By Denis Korkodinov
The international community does not have a clear idea of what they need to do in Syria to ensure peace. For this reason, the military operations of the parties to the Syrian conflict are often controversial and are not always designed for a positive result.
The confusion caused by the first withdrawal of American troops from northeastern Syria, and then by the next withdrawal of troops clearly shows that the United States and its allies do not know how to conduct their affairs in areas of military conflicts in the Middle East. On the one hand, Washington does not want to tarnish itself by participating directly in the SAR, but on the other hand, the White House administration does not intend to give the palm to anyone, systematically preventing the Bashar al-Assad regime from restoring the country’s territorial integrity.
Under such conditions, the United States runs the risk of looking ridiculous in the international arena if Donald Trump fails to implement some kind of interim scenario so as not to create obstacles to the Syrian Arab Army and not annoy the American troops operating in Syria.
Already, the US president has been criticized by many international partners for not being consistent in his foreign policy. This criticism is based on the fact that Donald Trump in the UAR often behaves like a capricious child, against which even the actions of Moscow and Ankara look much more serious.
Back in 2016, supporters of the American leader insisted that there was nothing unusual in his policy. Talking about this, they said that the current US president strictly adheres to the foreign policy of Barack Obama, according to which Washington should refuse to participate in Middle East conflicts.
In this regard, the “go home” policy pursued by Donald Trump, according to some analysts, is quite in the interests of the state. However, this was until October 2019, when the US president decided to re-enter troops into Syria almost immediately after he withdrew the same troops from the territory of the SAR. For this reason, according to informed sources, most of the former US international partners were disappointed with the actions of Donald Trump. In addition, a tendency has appeared in the international community to show absolute indifference to the actions of the American leader, since trust in him has been lost.
It is worth noting that the United States has never considered the Syrian Kurds as permanent partners. It was a situational alliance created solely to combat the Islamic State. Therefore, after the elimination of the main epicenters of ISIS, Donald Trump refused to help YPG and its affiliates, which could well claim to be the “reincarnation” of the Islamic State. Therefore, Syrian Kurds were seen as a source of potential danger to the United States.
Meanwhile, many American politicians had hoped that the Kurdish factor would be used by Donald Trump as a deterrent to Iran, but this did not happen because Donald Trump did not intend to fight the ayatollah regime. In the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, opponents of the head of the White House saw an act of not only betrayal of the Kurds, but also recognition of defeat in Tehran. Now that American troops have been redeployed to Syria, critics of Donald Trump do not believe that this state of affairs can exist for a long time.
(The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights)