A Syria Policy for Trump’s America
U.S. Syria policy had been due for a major rethink, even before Donald Trump was elected president.
America’s publicly articulated goals in Syria—including effecting a negotiated political transition away from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and totally defeating the self-proclaimed Islamic State and other jihadists now inside Syria—have been obviously impossible for some time now, at least in their most optimistic formulation and using any realistic means.
Continuing U.S. involvement in Syria and support for the Syrian opposition mostly would have made sense in more cynical terms. America could not proxy-war its way to an inclusive, stable end-state in Syria, but it could bloody the Assad regime and its allies, Russia and Iran, and frustrate their brutal campaign to retake Syria...