President-elect Donald Trump boasted, “We defeated ISIS,” during a press conference this month.
Indeed, it has been a source of pride for him. Together with Syrian Kurdish partners, U.S. soldiers overthrew the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate and freed its capital during the first year of Trump’s first term. However, a number of terrorist organizations, regional militias, and Israeli bombings have put Syria in danger of disintegrating since the overthrow of the Assad regime. Furthermore, despite their claims of moderate intentions, Syria’s interim leaders have ties to both Al Qaeda and Hayat al Sham (HTS), another terrorist organization. For many experts, the worst-case scenario is that ISIS might re-establish its base in the new state and either inspire or export more terrorism to the West, as it did in New Orleans on New Year’s Day.
Given the circumstances, Trump will probably have to make some difficult decisions once he takes office, such as insisting on the withdrawal of all or a portion of the 2,000 American troops in Syria, in keeping with his prior stances, or leaving them there to avoid an ISIS resurgence and a tarnish his perceived accomplishments from his first term. Syria could readily be used as a base of operations for terrorist attacks in Israel, the US, and Europe if the US withdraws.
To protect thousands of detained ISIS members and their families in northeast Syria, the United States has been depending on combatants from the Syrian Defense Force (SDF), an alliance dominated by Kurds. Former U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel told NBC News that the SDF’s forces were some of the best he had ever commanded during the height of the campaign against ISIS.
However, Gen. Mazloum Abdi, the commander in chief of the SDF, told The Guardian this month that ISIS is becoming more powerful as a result of its seizure of weapons from the overthrown Syrian government. He added that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğ is putting more pressure on the Kurdish forces because he sees them as challenges to his rule, together with the PKK, a group of Kurdish separatists based in Syria.
In an interview with NBC News on Monday, outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the United States’ role in directing and influencing events in Syria is crucial.
Blinken characterized the current state of affairs as extremely precarious, cautioning that the possibility for terrorism extends far beyond Syria’s boundaries and that what occurs there does not remain there.
According to him, the United States has a stake in the remarkable chance the Syrian people currently have to truly take charge of their own lives and futures. That entails, I think, maintaining a certain level of presence while also actively participating in all initiatives to support a Syrian-led, Syrian-owned transition to improve the nation.
Even if Trump were to continue bombing campaigns and targeted operations against the terrorist organization, Theodore Kattouf, a career diplomat who served as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to Syria, told NBC News recently that withdrawing American troops would leave the Kurdish coalition vulnerable and eventually result in an expanded footprint for ISIS.
“We’re endangering a lot of U.S. interests by getting those troops out of there,” Kattouf stated. Right now, I don’t think [HTS] or other rebel troops with allies can handle that problem.
Counterterrorism officials in the Biden administration are concerned that if Trump were to withdraw American soldiers, the Syrian Kurds who are protecting the ISIS prisoners would be exposed to attacks from other groups or the threat of Turkey, which is located right across the border. President Joe Biden and President Trump both made a concerted effort to prevent Erdoğan, whose nation is still a NATO ally, from attacking America’s Kurdish allies during his first term. In reference to the Kurds, Trump stated during his press conference last week that he had instructed Erdo not to target specific individuals. Trump went on to say, “I like and respect President Erdo An, who is also a friend of mine.” I believe he respects me as well.
In addition to providing a base for operations and planning, any Syrian land captured by ISIS might help it inspire people globally by giving it a sense of strength and resistance. Through what anti-terrorism specialists describe as a wave of sophisticated online propaganda, the group has already been using social media to increase its global reach, funding assaults and encouraging adherents worldwide, including so-called lone wolves. The agency is very concerned about the growing threat posed by ISIS, especially its capacity to motivate individuals, CIA Director William Burns told NPR last week. Additionally, FBI Director Christopher Wray cautioned the House Judiciary Committee in July that the biggest threat to our country from terrorism has come from lone actors or small groups of people who usually utilize readily available weapons to attack soft targets after becoming radicalized to violence online.
For over a year, the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community have been raising those concerns. On Friday, a senior administration official told NBC News, The cancelation of three Taylor Swift Eras Tour performances in Vienna in August due to U.S. intelligence warnings of ISIS terrorist plans targeting the venues is evidence of the increased attention being paid to ISIS. Additionally, U.S. officials said that in March, despite warnings from U.S. intelligence, shooters from ISIS-K, an Afghan-based offshoot of ISIS, massacred over 130 people at the Crocus City Hall, a popular music venue outside of Moscow.
After the New Orleans attack, counterterrorism expert Collin Clarke of the Soufan Group told NBC News that Syria might give the group the momentum it has long sought to sort of spill back onto the headlines, whether that’s ISIS K in Afghanistan, ISIS core, ISIS Central, Syria, and parts of Iraq. Additionally, the homegrown violent extremists in the West that ISIS is trying to push over the edge conduct the kinds of attacks that we saw in New Orleans.
Clearly concerned about the potential for the fallen state to export terrorism to Europe, the European Union’s foreign ministers, France and Germany, visited Damascus two weeks ago to meet with Ahmed al-Sharaa, the interim leader of Syria, who went by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani before he renounced his ties to HTS.
American boots?
In the hours leading up to the fall of the Assad regime, Trump stated on Xin that the United States should not be involved in Syria, saying it is a mess but not our buddy. We are not fighting this. Let it happen. Don’t get involved!
Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., Trump’s choice for national security advisor, acknowledged Trump’s hesitancy for the US to get involved in Syria but emphasized the incoming administration’s resolve to fight ISIS. “We are monitoring those things, ISIS, Israel’s border, and kind of the broader dynamic with our Gulf allies,” Waltz stated in a podcast late last month, adding that “we do not need American boots running around Syria in any way, shape, or form.”
However, analysts doubt that the war against ISIS in Syria can be carried on without American troops.
The current administration has been educating Trump’s national security team on the necessity of a sustained U.S. military presence to prevent Russia, Turkey, or Iran from establishing dominance during the transition, according to a senior Biden administration official. Only after European counterparts had visited and after public pressure from the mother of Austin Tice, the American journalist thought to be imprisoned in Syria, who stated that the United States should be more involved, did the departing Biden administration send its top Middle East diplomat, Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf, to Damascus. The State Department had to remove the $10 million bounty it had placed on his head while he was head of HTS before it could even meet with the new interim leader.
However, as Trump enters the White House, the crucial question of whether the US should help stop Syria from harboring terrorists or allowing power moves by regional enemies of the US will be at his doorstep. This is in addition to the difficulty of countering the internet propaganda that propagates the violent ideology of ISIS worldwide.