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Donald Trump wants the US to “have nothing to do with” the insurgency that toppled Syria’s government, yet some Republicans plan to nudge him toward a more active role.
Most of them, that is.
“It’s a terrible idea to have any soldiers there. Soldiers serve as a target for terrorists, they serve as a tripwire to get us involved in a messy civil war,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told Semafor. Paul, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, called for Trump to pull out the roughly 900 US troops stationed in Syria “on Day One.”
The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, forced by a rebel group that the US currently designates as a terrorist organization, is sparking fresh intraparty debate over Trump’s hands-off approach to the war-torn country. How to handle Syria is a critical early decision for Trump, who positioned himself as interested in avoiding overseas conflict rather than deepening it and has selected a second-term vice president who shares those views.
No matter what Trump does, he’ll have to navigate simmering tension in the GOP over a number of foreign policy questions, including whether to keep arming Ukraine and how to counter the influence of Iran and Russia. But Syria is the most acute right now, with non-interventionists like Paul countered by hawkish Trump allies who are subtly warning against removing US troops whose mission on the ground is focused on constraining the Islamic State.
“I’m worried about ISIS coming back, and that’s why the troops are there — to prevent ISIS from coming back,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Semafor. “I would advise him to do everything he can to make sure ISIS doesn’t come back.”
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During his first term, Trump expressed a desire to fully remove troops from Syria after declaring ISIS “defeated” there in 2018. He famously pulled back troops from northern Syria the following year, triggering some of the harshest backlash of his administration from fellow Republicans.
The president-elect has again signaled a non-interventionalist approach in the wake of the recent collapse of the government, writing on Truth Social: “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT.”
One former Trump national security official said in an interview that withdrawing troops is “going to be on the table.”
As he prepares to enter office, however, national security-focused Republicans in Congress are urging against anything rash.
“I don’t think we should act too quickly. There’s a huge non-appetite for American involvement in any war,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who will chair the Armed Services Committee next year. “But we need to look at all the ramifications and not act hastily.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Intelligence Committee, raised concerns about the possible release of ISIS prisoners held in jails guarded by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces. He urged the incoming administration to undertake a “careful review and to figure out what our involvement should look like.”
The leader of the rebel group that’s now leading Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or HTS, is a former Al-Qaeda member who has since turned away from the terrorist group.
Given the instability as Syria seeks to move forward under an interim prime minister, Trump will get plenty of encouragement from Paul, and others who eschew foreign entanglements, to leave the crisis alone.
“I mean, the people at home are not for having troops in Syria,” the senator said.
If Trump does scale back the US presence in Syria, though, that will also challenge more interventionist Republicans to take him on directly — and breaking with the president-elect is not easy for most lawmakers in his party.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., a member of both the Armed Services and Intelligence panels, said he wasn’t concerned about Trump making the wrong decision on troop deployments in Syria: “He clearly understands the reasons why the troops are there and what needs to be addressed there in that region,” Rounds told Semafor.
Sen. Thom Tillis said that the US “presence [in Syria] has a broader calming effect that’s worthwhile,” but the North Carolina Republican left room for Trump to assert that power in ways beyond troops on the ground.
“Now, does he come up with different strategies to project that power? That’s up to him,” Tillis said.
The View From The Biden White House
The Biden White House sees continuing the US counter-ISIS mission in Syria as vital. While Biden’s team has been in touch with Trump’s advisers on Syria and other foreign policy matters, it hasn’t weighed in explicitly on what the Trump team should do.
“We don’t want to give ISIS an opportunity to exploit what’s going on,” White House national security communications adviser John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council declined to speculate on the incoming administration’s plans but emphasized that “we will maintain our mission against ISIS to prevent terrorists from resurging which we believe is critical, and will continue to protect our forces against any threats they may face.”
Morgan and Burgess’ View
Trump is assembling an administration that’s likely to be just as divided as the rest of his party over what Syria policy should look like going forward. He’s bringing on more hawkish voices, like secretary of state pick Marco Rubio, whose views run the risk of clashing with the foreign policy of the new right — best exemplified by Vice President-elect JD Vance.
Washington may be in for a repeat of the tug-of-war that played out during Trump’s first term. David Schenker, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East policy who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs under the Trump administration, recalled the heated debate then over Trump’s stance on Syria.
“There were several people who opposed a withdrawal from Syria, believing — and I think correctly so — that it was a relatively low-cost, high-impact deployment,” Schenker said. But, he added, “for many in MAGA world, it’s yet another part of the forever wars.”
Ultimately, the final call is Trump’s.
Room for Disagreement
Simone Ledeen, who worked on Middle East policy at the Pentagon under Trump, argued that he and his incoming team would be more or less on the same page when it comes to Syria.
“Trump and the team he has assembled have spoken passionately and persuasively against open-ended military commitments, and I expect that any continued presence would be based on a defined mission and strategic purpose,” she told Semafor.
Notable
- Trump’s approach to Syria might not be all that different from President Biden’s, Colin Demarest writes in Axios.
- Middle East leaders who want Trump to get involved in Syria need to make the case for what they’re doing for the US, Nahal Toosi argues in Politico.