IMAGE: Zoe Garbarino / U.S. Army / Reuters
Washington allies have “unanimously” told the US that they won’t stay if the US pulls out its forces from Syria, according to multiple reports in US media.
Stars and Stripes newspaper covers the situation in the following manner:
“France and Britain are the only other countries with troops on the ground in the U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State.
Along with the United States, they have provided training, supplies, logistics and intelligence for the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-dominated group that has done most of the fighting. U.S., French and British forces also man heavy artillery and conduct the airstrikes that have been decisive against the militants.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said last week that he was mystified by Trump’s policy. On Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said “there is no prospect of British forces replacing the Americans” in Syria.
European refusal to stay unless President Donald Trump reverses at least part of his troop withdrawal order is one of several factors that U.S. military officials, lawmakers and senior administration officials have said should make Trump think again.
Their concerns come as the administration has yet to reach an agreement with Turkey not to attack the SDF, which the nation says is a terrorist group. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the Turkish military, massed at the border, is prepared to move into northeastern Syria once the Americans leave.
One of the principal requests the administration has made of the allies, including Germany, which has no forces in Syria, is to form an “observer” force to patrol a 20-mile-wide “safe zone” on the Syrian side of the border, separating Turkey from the Syrian Kurds.
Officials in Ankara said Turkey’s defense minister, Hulusi Akar, and its military chief of staff will travel to Washington on Thursday to discuss Syria and other regional matters with acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.
The SDF has appealed for Western nations to keep a force of up to 1,500 in northeast Syria to coordinate air support and back its efforts to hold militants and other adversaries at bay. In anticipation of the departure of about 2,000 U.S. troops, the Kurds are negotiating with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russia, his primary foreign backer along with Iran.”
Meanwhile, the US still claims that it is not going to give up its infleunce in northeastern Syria. Despite the formal defeat of ISIS in the Euphrates Valley, the SDF remains a useful tool of Washington foreign policy. According to the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance, Washington seeks to divide the country by setting up a quasi-state on the eastern bank fo the Euphrates.
On February 19, a senior adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban, commented on the idea of the creation of the US-backed “autonomy” within the country.
“Autonomy means the partition of Syria. We have no way to partition Syria,” she told Reuters on the sidelines of a Middle East conference in Moscow organized by the Valdai Discussion Club. “Syria is a country that is a melting pot for all people and all people are equal in front of Syrian law and in front of the Syrian constitution,” she added describing the Kurds “a precious and very important part of the Syrian people.”
