President Trump’s snap decision to pull 2000 American troops out of Syria has been met by a storm of criticism from local and Western allies.  The move prompted the shock departure of the Secretary of Defence, James Mattis, whilst being lauded by Vladimir Putin and President Rouhani of Iran. Despite these theatrics, Trump’s decision is a sensible one, albeit probably for the wrong reasons. Here, I examine the main arguments against the withdrawal and show how each one of them is flawed.

1. ISIS isn’t defeated, it will just re-emerge.

Is this really an argument for a continued American presence? If so, it seems to completely ignore the results of 17 years of engagement with radical Islamist groups. Groups like ISIS cannot be militarily defeated regardless of how much ordnance you drop and how much time you spend doing it. Islamist terror groups are borne out of an ideology that is justified by the very presence of Western troops in Muslim countries. Trying to bomb them out of existence just enhances their brand appeal by making their ideology more convincing. They may look weak now but they’ll come back tougher and uglier.

Just look at how ISIS has evolved into its current form. They mutated from al-Qaeda affiliates which fought the Americans in the Iraq war. A protracted military campaign in Iraq had convinced many western spectators that terrorists could be defeated using guns alone, but they were wrong. Al-Qaeda re-emerged, rebranded as ISIS and went further in creating a caliphate than any other group since the War on Terror began. The case of the Taliban in Afghanistan is almost identical, with the Taliban the strongest they’ve been since 2001 despite continuous Western engagement there.

On the back of these experiences, the fact that ISIS isn’t fully defeated is the reason why it is sensible for the Americans to leave Syria. ISIS cannot be defeated because it derives its strength not from military hardware but from a powerful ideology. It can only die out as people experience its venom and realise it is not a regime they want. And this cause seems best served by military disengagement.

2. Withdrawal allows Russia and Iran to cement their presence in Syria.

This has already happened. Syria is awash with Iranian troops and allied Shia militias such as Hezbollah. Some 70,000 soldiers fighting for the regime are controlled by Tehran. Meanwhile Russian bombers dominate in the air and have been the real engine behind the regime’s recent gains. Russian corporations stand ready to profit from lucrative contracts as Syria begins its rebuilding process, deepening the relationship between Moscow and Damascus. There is no greater example of Russia and Iran’s growing leverage over Syria’s future than the shift in the negotiating theatre from the Western instigated Geneva talks to the Astana process sponsored by Russia and Turkey. No American action short of a full blown invasion could dislodge these powerful forces from the country and the region is rapidly adapting to this fact. When Israel became nervous about an Iranian military build-up on its border, President Netanyahu turned to Russia, not America, and secured a deal establishing an exclusion zone for Iranian troops.   

The United States’ chances of having a serious influence over events in Syria died with the failure of a pro-western, broadly secular and Arab rebel group to emerge as a key player in the war. Such groups existed in the beginning of the conflict but were soon torn apart by the divergent forces of regime loyalism and Islamism, a lot of the latter being of an extreme flavour. Without such a group, the US could never realistically expect to advance its values and create a Syria in its own image.  The West tried to create an ideal ally by merging the Kurdish YPG with a handful of Arab rebel groups to form the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). But the Kurdish dominance of this outfit limits its credibility as a governing force for the whole of Syria. The SDF is focused on Kurdish interests and only goes on the offensive to defend what it believes is Kurdish land. This has helped Russia and Iran build strong and pretty much unmovable positions within the country.

3. Leaving Syria means abandoning the Kurds.

I believe this is the most convincing argument against the withdrawal. The Kurds have been an invaluable ally in the West’s fight against Islamic State. Whilst an international coalition has used air power to smash ISIS positions, it is the Kurds who have entered villages, dismantled booby-traps and cleared out tunnels, losing hundreds of soldiers in doing so. For this we should be grateful and unwilling to see a final settlement that disregards Kurdish interests. The American withdrawal does not make such a settlement any more likely however.

The reason why this is so is because the Kurds have always been likely to strike a deal with Assad as the war turns evermore in the regime’s favour. Many figures within the YPG would be happy to settle for great autonomy within Syria as opposed to full independence if that guaranteed a Kurdish entity and avoided further years of war. For the regime’s part, such a deal would see a huge portion of Syria notionally returned to the government’s control and would also hasten the end of the war and please Assad’s exhausted ethnic Alawite base.

Moreover, to claim that such a deal is unlikely is to ignore decades of cooperation and mutual recognition between the Syrian Kurds and the government. During the Cold War, Syria, as a client of the Soviet Union, allowed its Kurdish regions to act as a base for Kurdish militants fighting in Turkey, a Western ally at the time. More recently during the civil war, the Kurds and the regime have successfully avoided military clashes and have in some areas cooperated against mutual enemies like ISIS. The quick deal struck between the SDF and Damascus over the town of Manbij just last week highlights the capacity for a comprehensive deal to be made between these two forces whilst also complicating Turkey’s position and lessening the threat to the Kurds from a general Turkish offensive.

Therefore leaving Syria does not leave the Kurds vulnerable to an onslaught from the regime. I predict a deal between the Kurds and the government in the near future and this will almost certainly guarantee an autonomous Kurdish entity within Syria whilst also protecting this entity from a Turkish invasion. Indeed, the American departure may even hasten such a deal if Assad feels more comfortable negotiating with a group that has now become more alienated from the West.

In light of all of this, Trump’s order to leave Syria does not seem as bad as it has been widely portrayed. If radical Islamist groups cannot be defeated through military means then time and effort should not be wasted on trying to so. If the aim of a military presence is instead to deter Russia and Iran then the attempt is at least four years too late. And if the goal is to protect our Kurdish allies then this fails to recognise the complex and shifting alliances that will almost certainly safeguard Kurdish interests whether the US is there or not