America’s Middle East Gamble: Less Military, More Power

Washington is changing some of its most reliable military partnerships in the Middle East because it believes states, markets, and diplomacy can deliver what American troops and Kurdish proxies increasingly cannot.

The End of the Post-ISIS* Bargain

After the rise of the Islamic State in 2014, Washington used the Kurdish Peshmerga and Syria’s SDF to advance its cardinal interests: breaking the Syrian and Iraqi states into territories that are ungovernable and exploitable at the same time. American military power was therefore tied to local armed partners. That bargain might have made sense then to the US policy makers. It makes less sense now. Instead of supporting armed militias, Washington is now re-consolidating states as its preferred partners. Its objective is to occupy, as quickly as possible, the space created by Iran’s relatively weak position in the Levant.

The significance of the SDF’s dissolution is therefore larger than the fate of one Kurdish organization. Washington is effectively moving away from a model in which it compensates for weak states by empowering sub-state actors. It is betting on the states instead.

What Washington Thinks It Can Buy

The most obvious potential gain is Syria. For decades, American policy treated Damascus as a government to isolate and contain. Washington is now attempting to make the new Syrian state part of a different regional order. The removal from the terrorism list follows the Trump administration’s earlier lifting of broad Syria sanctions while retaining targeted measures against specific individuals and organizations. This is not simply an act of generosity toward a war-ravaged country. It gives Washington an instrument of influence that is considerably cheaper than direct and prolonged military occupation.

Syria desperately needs capital. The United States........

© New Eastern Outlook