Trump's First 100 Days and Syria

The Middle East that President Trump inherited, observed the veteran commentator Hisham Melham in November 2016, was “figuratively and in some places literally unraveling.” Melham noted that alienated officials throughout the Middle East had blamed the Obama administration for not confronting Iran on its military interventions in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen; the explosive rise of the Islamic State; and especially for its failure to uphold its red line and punish the Asad regime for using chemical weapons against civilians in 2013. As a result, President Trump was cautiously welcomed by these officials as the embodiment of “anybody but Obama.”[1]  

Yet during his first four months in office, many in the American media, academy, and former officials have argued that there has been more continuity than change in Trump’s Middle East policies.[2] In February, The New York Times reported that Trump was “embracing some key pillars of the former administration’s strategy,”[3] while another observer described Trump's foreign policy as “Obama Lite – the exact same policies, implemented by the exact same people.”[4] Nonetheless, in almost every Trump declaration one can see the new president shadow boxing with the Obama legacy; if there is one “overarching theme” to Trump’s foreign policies, it is a rejection of Obama’s approach.[5]

First, and most broadly, Trump does not appear committed to retrenchment.[6] Trump is not trying to reduce American commitments abroad in the name of strengthening the U.S. at home. Trump appears to want the "brilliant incoherence" of foreign-policy activism without assuming the costs of his predecessors.[7]

In terms of the Middle East, perhaps the most visible practical change in the Trump approach has been its coordination with Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. While Obama kept those states at arm’s length, Trump’s team appears to be closely coordinating its regional policy with King Abdullah II of Jordan, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, and King Salman (and his son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman) in Saudi Arabia.[8] Trump wants to work through these regimes to achieve its three Middle East priorities: defeating the Islamic State (IS); implementing a ceasefire and a plan for political transition in Syria; and, a regional agreement on Israeli-Palestinian peace.[9]

The second clear break from the Obama approach in Trump’s Middle East policy is its approach to Iran. The Economist referred to the Trump posture on Iran as “A new confrontation.”[10] Indeed, on April 19, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued a confrontational five-minute public statement on Iran saying, “Today I’d like to address Iran’s alarming and ongoing provocations that export terror and violence destabilizing more than one country at a time…Iran spends its treasure and time disrupting peace.”[11] Moreover, he explicitly rejected Obama’s biggest foreign policy legacy, the nuclear deal with Iran, claiming that the JCPOA “only delays [Iran’s] goal of becoming a nuclear state.” Again sharply breaking with the Obama policy, Tillerson said, “This deal represents the same failed approach of the past that brought us to the current imminent threat we face with North Korea,” adding that “the Trump administration has no intention of passing the buck to a future administration on Iran.”

Beyond defeating the Islamic State by seizing its putative Syrian capital, Raqqa,[12] a clear picture of the broad U.S. policy for Syria has yet to emerge.[13] This has led some critics to argue that Trump is simply continuing Obama's policy there.[14] The Economist labeled Trump's policy "confused," arguing "any lingering notion that Mr. Trump might strike a grand bargain with Russia over Syria is dead."[15] In any case, those who still entertain the notion of a US-Russian "grand bargain"[16] that would concede Russia's position in Ukraine and the Crimea, in exchange for Russian compromise in Syria minimize the changing context in Syria, which has presented Russia with diminishing returns on its military intervention since early 2016.[17] Such a situation provides strong incentives, independent of the logic of a grand bargain, for Russia to seek a new arrangement in Syria, one that would allow it to lock-in its strategic gains, while transferring responsibility for the conflict to others.[18]

On May 1, just prior to a multilateral diplomatic conference on Syria in Astana, Kazakhstan, Putin and Trump discussed achieving a cease-fire in Syria. During a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Sochi before the call with Trump, Putin dismissed an opportunity to critique the U.S.'s April 7 airstrikes on the Asad regime and went out of his way to say that “Certainly, without involvement of such a country as the U.S., these problems [in Syria] cannot be solved efficiently.”[19] Kremlin officials have said that Putin will be trying to sell the U.S. the idea of creating four security zones in Syria to enforce a national cease-fire.[20]

