Since the Trump II foreign policy – whatever it may be - is getting closer, this podcast analysis by Kyle Kulinski is a helpful reminder of how chaotic and vague Trump’s ideas about foreign policy really are. As shown by his actions in his 2017-2021 term. (1)
This is an example from Zvi Bar'el of the kind of description that can send the adrenalin of apocalyptic Christian nationalists into overdrive:
The deployment of Israeli forces in the Golan Heights demilitarized zone, its seizing control of the Syria side of Mount Hermon and its strikes on Syrian military targets are perhaps the first changes to the Syrian map due to occur over the next several days and weeks.So, yes, things in that area are messy and probably about to get even messier. So it’s worth trying to keep a focus key issues for US foreign policy.
And Israel isn't the only one beginning to reposition itself vis-a-vis Syria to its own military advantage. On Sunday, pro-Turkish militias affiliated with the Syrian National Army (originally the Free Syria Army, the first and biggest of the militias that were formed at the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011) reported that they had seized control of Manbij, a city west of the Euphrates River.
The city hosts a large concentration of Kurdish forces belonging to the Syrian Democratic Forces and constitutes the heart of Turkey's plan to take over the Kurdish-controlled regions of Syria and establish a security zone inside Syrian territory. (2)
How does the US justify a military presence in Syria?
The legal basis for the US direct military intervention in Syria that began under the Obama Administration was always dubious. (3)
Türkiye’s paper-thin justification for its intervention in Syria – which has basically been aimed at suppressing Syrian Kurds: “The Turkish government has used the question of Syrian refugees to justify Turkey’s military involvement in Syria.” (4) The EU states, many of whom of NATO allies of Türkiye, have taken a dim view of Türkiye’s actions there. (5) The Turkish intervention is also against the aims of the US intervention there, where the US has been allied to the Kurdish forces in Rojava (northeast Syria). However, Türkiye has also backed the Syrian National Army (SNA) against Assad’s government.
In the broader context, US intervention, however dubious its legal basis, was primarily directed against Islamic State (IS) jihadist forces that also opposed the now-deposed Assad government. The US was also very aware that Israel regarded Syria as an enemy and even now lays claim to the Golan Heights, which it occupies now in violation of international law – with the approval of the first Trump Administration.
As Kyle’s podcast above reminds us, the Obama Administration did show more restraint than the chronic hawks wanted him to in relation to the outbreak of civil war in Syria. One of Obama’s claimed guidelines for foreign policy was, “Don’t do stupid stuff.” And restraint in Syria was one example where he resisted blundering in to a bigger and more dubious commitment.
What is Israel doing in Syria?
Netanyahu’s government since attacks October 7, 2023 has been in war mode and seems to be in no hurry to get out of it. And it apparently saw Saddam’s fall as an opportunity to batter Syria’s armed forces.
The Israeli military has launched a major airstrike campaign in Syria in recent days, following the collapse of Bashar Assad's regime, targeting hundreds of military installations and destroying a substantial portion of the Syrian Air Force. It denied a report that forces had reached an area 25 kilometers (15 miles) away from Damascus, saying troops had not gone outside the demilitarized zone.The Iranian “Axis of Resistance”
On Monday, the navy attacked a large number of ships in a bid to keep Syria's naval assets from falling into hostile hands. Missile boats destroyed vessels bearing dozens of anti-ship missiles.
Israel has carried out more than 250 strikes in Syrian territory in recent days, mostly from the air. The strikes have aimed at destroying infrastructure and military assets used by the Syrian military, including major bases, tanks, naval vessels and aircraft. The Lebanese Al-Mayadeen network, associated with Hezbollah, reported Tuesday that Israeli forces were only a couple of dozen kilometers away from Damascus.
According to reports, the military is deploying near Druze villages on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights to prevent attacks on them. [my emphasis] (6)
By all accounts, the fall of the Syrian government, along with the military costs Israel has inflicted on Hezbollah and Hamas with full US backing, has definitely been weakened strategically over the last year. Iranian leadership will surely see the setback as further incentive to develop nuclear weapons. And they are not far away from that goal at all. (7)
Biden’s triumphalist, Cold-War-fixated statement just after the news of the Syrian government’s fall was simplistic and self-serving called attention to the role of Russia as a supporter of Iran and Syria, a role which Russia’s Ukraine war has complicated:
Addressing the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, U.S. President Joe Biden said the development "is a direct result of the blows that Ukraine and Israel have delivered" against Russia, Hamas and Hezbollah "with unflagging support from the United States."The big danger for the US of this approach is that it emphasizes Biden’s apparently obsessive commitment to the idea that unquestionably backing Israeli military actions is always the right policy for the US.
