Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara’a, leader of the new transitional government in Damascus, is set to make a historic visit to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump on Monday. The state visit is a significant moment in the historically difficult relations between the two countries, marking a major shift from Washington’s adversarial relationship with former dictator Bashar al-Assad. While closer ties are welcome, the United States should avoid deeper military involvement in the conflict-scarred country, recognizing that economic and diplomatic tools are sufficient to achieve US interests in Syria, including the country’s successful transition to a functional state.
The al-Shara’a-Trump meeting comes nearly one year after the collapse of the decades-old Assad family regime, which saw the former jihadist leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – formerly aligned with Al-Qaeda – shed his past and claim leadership over Syria. The Trump administration quickly moved, following support from key Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, to support the new transitional authority, lifting sanctions and offering international legitimacy to the new rulers.
In parallel, Washington has moved to lower its military footprint in the country. Since coming into office, the Trump administration has withdrawn an estimated 1,000 troops from Syria. Further, the Pentagon has drawn up plans to remove all troops in a bid to transfer responsibility to a new, unified Syrian government. The goal is to provide intelligence support to Damascus, which – alongside the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – would take the lead on anti-ISIS missions as part of their duty to manage the country’s domestic security.
That approach is wise for multiple reasons. For one, Washington has no business in prolonging the US troop deployment in Syria and has never done so legally – namely with the US Congress passing an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Multiple administrations have relied on the faulty legal argument that because ISIS stems from al-Qaeda, the former 2001 AUMF targeting the latter can be extended to the former. Simply put, the American people have not had a fair say in the deployment of US troops to a faraway country to fight ISIS.
The current US approach is also wise because ISIS is a shell of its former self, as the US Department of Defense continues to note in quarterly reports. Although many analysts claim the group can still conduct external attacks, the reality is that today’s ISIS is largely a domestic terror organization in Syria consisting of fragmented sleeper cells conducting sporadic attacks on its opponents within the country. Any increase in attacks or capacity can be dealt with by the new Syrian state, especially considering the former HTS – as well as the SDF – proved highly capable of fighting and defeating the group.
If necessary, over the horizon support to a unified Syrian state will achieve the proper objective of keeping the group at bay, at worst, and fully defeating it, at best. The success of the state itself is a major component of that effort, however, which explains why Washington continues to mediate between Damascus and the SDF to unite under one banner – an issue still unachieved given deeply rooted mistrust between the parties. In this vein, the Trump administration is reportedly set to add Syria to the 80-plus member coalition to defeat ISIS, a major step in the fight against the group.
However, recent unconfirmed reports suggest that Washington may be looking to bolster its military presence in Syria, as progress on the troop drawdowns has stalled amid bouts of violence between Damascus and the SDF over the last year. That dynamic, coupled with concern about a slowly increasing number of ISIS attacks in recent months, has officials in the Trump administration concerned that the country could collapse – a concern Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted earlier this year.
If Rubio’s stated concerns remain relevant to the Syria file for this administration – and they likely do, given his dual role as secretary of state and national security advisor – these unconfirmed reports could carry weight. Those reports include rumors of a US deployment to a Syrian Army base in Damascus constituting a “demilitarized zone,” alongside reports that some military hardware may be moving from Iraq to Syria to bolster the anti-ISIS mission in the country’s northeast.
Given the lack of transparency around troop deployments across the Middle East, including and particularly in Syria, these reports should raise concerns. The United States should be focused on lowering its military presence in both Syria and the broader region. Deepening such deployments only puts US lives at greater risk while distracting from larger strategic concerns and costing a fortune.
While the Trump administration is wise to see the early stages of Syria’s transition through, it does not need boots on the ground to do so. Washington carries the influence necessary to steer Damascus and the other region’s key stakeholders in the conflict as it wishes. Trump’s ability to recognize the value of strategic restraint in Syria ahead of Monday’s meeting with the young Syrian president, and acting accordingly in talks with him, will go a long way for advancing US interests in the region.
Alexander Langlois is a Contributing Fellow at Defense Priorities.
