Syria cont'd
Today, ten years after the Syrian people began to openly protest the horrendous treatment they suffered at the hands of their government — a move that prompted Bashar al-Assad to unleash the holy hounds of hell on them — Assad still rules the two-thirds of the country he controls like the murderous tyrant that he is.
Three million terrified, displaced Syrians remain stranded in the northwestern province of Idlib. Assad is literally starving them to death, using food as an instrument of war, while continuing to rain bombs down on them.
His henchman Vladimir Putin is now threatening to close off access to Bab al-Hawa, a cross-border humanitarian aid route that brings food and critical medical supplies to the one-third of Syria not under Assad’s rule. This, at a time when the United Nations World Food Program reports that 12.4 million Syrians — 60 percent of the population — cannot survive without food assistance.
< Giving credit where credit is due, Turkish President Erdoğan and his government have been instrumental in protecting displaced Syrians from Assad and his Russian allies. First, Turkey came through in Idlib, providing Syrians not only clothes, blankets, and food, but military protection as well. Now, in Afrin, a district of northwestern Syria that borders Turkey, the Turks have provided electricity, cell phone service, education, and health care services for the Syrian people. This is in addition to already hosting 3.6 million Syrian refugees inside Turkey. With Erdoğan, nothing is purely altruistic. But still, that’s good work. >
Under the heading of when it rains, it pours, the fallout from stiff international sanctions and the pandemic has been brutal in Syria. The economy is basically in shambles. Syria’s currency collapsed, causing food and fuel to skyrocket and wages to plummet. Medical doctors there make less than $50 a month.
The New York Times reports that a Syrian mother of three recently told the story of having to sell her hair: “’I had to sell my hair or my body.’ Her husband, a carpenter, was ill and only sporadically employed, she said, and she needed heating oil for the house and winter coats for her children. With the $55 she got for her hair, which will be used to make wigs, she bought two gallons of heating oil, clothes for her children and a roast chicken, the first her family had tasted in three months.”
Because of their own economic crises, Russia and Iran are unable to help Assad financially as much, so he has resorted to kidnapping and blackmail. When an Israeli woman inadvertently found herself in Syria, the Assad regime arrested her and blackmailed Israel, eventually releasing the woman in exchange for two Syrian shepherds and 60,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine (which Israel was forced to buy from Russia for $1.2 million).
Another serious consequence of the idiotic decision made on that boring October Sunday in the White House was that Donald Trump enabled and empowered the resurgence of the Islamic State, a point that was underscored on November 15, 2019 by the U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD OIG):
“The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reported to the U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD OIG) that ISIS exploited the Turkish incursion and subsequent drawdown of U.S. troops to reconstitute capabilities and resources within Syria and strengthen its ability to plan attacks abroad. The DIA also reported that without counterterrorism pressure, ISIS will probably be able to more freely build clandestine networks and will attempt to free ISIS members detained in SDF-run prisons and family members living in internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps.
Additionally, according to the DIA, ISIS will likely have the ‘time and space’ to target the West and provide support to its 19 global branches and networks. In the longer term, ISIS will probably seek to regain control of some Syrian population centers and expand its global footprint.”
Despite all of this, thankfully, we have discovered a successful light-footprint, low-cost operation formula for Syria. Around 900 U.S. troops and Special Forces remain to support and advise the Syrian Democratic Forces, who are still bravely fighting the Islamic State.
Adding to that support, we should increase our diplomatic presence there to continue facilitating talks between rival Kurdish factions and to address the massive humanitarian crisis that still exists.
These actions are critical to our national security. Beyond fighting terrorism, a huge benefit of having U.S. troops in Syria is that we can keep a close eye on Russia and Iran, making sure that Russia stays away from the oil fields and other valuable resources in the northeast region and that Iran doesn’t get a chance to develop a passageway to deliver weapons to Syria.
Likewise, a solid relationship with Iraq is critical to our national security. For the past four years, the relationship between the United States and the Iraqis has been rocky, to say the least. Although the tension had been increasing for years, the assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani – who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Iraq on January 3, 2020 — was the final straw for Iraq.
After the attack, the Iraqi Parliament voted to expel all U.S. forces from the country. However, ten days later, the American and Iraqi militaries resumed joint operations against the Islamic State.
Thank goodness, because there is no question that Iraq is an incredibly important component of our national security strategy in the Middle East. We need Iraq to help establish safe and reliable trade, provide security for our allies, and navigate our way forward with our nemesis, but their friend and neighbor, Iran.
The good news is that, as in Syria, we can achieve our objections in Iraq with a relatively light presence. In late July 2021, President Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi agreed to end the U.S. combat mission in Iraq on paper but, in reality, nothing is really changing on the ground.
For well over a year now, the U.S. role in Iraq has been, not to fight in combat, but to train and support the Iraqis who are still fighting the Islamic State. There are 2,500 U.S. troops and Special Forces still stationed there, gathering intelligence and coordinating airstrikes, and this is not expected to change anytime soon.
Our continued presence in Syria and Iraq is a huge relief because, if the United States leaves either country a second too soon, we will be forced to eventually return to far worse and more dangerous conditions than ever before. We should know this from our earlier experience in Iraq, where we pulled out based on an arbitrary deadline as opposed to conditions on the ground. Our premature exit enabled the Islamic State to regroup and expand, which eventually forced our return to Iraq.
…which brings us to Afghanistan.