Earlier this month, the U.S. did something that would have been unimaginable a few years earlier: It removed Syria from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list. Paired with earlier moves to lift sanctions, the decision was framed as a move “to promote Syria’s economic recovery and reintegration into the global economy.” Few actions could have expressed the administration’s genuine interest in helping Syria become a sovereign, stable state more clearly than this one.
Washington wants Syria to normalize relations with Israel, deal with foreign terrorist fighters on its soil, prevent a resurgent ISIS, and eventually take custody of the ISIS detention centers scattered across the northeast. Ambassador James Jeffrey, who coordinated State Department policy on the Syrian civil war, summed up the vision Washington has in mind: a Syria that is “independent, economically strong, attentive to all its disparate ethnic and religious groups, active in opposition to Daesh [the so-called Islamic State] and Iran and proxies, and can eventually take responsibility for its own security.” Delisting Syria and easing sanctions were the tangible first steps toward that vision – the kind of gestures that make sense only if the goal really is a stronger, more self-sufficient Syrian state.
Washington wants Syria to become more capable and sovereign, but Turkey wants a major role in Syria’s security, and Israel sees aspects of that Turkish role as a threat.
But the delisting came just a week after Washington had already shown how little it was willing to do to protect that vision. On Aug. 18 Israeli jets struck the Abu al-Duhur airbase in the northwestern province of Idlib. Israel said the strike was intended to stop Turkey from establishing a presence there, and Netanyahu’s office insisted it had warned Damascus repeatedly that a Turkish deployment would cross an agreed security red line. Turkey denied any sort of troop presence at the site, and Syria’s foreign minister described the visit Turkish military delegation visit as routine training cooperation, not the beginning of a base. The action was met with silence in Washington – except for Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, who publicly called out both the strike itself and Israel’s failure to coordinate with Ankara beforehand, framing it as an unnecessary escalation. When President Trump was asked about the incident, he did not condemn Israel – and, notably, he didn’t step in to defend his own special envoy either.
Israel Clashes with Turkey
Dr. Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, argues that Washington’s deconfliction effort is better understood as damage control than as evidence of a functioning mechanism for managing Israeli Turkish competition inside Syria. Washington wants Syria to become more capable and sovereign, but Turkey wants a major role in Syria’s security, and Israel sees aspects of that Turkish role as a threat.
Landis notes that the problem extends beyond Syria itself. Erdogan is intent on expanding Turkey’s regional authority, while Israel is increasingly determined to prevent exactly that. Landis argues that some Israeli politicians increasingly view Turkey as a “new Iran” (meaning a state inherently hostile to Israel) or potentially as an even more dangerous strategic threat because of its military capabilities, relations with the West, and NATO membership. He observes Syria is particularly vulnerable to becoming a battleground for that competition because of its weakness.
Israel has demonstrated its willingness to operate militarily in Syria, while Turkey maintains a strong presence in the north. Landis says the result could be repeated flare-ups in both parts of the country, turning Syria into the geographic arena where two U.S. partners compete for influence. As a result, Washington is not just managing its own interests in Syria. It’s also mediating between two of its own regional partners.
But if Washington’s answer to each confrontation is simply to contain the fallout after the fact, future incidents will offer little opportunity for resolving the underlying dispute over Syria’s security architecture. Landis sees this as part of a broader pattern, one not unique to Syria: Israel has shown that it wants to exercise the freedom to strike its enemies – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, or Iran – and rather than restraining that behavior, Trump has largely joined it. Landis doesn’t expect that pattern to change in Syria.
Objectives Without Strategy
If Washington wants Syria to become sovereign, it will eventually have to decide whether sovereignty includes the ability to rebuild its military, engage in security assistance from Turkey, and make choices that Israel does not approve of.
Washington wants Damascus to control its territory, secure its borders, and assume more responsibility for its own security. But that necessarily means giving the Syrian government greater capacity to make decisions for itself. Landis observes that the deeper problem is that Syria remains weak while Israel remains militarily dominant. That imbalance gives Israel wide latitude to operate inside Syria. Israel has also made clear that it does not want Syria to rebuild a military capable of changing that balance. Israel is insisting on red lines around Turkish assistance to Syria’s military reconstruction. Landis notes that this creates a fundamental tension in Washington’s stated goal of a stronger, more independent Syria. Damascus and Ankara are looking to Washington to restrain Israel, but so far Washington’s response has been restricted to calling for restraint, diplomacy and de-escalation.
If Washington wants Syria to become sovereign, it will eventually have to decide whether sovereignty includes the ability to rebuild its military, engage in security assistance from Turkey, and make choices that Israel does not approve of. If the answer is no, then Washington is not really pursuing full Syrian sovereignty. Rather, it is pursuing a Syria whose sovereignty remains bound by the security preferences of its stronger neighbors.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MBN’s editorial stance.
