focus on an inclusive political process aimed at preventing HTS from monopolizing power, while it could press for maintaining or lifting economic sanctions that prevent even other countries from helping the reconstruction of Syria.
Looking after Israeli interests and influence will likely remain that the top of Washington’s priority list when it comes to Syria, as it has proven to be time and again in recent years. Therefore, one of the American goals now and in the future will be that change in Syria does not result in a situation that threatens the security of Israel and - to a lesser extent - its allies in the region.
When Netanyahu announced the occupation of the buffer zone in Syria by Israeli forces, he thanked Trump for his decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan during his first presidency. It is possible Trump might also recognize the annexation of these additional territories to Israel. However, even if this recognition does not happen, there is no prospect of the Trump administration pressuring Netanyahu to withdraw his forces from that area. Israel may use them to pressure the new authority in Damascus to recognize the annexation of the Golan. That is not going to happen, but it would then provide the rationale for Israel keeping its forces in the buffer zone indefinitely.
Finally, Iran and its nuclear program. The greater American/Israeli objective is for the new situation to help encircle the Ayatollahs in Iran. That objective was advanced by the attacks on Hizbullah in Lebanon, followed by the fall of the Assad regime, severing the land crossing from Iran to supply weapons and ammunition.
Israel now stands before an historic opportunity to settle its strategic scores with Iran, which no longer has the deterrent of Hizbullah’s advanced defence in Lebanon. Tehran has no choice other than either accepting harsher terms in a new agreement on its nuclear program or trying to accelerate the production of a nuclear weapon to restore that lost deterrence. However, as experiences have shown, especially in recent months, Iran has been thoroughly infiltrated by US and Israeli intelligence agencies, making it difficult for it to proceed with the latter step without being exposed. Netanyahu has been pushing successive US administrations to hit Iran with a strong blow and he almost convinced Trump of during his first term, had it not been for the intervention of the military leadership in the Pentagon.
But the circumstances are now more suitable for Israel. Iran is at its weakest and Netanyahu will not miss this golden opportunity, not only to get rid of the Iranian nuclear headache, but to resolve the final battle with the so-called Axis of Resistance. If he manages to get the US to topple the regime in Tehran and impose Israeli hegemony over the whole region for the foreseeable future, that would allow the normalization process to extend on Israeli terms.
Of course, there remains the possibility that Trump might push back against policies that conflict with his personal orientations, and he might turn against ready-made plans of his senior officials and revisit the idea of withdrawing US forces from Syria. But that remains a slim possibility. Those who previously convinced him to cancel the withdrawal from Syria will not lack the means to convince him or pressure him to do so again.
There is also the expectation that the Republicans will most likely lose the midterm congressional elections in 2026, and be replaced by an opposition Democratic majority. That would effectively turn Trump into a lame duck president in the last two years of his rule, especially since he will not run again. There is no one who understands the rules of the political game in Washington more than Netanyahu and the next two years will be crucial to implement his far-right agenda and impose the vision and policies of the so-called Israel victory project.
