Candidate
Donald Trump may have promised to extricate us from Middle East wars, once ISIS
and al-Qaida were routed, yet events and people seem to be conspiring to keep
us endlessly enmeshed.
Friday
night, a drone, apparently modeled on a U.S. drone that fell into Iran’s hands,
intruded briefly into Israeli airspace over the Golan Heights, and was shot
down by an Apache helicopter.
Israel
seized upon this to send F-16s to strike the airfield whence the drone
originated. Returning home, an F-16 was hit and crashed, unleashing the most
devastating Israeli attack in decades on Syria. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu
says a dozen Syrian and Iranian bases and antiaircraft positions were struck.
Monday’s
headline on The Wall Street Journal op-ed page blared:
“The
Iran-Israel War Flares Up: The fight is over a Qods Force presence on the
Syria-Israeli border. How will the U.S. respond?”
Op-ed
writers Tony Badran and Jonathan Schanzer, both from the Foundation for the
Defense of Democracies, closed thus:
“The
Pentagon and State Department have already condemned Iran and thrown their
support behind Israel. The question now is whether the Trump administration
will go further. … Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (has) affirmed that the
U.S. seeks not only to ensure its allies’ security but to deny Iran its ‘dreams
of a northern arch’ from Tehran to Beirut. A good way to achieve both objectives
would be back Israel’s response to Iran’s aggression — now and in the future.”
The
FDD is an annex of the Israeli lobby and a charter member of the War Party.
Chagai
Tzuriel, who heads the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence, echoed the FDD: “If
you (Americans) are committed to countering Iran in the region, then you must
do so in Syria — first.”
Our
orders have been cut.
Iran
has dismissed as “lies” and “ridiculous” the charge that it sent the drone into
Israeli airspace.
If
Tehran did, it would be an act of monumental stupidity. Not only did the drone
bring devastating Israeli reprisals against Syria and embarrass Iran’s ally
Russia, it brought attacks on Russian-provided and possibly Russian-manned air
defenses.
Moreover,
in recent months Iranian policy — suspending patrol boat harassment of U.S.
warships — appears crafted to ease tensions and provide no new causes for Trump
to abandon the nuclear deal Prime Minister Hassan Rouhani regards as his
legacy.
Indeed,
why would Iran, which, with Assad, Russia and Hezbollah, is among the victors
in Syria’s six-year civil war, wish to reignite the bloodletting and bring
Israeli and U.S. firepower in on the other side?
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In
Syria’s southeast, another incident a week ago may portend an indefinite U.S.
stay in that broken and bleeding country.
To
recapture oil fields lost in the war, forces backed by Assad crossed the
Euphrates into territory taken from ISIS by the U.S. and our Kurd allies. The
U.S. response was a barrage of air and artillery strikes that killed 100
soldiers.
What
this signals is that, though ISIS has been all but evicted from Syria, the U.S.
intends to retain that fourth of Syria as a bargaining chip in negotiations.
In
the northwest, Turkey has sent its Syrian allies to attack Afrin and President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened Manbij, 80 miles to the east, where U.S.
troops commingle with the Kurd defenders and U.S. generals were visible last
week.
Midweek,
Erdogan exploded: “(The Americans) tell us, ‘Don’t come to Manbij.’ We will
come to Manbij to hand over these territories to their rightful owners.”
The
U.S. and Turkey, allies for six decades, with the largest armies in NATO, may
soon be staring down each other’s gun barrels.
Has
President Trump thought through where we are going with this deepening commitment
in Syria, where we have only 2,000 troops and no allies but the Kurds, while on
the other side is the Syrian army, Hezbollah, Russia and Iran, and Shiite
militias from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Clearly,
we have an obligation not to abandon the Kurds, who took most of the casualties
in liberating eastern Syria from ISIS. And we have a strategic interest in not
losing Turkey as an ally.
But
this calls for active diplomacy, not military action.
And
now that the rebels have been defeated and the civil war is almost over, what
would be the cost and what would be the prospects of fighting a new and wider
war? What would victory look like?
Bibi
and the FDD want to see U.S. power deployed alongside that of Israel, against
Iran, Assad and Hezbollah. But while Israel’s interests are clear, what would
be the U.S. vital interest?
What
outcome would justify another U.S. war in a region where all the previous wars
in this century have left us bleeding, bankrupt, divided and disillusioned?
When
he was running, Donald Trump seemed to understand this.
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