America’s Ill-Fated Syria Intervention: The Lessons Washington Must Learn

Christopher A. Preble, Doug Bandow

Security, Middle East

Washington should choose its fights more carefully. Not every problem is America’s to solve, and not every problem can be solved by U.S. military power. Policymakers should commit U.S. forces to wage war only when vital interests are stake, the mission is clear, and the objectives are attainable. The Syrian escapade never met any of these criteria.

News that Turkey had sent its military into northeast Syria, after receiving a tacit green light from President Trump, marked a grim low point in U.S. involvement in the lengthy, multisided Syrian civil war. The fate of Kurdish forces who battled ISIS and civilians sheltered in refugee camps have generated understandable concern. But there has been too little reflection on how we arrived at this unhappy place. Americans should learn from the experience and pledge to avoid similar debacles in the future.

The many problems with U.S. intervention in Syria began with an extraordinarily ambitious, and ultimately irreconcilable, set of goals. U.S. officials wanted to take advantage of the Arab Spring reform movements that erupted in early 2011 to oust Bashar al-Assad’s regime, while also thwarting Russian and Iranian ambitions in Syria and beyond. Both the Obama and Trump administrations relied on some violent extremists to defeat other radical groups, especially the Islamic State, which sought to establish its so-called Caliphate. Supporting regime change in Damascus undercut efforts to counter ISIS. Moreover, as ISIS gained strength, the United States enlisted the help of—and armed—Kurdish fighters, which contradicted promises to NATO ally Turkey. Particularly worrisome to Ankara was U.S. support for fighters associated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Marxist-Leninist organization which the U.S. government still lists as a terrorist organization.