Trump must bring US troops home and prohibit the CIA from further
destabilizing the country
Is common sense beginning to creep into US policy in the Middle
East? Last week Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the longer-term
status of Syrian President Assad would be “decided by the Syrian people.” The
media reported this as a radical shift in US foreign policy, but isn’t this
just stating what should be obvious? What gives any country the right to
determine who rules someone else? Washington is currently paralyzed by
evidence-free rumors that the Russians somehow influenced our elections, but no
one blinks an eye when Washington declares that one or another foreign leader
“must go.”
It’s only too bad that President Obama hadn’t followed this back
in 2011 instead of declaring that Assad had to go and then arming rebel groups
who ended up being allies with al-Qaeda. Imagine how many thousands of lives
and billions of dollars would have been saved by following this policy in the
first place. Imagine the millions of refugees who could still be in their
homes, running their businesses, living their lives.
Will the Trump Administration actually follow through on
Tillerson’s Syria policy statement? It is too early to tell. The President has
illegally sent hundreds of US troops to fight on the ground in Syria. Current
US positions in eastern Syria suggest that Washington may be looking to carve
out parts of oil-rich areas of the country for some kind of future federation.
The White House followed up on Tillerson’s comments by stating
that getting rid of Assad was no longer a top priority for the US. This also
sounds good. But does this mean that once the current top priority, destroying
ISIS, is completed, Washington may return to its active measures to unseat the
Syrian president? Neocons in Washington still insist that the rise of ISIS in
Syria was due to President Assad, but in fact ISIS did not appear in Syria
until the US began trying to overthrow Assad. They haven’t given up on their
desire to overthrow the Syrian government and they do have influence in this
Administration.
If the Trump Administration is serious about letting the people of
Syria decide their fate he needs to take concrete steps. Rather than sending in
more troops to fight an ISIS already on its last legs, he must bring US troops
home and prohibit the CIA from further destabilizing the country.
It would also be nice if Congress would wake up from its long
slumber and start following the Constitution. The President (and his
predecessors) have taken this country to war repeatedly without proper
Constitutionally-required authority to do so. The president has reportedly
decided not to even bother announcing where next he plans to send the troops.
Congress can rein him in with very little effort by saying no money can be
spent to deploy US troops to areas where they may encounter hostilities unless
a state of war is declared.
By all means, we should let the Syrian people decide who will be
their president, even if they choose someone we don’t like. Syria was never a
threat to the United States and the 2011 US intervention has destroyed the
country. Interventionism has horrible consequences and no victories to show for
itself. It is time for all the US troops to just march back home.