The move of President Donald Trump to visit Baghdad last week is a small, good one, amid a week of calamitous decisions. The press will understandably highlight the time that Trump spends with US troops. Yet a key objective of the trip will have been to shore up the new Iraqi government's confidence in the US, as Iraqi officials must be high on the list of those shocked by the president’s recent decisions to rapidly withdraw US forces from Syria and Afghanistan. Perhaps the president has realized that his administration has some hard work to do if there is any hope of keeping his latest determinations from dramatically strengthening Iran.
The Middle East is a complicated place, where generations of American presidents and policymakers have struggled to prioritize competing interests, balance delicate relationships and manage inevitable trade-offs. Yet Trump’s actions and words — at least until before he announced the pullout — made it clear that his highest priority was on containing and punishing Iran in an effort to get Tehran to the negotiating table to reach a new, sweeping agreement on both its nuclear program and its other destabilizing behavior in the region.
Other priorities in US Middle East policy have suffered to some extent as a result of this near-myopic focus on Iran. The desire to have Saudi Arabia as a strong partner in containing Iran has been an important part of shaping Trump’s calculus toward Riyadh.
Moreover, the focus on Iran has put the new government in Baghdad in unnecessary and challenging situations, at a time when Washington should be making every investment in its success. The Trump administration has only grudgingly granted two 45-day waivers to Iraq for its continued importation of Iranian natural gas (opposed to the 180 days others received). The Iraqi government has placed valuable time and political capital into facing the choice between being subject to US sanctions or losing the energy source that powers nearly a third of Iraq’s electricity.
Nevertheless, while one might not have agreed on the wisdom of making Iran so central to US foreign policy in the Middle East, at least the above tradeoffs could be debated around policy views and threat assessments. Serious professionals could disagree. This is no longer the case. Trump, in his recent announcement to draw down troops from Syria and Afghanistan, is taking steps that work against all of his professed goals with Iran — for no apparent gain elsewhere.
First, an American withdrawal from Syria will remove a curb on nefarious Iranian activity in the region and open up new opportunities for Iran to embed itself in various countries there. The US presence in Syria, although small, has helped curb the activities of Iran and its ally Hezbollah. It has also helped frustrate Iran’s ability to establish a land bridge connecting Iran to the Mediterranean and, as a result, has limited Iranian regional interventions. With the US vacating Syria, Iran will now be well positioned to compete for territory currently held by US partners, and Hezbollah will be able to make a stronger stand near Israel.
Second, the withdrawal will make achieving the administration’s declared goal of a tougher, more comprehensive agreement with Tehran all but unimaginable. Getting Tehran to meet a fraction of Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s “12 demands” — including a full withdrawal of Iranian forces from Syria — was always going to be tough. But American diplomats will be particularly challenged to produce Iranian concessions in a situation where the United States has even less leverage due to the withdrawal of its troops.
American influence in the region will also be weakened, and Iran’s enhanced, by the probable outcome in Afghanistan. In any negotiation with the Taliban, America’s greatest leverage is its troop presence, given the Taliban’s intense focus on getting the US troops to leave. However, now, the president has begun to meet the Taliban’s main demand before any real talks get underway. A return to civil war is, sadly, not out of the question. While Iran would not welcome such chaos, it will cheer the departure of US troops from its eastern flank, having long complained about the “encirclement” it has felt since 9/11.
Iran, nevertheless, has plenty of reasons to go through the motions of dialogue. Iran would have nothing to lose in exploring this possibility and could gain short-term sanctions relief from the process.
The tragedy of Trump’s withdrawal announcements goes far beyond US strategy with Iran, to affect the security of America’s allies and partners in Europe and the Middle East, the lives of millions on the ground, and American standing globally. What can be done to mitigate this disaster?
It seems likely that the broad contours of the US withdrawal are not negotiable; departing Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the global coalition to defeat ISIS, would have not resigned had they thought the withdrawal could be reversed. However, in the implementation there is always a significant opportunity to shave the edges off a misguided strategy.
For instance, those responsible for drawing down troops in Afghanistan and Syria could seek to define withdrawals as boots on the ground, as opposed to all military support. This might enable the US to continue to play the absolutely vital role of air power to those we support in both Syria and Afghanistan — and could help keep the forces of other countries such as the UK and France involved.
In addition, the timeline for troop withdrawal could be broken into phases and extended, and potentially could involve some conditions-based benchmarks.
Crucially, in the run-up to any withdrawal, the US should seek to secure agreements from countries like Turkey to stay engaged in the fight against the remnants of ISIS, so they do not shift priorities entirely.
Finally, the US must clarify its relationship with Baghdad and underscore its willingness to leave a US troop presence there longer; while it will be hard to convince Baghdad that Trump will not wake up one day and decide to withdraw from Iraq, every effort should be made to embed the American presence there as the last foothold in a region where ISIS’s defeat is still far from certain and stabilization remains a long-term goal.
Bloomberg
