Washington has a hard long-term choice when it comes to Syria. The best chance for an optimal solution through a negotiated political deal was lost years ago. The U.S. now must choose a policy which will yield only a “least-bad” result.
MEI Senior Fellow W. Robert Pearson and Non-resident Scholar Elizabeth Dent join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the Turkish incursion into northeastern Syria following the sudden withdrawal of US troops from the Turkish-Syrian border earlier this week.
Q: How do you see the situation in northeastern Syria developing?
Upon arriving in Beijing on September 19 at the head of a 55-member delegation, Iraq Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi described the visit to China as heralding a “quantum leap” in bilateral relations. The five-day visit culminated in the signing of eight wide-ranging memoranda of understanding (MoUs), a framework credit agreement, and the announcement of plans for Iraq to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Since then, however, a wave of angry anti-government protests have swept across much of Iraq, leaving more than 100 dead and thousands wounded — a vivid reminder of the country’s ongoing struggle for stability and of the obstacles to the further consolidation of China-Iraq relations.
On Sept. 16, the presidents of Russia, Iran, and Turkey met in Ankara to discuss the resolution of the Syrian civil war. In all three countries, the Ankara summit was hailed as a major success, as negotiations on the formation of a Syrian constitutional committee concluded and progress was made toward resolving other outstanding challenges, such as the future of northeastern Syria and the ongoing struggle for Idlib.
While President Trump might think he’s protecting American interests by leaving Syria, he’s actually granting ISIS the gift of rebirth. What looks set to follow from this is a dream scenario for the group.
For now, both Najaf and Tehran seemed to have a convergence of interests on preserving the post-2003 political order.
A unilateral Turkish military operation will worsen the already toxic mood vis-à-vis Erdogan on the Hill and might prompt a new round of sanctions at a time when Trump was trying to convince the Congress to hold off on punishing Turkey.
After a long-drawn-out series of negotiations, Turkey has successfully convinced more than 40 armed opposition groups in northern Syria to unite under a single umbrella, directly under the command of the Syrian Interim Government’s Ministry of Defense.
As ISIS’s territorial “state” was simultaneously rolled back and then defeated, an international consensus increasingly emerged that claimed Syria’s war was “winding down.” There is no doubt that the geographic scope and intensity of conflict is not what it was at the height of hostilities in 2014 and 2015, but it is certainly not finished either.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his speech at the UN General Assembly to advocate for a plan that would see the return of over one million Syrian refugees from Turkey to a strip along the Turkish border in northeastern Syria. While Turkey should not have to indefinitely host its 3.6 million Syrian refugees, the plan proposed by Erdogan would entail large-scale deportations of refugees, demographic re-engineering, and the destabilization of northeastern Syria. A better path forward would be to facilitate the return of refugees from northeastern and eastern Syria to their homes by investing in reconstruction of the area and encouraging political reforms.
The military campaign in Syria marked a turning point for Russia’s reemergence as a power in the Middle East. Taking advantage of the opportunities presented by Western failures, the Kremlin’s tactical approach has seen it make gains across the region, although these may be more limited and reversible — and Moscow more vulnerable — than is often thought.
MEI senior fellows Randa Slim and Robert Ford join host Alistair Taylor to discuss observations from their recent trip to Baghdad and Erbil, where they met with senior Iraqi government officials and policy experts and witnessed numerous positive developments as the country emerges from a long-standing climate of violent conflict.
In its final report, the congressionally-mandated Syria Study Group (SSG) provided a bleak but wholly realistic assessment of the state of the crisis in Syria. When it comes to policy prescriptions, however, the SSG falls short. Despite clearly identifying the “means and ends” gap as one of two core problems with U.S. policy in Syria, the “recommendations” suggested by the SSG differ little, if at all, from those already in place.
Iraq’s current public service regime is struggling to deliver on desperately needed services in part due to the issue of establishing a functioning federal state system across the country. Far more attention needs to be devoted to institutions and how those operating within them can deliver those services. One way to do this is to decentralize service provision to the governorates not incorporated into a region. However, this process has been hampered by administration, fiscal, and political issues. Identifying these and seeking solutions to resolve them will be key. This paper addresses the decentralization process, specifically focusing on the issues surrounding the governorates not incorporated into a region, as per Law 21.