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The U.S. Withdrawal from Syria: A Blessing in Disguise?

(Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University) Maj.-Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen - Russia has reemerged as a major global force through direct military interventions. The U.S., by contrast, has substantially reduced its global involvement and has lost its hegemonic position in the Middle East. President Trump's recent decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria is the continuation of the disengagement policy begun by his immediate predecessor. The widespread belief in Washington's ostensible ability to guarantee any Arab-Israeli peace agreement has placed Jerusalem under constant pressure to take the risks associated with withdrawal from areas vital to its national security. Thus, the Obama administration proposed a complex security package that substituted the deployment of U.S. forces in the Jordan Valley for Israel's longstanding demand for defensible borders. But to what extent can foreign military forces operating in a wholly alien environment provide an adequate substitute for the IDF in enforcing the West Bank's demilitarization? UNIFIL, for example, has miserably failed to prevent the transformation of southern Lebanon into an unreconstructed terrorist entity. Nor does the West's experience in Afghanistan and Iraq inspire much confidence in the ability of external powers to cope effectively with sustained jihadist insurgencies. The U.S. withdrawal has left Israel alone in the battle against Iran's military entrenchment in Syria. But this can potentially entail an important silver lining. For the sooner Israel recognizes the precariousness of a regional "Pax Americana," the sooner it will grasp the futility of "painful territorial concessions" in the West Bank, let alone on the Golan Heights. The writer served in the IDF for 42 years, commanding troops in battle on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts.
2019-01-01 00:00:00
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