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It Wasn't Possible for America to Compete with Russia, Iran and Turkey to Impact Syria's Future
(Washington Post) Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky - President Trump's move to quickly withdraw U.S. military forces from Syria didn't cause the U.S. to lose in Syria. For all practical purposes, Syria was already lost. Much like his predecessor, Trump's decision is motivated by a calculation that the U.S. can't alter the military or political balance in Syria that has long favored Russia and Iran. With a modest military footprint and little public support for a larger American role, the U.S. can't really compete with Russia or Iran on the ground. Trump said back in March that "We're knocking the hell out of ISIS. We'll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon." Moscow and Tehran had long ago won the strategic fight for Syria. Russian military intervention in 2015 saved Assad. Russia and Iran have been more willing to devote resources toward keeping Assad afloat than the U.S. has been prepared to either remove him from power or stand behind the assorted elements in Syria who've tried and failed to overthrow him. Americans should let go of the idea that we were ever trying very hard to win. In contrast to the U.S., if and when Syria and its backers decide to conclusively take on the Islamic State, their approach is unlikely to employ much regard for humanitarian concerns or civilian lives. Critics of the president's decision are right that the U.S. is once again going to throw its reliable Kurdish allies under the bus. But the Kurds could have foreseen this, both because of their previous experiences with the U.S. in Iraq and Trump's chronic unhappiness with the Syria deployment. Aaron David Miller, a vice-president at the Woodrow Wilson Center, was a State Department negotiator and adviser in Republican and Democratic administrations. Richard Sokolsky, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was a member of the Secretary of State's Office of Policy Planning from 2005-2015.