In doing so, Russia is essentially embracing an idea that Trump himself floated in late January 2017.[21] Indeed, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out that the "de-escalation zones," which were formally agreed to by Russia, Turkey, and Iran at the Astana gathering[22] and that went into effect on May 6 — were an American idea.[23] Setting aside the enormously complex mechanics of successfully implementing the Astana agreement,[24] one must ask why Russia is going out of its way to publicize its coordination with the Trump administration on the Syria diplomatic process.

It is important to point out that the newly declared de-escalation zones do not include almost all of northeast and eastern Syria (see map, below), which are the areas predominantly controlled by the Islamic State and the Syrian Kurds. These are also the areas where U.S. military forces, in coordination with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),[25] are preparing for the operation to retake the IS stronghold in Raqqa.[26]

Therefore, there may be a broader understanding evolving between the U.S. and Russia to divide Syria into zones of influence.[27] Based on their respective military deployments, it appears that Russia would be responsible for the areas broadly defined as west of the north-south axis that includes Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs, and Damascus (covered by the Astana agreement), while the U.S. would be responsible for the territories east of the same axis.[28] If this is what is happening, then in the best-case these zones of influence would be laying the groundwork for some kind of de-facto decentralization or federalism in Syria.[29] This depends on whether the new Astana agreement can wind down the fighting between the regime and rebels in the Russian zone (a big "if" indeed[30]) on the one hand; and, on the other hand, whether the U.S. and its Kurdish and Sunni allies can decisively defeat the IS in Raqqa and Deir az-Zour,[31] and "go the extra mile of translating its presence into leverage to end the cycle of violence" in eastern Syria.[32]

Russia, however, may also be considering another scenario. The de-escalation zones provide it with a framework with which to coordinate (and regulate) the conduct of its partners (Asad, Turkey, Iran) and eliminate jihadi rebels in the territory it considers "useful Syria."[33] Nevertheless, by ceding responsibility for the east to the U.S., Russia would be leaving it to adjudicate unresolved disputes over the territory in northeastern and eastern Syria. Russia may be anticipating that the U.S. will find itself enmeshed in a new phase of conflict as a result. [34] In a post-IS Syria, Turkey will be seeking to prevent Kurdish autonomy in northeast Syria along the Turkish border,[35] and Iran will be seeking to secure at least one overland corridor from Iran and Iraq through Syria to the Mediterranean.[36] Further, jihadis may seek to regroup in the frontier zone of southern and eastern Syria if and when they are defeated in Raqqa. Any or all of these challenges could turn into a new and prolonged phase of conflict for U.S. For Russia, the zones of influence arrangement would allow it to better limit the Asad regime's freedom of action, leaving the door open to a negotiated settlement to the war.[37] At the same time, it would allow Russia to preserve its partnerships with Turkey and Iran, without assuming the responsibility for confronting them in the contested areas of eastern Syria. In other words, Russia may be trying to establish an arrangement with the U.S. based on the principle that each side will accept what the other is doing in the area it controls, the area most vital to its interests. The rub here is that in the Russian zone of influence the plan is for the fighting to wind down, while in the U.S. zone of influence it appears there may be a new post-IS phase of conflict.

The Syrian challenge confronting the Trump administration is almost identical to the one that faced Obama: how can the U.S. play a more decisive role in in Syria without assuming an open-ended military and financial burden that it promised it would avoid. Consistent with its policy of tacking in the opposite direction of Obama's policies, Trump's national security team appears to be preparing a strategy for leaning in rather than staying out of the Syrian war.[38] While one former Obama administration official has warned Trump against "the strategic suicide" of pursuing an alignment with Russia in Syria,[39] it now appears that it is Russia that is modestly courting a skeptical Trump administration.[40]

Brandon Friedman is a Researcher at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies (MDC), Tel Aviv University.