"The main backers of Assad have been Iran, Hezbollah and Russia. Over the last week, their support collapsed. All three of them are far weaker today than when I took office. And let's remember why – after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, when much of the world responded with horror, Iran and its proxies decided to launch a multifront war against Israel. That was a historic mistake on Iran's part," Biden said. [my emphasis] (8)
It’s also the case that Russia’s efforts in Syria were largely in support of the now-defunct Assad government. Now that the regime is gone, it’s not immediately clear how Russia will be able to play a major role in Syria in the immediate future. But it also doesn’t mean the Russians will be completely passive in Syria:
Russia has two military bases in Syria: the Tartus naval base on the Mediterranean coast and the Khmeimim Air Base near the port city of Latakia. They are considered among the Kremlin’s most strategically important military outposts.The US Responsibility
The Tartus site is particularly critical, providing Russia with its only direct access to the Mediterranean sea and a base to conduct naval exercises, station warships and even host nuclear submarines.
But according to Russian news agency TASS, Syrian rebel fighters have already taken full control of Latakia province where both bases are based. (9)
The US remains in a strong position to push for permanent peace arrangements in the Middle East. But it can’t do so by continuing the effectively unconditional support the Biden Administration showed for even acts of genocide on the part of the Israeli government. But the incoming Trump Administration shows no signs of departing from that approach.
The two-state solution is still an official diplomatic talking point for framing a comprehensive negotiation to the core Israel-Palestine conflict. But it also seems clear that the real choice is between an apartheid state in Israel-Palestine – the de facto condition today – or a secular and democratic state in the area. A more radical version of the apartheid state would include massive ethnic cleansing, which Israel is currently carrying out in Gaza and the West Bank.
This is a long way away from where the US and its European allies are today. Jimmy Carter’s description of the situation is 2006 is still relevant almost 20 years later:
The overriding problem is that, for more than a quarter century, the actions of some Israeli leaders have been in direct conflict with the official policies of the United States, the international community, and their own negotiated agreements. Regardless of whether Palestinians had no formalized government, one headed by Yasir Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, or one with Abbas as president and Hamas controlling the parliament and cabinet, Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land. In order to perpetuate the occupation, Israeli forces have deprived their unwilling subjects of basic human rights. No objective person could personally observe existing conditions in the West Bank and dispute these statements.Paul Pillar looks at the lengthening history of the US failures to advance a sustainable diplomatic solution and observes:
Two other interrelated factors have contributed to the perpetuation of violence and regional upheaval: the condoning of illegal Israeli actions from a submissive White House and U.S. Congress during recent years, and the deference with which other international leaders permit this unofficial U.S. policy in the Middle East to prevail. There are constant and vehement political and media debates in Israel concerning its policies in the West Bank, but because of powerful political, economic, and religious forces in the United States, Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned, voices from Jerusalem dominate in our media, and most American citizens are unaware of circumstances in the occupied territories. At the same time, political leaders and news media in Europe are highly critical of Israeli policies, affecting public attitudes. Americans were surprised and angered by an opinion poll, published by the International Herald Tribune in October 2003, of 7,500 citizens in fifteen European nations, indicating that Israel was considered to be the top threat to world ahead of North Korea, Iran, or Afghanistan.
The United States has used its U.N. Security Council veto more than forty times to block resolutions critical of Israel. Some of these vetoes have brought international discredit on the United States, and there is little doubt that the lack of a persistent effort to resolve the Palestinian issue is a major source of anti-American sentiment and terrorist activity throughout the Middle East and the Islamic world. [my emphasis] (10)
Israel, in its vain effort to “destroy Hamas” and strike down adversaries on its northern border, is more committed than ever to increasing death and destruction as its default approach toward any security problem. The United States has abetted this approach by gifting $18 billion in munitions to Israel since October 2023.And he also states the obvious: “The current impending change in U.S. administrations offers little or no hope for positive change on this subject.”
The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria does nothing to discourage these tendencies and may instead encourage them. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the events in Syria with celebration and self-congratulations, claiming that Assad’s fall was due to earlier Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah and Iran. The change of regime was an occasion for Israel increasing rather than decreasing its offensive military activity in Syria, including seizure of a previously demilitarized buffer zone along the Golan frontier and airstrikes in and around Damascus on the very weekend that rebels were entering the capital.
