How fall of Assad showcases the Biden-Trump policy divide in the Mideast

Within hours of Syrian rebels entering Damascus Sunday and forcing autocratic leader Bashar al-Assad into exile, President Joe Biden was on national television laying out preemptive military actions and pledging continued U.S. engagement as Syrians chart a new path forward.

The fall of the Assad regime “is a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria,” Mr. Biden said. Adding that it is “also a moment of risk and uncertainty,” he pledged the U.S. would “work with our partners in Syria” and “remain vigilant.”

The president said the roughly 900 U.S. troops in eastern Syria tasked with preventing a resurgence of the Islamic State (ISIS), will remain on the ground, assuring that the vacuum of power did not open the door to new forms of Islamist extremism.

Then Tuesday John Kirby, the White House national security communications adviser, announced that President Biden was dispatching national security adviser Jake Sullivan to the region to address both Syria and Gaza ceasefire and hostage issues. Also this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Turkey, which is backing an insurgent faction that has clashed in northeast Syria with U.S.-backed Kurds, and Jordan.

The flurry of activity – and the commitment to remain intensely involved in a roiling Middle East – contrasts sharply with the message sent so far by President-elect Donald Trump in response to the Syria crisis.

As rebel forces swept southward toward Damascus last week, Mr. Trump jumped on social media to trumpet the hands-off approach that could become the guiding principle of his Middle East policy and broader foreign policy vision.

“THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT,” Mr. Trump wrote, referring to Syria. “This is not our fight.”

“We’re in this odd situation”

The dissonance between the current and future U.S. administrations is confusing major players in the region and raising questions about U.S. ties going forward, some Mideast policy experts say.

“This comes at a very awkward time in a presidential transition,” says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Trump’s stated goal is remaining aloof from the conflict in Syria, but many U.S. allies have acute interests at stake [while] the potential for problems ... to metastasize is large.”

Orhan Qereman/Reuters

U.S. military vehicles drive in Hasaka, Syria, Dec. 6, 2024. President Biden says the roughly 900 U.S. troops in eastern Syria tasked with preventing a resurgence of the Islamic State will remain on the ground.

Perhaps most worrisome for the U.S. among the problems that could spread from a destabilized Syria is international terrorism. ISIS had been regaining strength in Syria even before Mr. Assad’s fall, with counterterrorism experts reporting a multiplication of attacks by the group over the past month.

The U.S. has already carried out dozens of strikes against weapons sites in Syria – and will remain ready to take further action against assets threatening regional stability, including a regrouping ISIS, administration officials say.

Yet U.S. allies and adversaries alike may wonder, experts and former diplomats say, if a last flourish of action by Mr. Biden will be followed by an inward turn and much higher threshold for international engagement by the Trump White House.

“We’re in this odd situation where it’s not exactly clear what U.S. policy is at a time of tremendous flux and opportunities,” says John Hannah, who served in senior national security positions in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Concern for opportunities lost

Indeed for many regional observers, this moment presents a number of opportunities not imagined even a week ago. They range from seeing an end to Russia’s military presence in Syria to undoing the chokehold Iran-backed Houthi rebels have had on international trade routes off the coast of Yemen. But the U.S. will only be able to exploit them – and accurately assess the looming risks the situation presents – with nonstop, hands-on engagement, some seasoned diplomats say.

“This is when there is a great need for what I would call expeditionary diplomacy,” says Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria. “This is a time, if we want to avoid missteps or major surprises, for the closest possible consultations we can manage with our partners in the area.”

Ambassador Crocker also advocates “a diplomatic presence established on the ground as soon as possible,” despite the complications the U.S. faces in engaging directly with the leading rebel faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. HTS is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., European Union, and United Nations, though it has sought to make the case it has moderated.

For the most ambitious among the “this moment presents opportunities” camp, Mr. Assad’s fall – and the blow it has dealt to chief patrons Russia and Iran – cements a growing conviction that there’s a window for action against Tehran’s advancing nuclear program.

Their concern is that the transition from a lame-duck U.S. administration to one already projecting an isolationist bent, could mean opportunities lost.

Ghaith Alsayed/AP

Government soldiers and allies are taken into custody by opposition fighters on the road between Homs and Damascus, near Homs, Syria, Dec. 8, 2024.

“There are some unique opportunities” because of events in Syria “to address some of the unresolved challenges in the Middle East … and the most important of those is Iran’s nuclear program,” says Mr. Hannah, now a senior fellow in defense and strategy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “We may have an opportunity to get that job done.”

Diplomats and others who served in the first Trump administration say they are all but certain the U.S. will return next year to the “maximum pressure campaign” of strengthened sanctions against Iran.

“A fight for Trump’s mind”

At the same time, others acknowledge there is likely to be an intense interventionist-versus-not-our-fight competition within the new Trump administration for a green light on looming consequential policy decisions. They include the level and type of cooperation with Israel on any military action against Iranian nuclear sites.

For advocates of intervention, the opportunity may be now or never to stop a severely weakened Iran from reacting to the loss of the keystone in its “Axis of Resistance” by rushing to produce a nuclear weapon. U.N. officials reported last week that Iran’s nuclear program has advanced significantly in recent months.

The other key Syria-related question a returning President Trump will face is what to do about the U.S. forces on the ground and their counterterrorism mission.

“I think there will be a fight for Trump’s mind about how quickly we pull our forces out of eastern Syria,” says Mr. Hannah.

Analysts with contacts inside the incoming administration’s foreign-policy circles say the “not our fight” group will argue that any reemerging international terrorism threat can be addressed by other U.S. assets in the region.

But others say President Trump may want to think twice before pulling the plug on the counterterrorism forces.

“If I were talking to President Trump about our troops there, I’d remind him that their prime mission is ISIS” and stopping the group’s resurgence, says Elliott Abrams, who served as special representative for Iran in the first Trump White House.

“I would say, ‘Mr. President, if you pull our guys out, and there’s an attack here by one of their guys, you’re going to be blamed,’” Ambassador Abrams says. “‘It’s not worth it.’”