During the intervening years since the 1973 war, a couple of U.S. presidents did make genuine efforts to advance an Israeli-Palestinian peace. But the necessary follow-up — largely the responsibility of subsequent administrations — did not occur. [my emphasis] (11)
But Pillar reminds us that reaching an actual settlement to the Israel-Palestine conflict will require a distinctly different approach:
Correct understanding of diplomacy also speaks to what a foreign policy of restraint means. It does not mean isolationism. In areas such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can mean an increase in diplomatic involvement and in the priority that policymakers give to the goal being sought. As the restraint-minded Quincy Institute puts it in its statement of principles, the United States “should engage with the world” and pursue peace “through the vigorous practice of diplomacy.”Notes:
Much damage from [short-term-focused] policies … has been done and cannot easily be reversed. The Israeli settlement enterprise in the occupied territories, which tsk-tsks from the United States have done nothing to stop, have led many observers … to believe that a two-state solution is no longer possible.
But even if the requirement of Palestinian self-determination could be achieved only through a one-state solution that provides equal rights for all, the same principle — that peace can be achieved only through vigorous diplomacy and not military escalation — applies. [my emphasis]
(1) Trump POPS OFF On Syrian Government COLLAPSE - The Kyle Kulinski Show. Secular Talk You Tube channel 12/09/2024. <https://youtu.be/ut3avj0h9rw?si=-Xjfm9LhxoqUrt4M> (Accessed: 2024-11-12). [my emphasis]
(2) In the Rubble Left Behind by Assad, Anyone With Weapons Will Try to Decide Syria's Future. Haaretz 12/08/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/2024-12-08/ty-article/.premium/in-the-rubble-left-behind-by-assad-anyone-with-weapons-will-try-to-decide-syrias-future/00000193-a7ef-d6c1-a5fb-f7ef49250000> (Accessed: 2024-11-12).
(3) Posner, Eric (2013): The U.S. Has No Legal Basis to Intervene in Syria. Slate 08/28/2023. <https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/08/the-u-s-has-no-legal-basis-for-its-action-in-syria-but-that-wont-stop-us-from-going-in-anyhow.html> (Accessed: 2024-10-12). In the last paragraph, Posner dismisses the idea of putting legal restrictions on the US Executive’s war power, and even suggest the whole idea of international laws of war are completely unrealistic. This not a position I share.
(4) Siccardi, Francesco (2021): How Syria Changed Turkey’s Foreign Policy. Carnegie Europe 09/14/2021. <https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2021/09/how-syria-changed-turkeys-foreign-policy?lang=en¢er=europe> (Accessed: 2024-10-12).
(5) Stanicek, Branislav (2019): Turkey's military operation in Syria and its impact on relations with the EU. European Parliament Briefing Nov. 2019. <chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.europarl.europa.eu/EPRS/EPRS-Briefing-642284-Turkeys-military-operation-Syria-FINAL.pdf> (Accessed: 2024-10-12).
(6) Kubovich, Yaniv & DPA (2024): IDF Destroys Syrian Aircraft and Ships, Denies Reports of Israeli Tanks Moving Closer to Damascus. Haaretz 12/10/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-12-10/ty-article/.premium/idf-destroys-syrian-aircraft-and-ships-denies-reports-of-tanks-moving-closer-to-damascus/00000193-af8c-d901-af9b-afdecc1e0000> (Accessed: 2024-11-12).
(7) December 2024 Monthly Forecast. Security Council Report 12/01/2024. <https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/about-security-council-report#mission> (Accessed: 2024-11-12). The Security Council Report is an independent nonprofit sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation and Open Society Foundations and several governments including Canada and Germany.
(8) Samuels, Ben/Reuters (2024): Biden: Fall of Assad regime 'direct result of Israeli blows' against Iran, Hezbollah. Haaretz 12/08/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-12-08/ty-article-live/idf-names-officer-killed-in-southern-gaza-combat/00000193-a3b2-ddde-addb-f3b64ca90000?liveBlogItemId=440194054#440194054> (Accessed: 2024-08-12).
(9) Jones, Mared Gwyn (2024): What do we know about the fate of Russia's military bases in Syria? Euronews 10/12/2024. <https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/12/10/what-do-we-know-about-the-fate-of-russias-military-bases-in-syria> (Accessed: 2024-11-12).
(10 Carter, Jimmy (2006): Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, 208-210. New York: Simon & Schuster.
(11) Pillar, Paul (2024): Why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has endured. Responsible Statecraft [Quincy Institute] 12/10/2024. <https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-palestine/> (Accessed: 2024-11-12).
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