Congress has decided the autopilot war in Syria has to have a point.
The Syria multi-war has been complicated and confusing. And it lingers on. It it would nice to know what our part of it is. President Biden had promised to "solve" that multi-war, but hasn't hinted at what that might be:
During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised to reassert American leadership to solve the crisis in Syria. Now, a year after his inauguration, his administration’s Syria policy is managing to be at once incoherent and contradictory.
A bill passed by the Senate and House asserts Congressional authority to figure that out,
including one demanding stricter oversight of Washington’s policies towards the conflict in Syria.
The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requires the administration to report to lawmakers on its vision for an endgame for the conflict, as well as on diplomatic means to achieve those objectives in talks with major players like Russia and Turkey.
Lawmakers are demanding to see a timeline for weaning local Syrian fighters off US military support, as well as a plan for convincing foreign governments to repatriate their citizens detained in prison camps housing Islamic State members in Syria.
It's about time Syria got on America's radar screen, as I wrote almost four ago:
The Obama administration ignored the logical consequences of saying Assad had to step down by waging a parallel war as a de facto ally of Assad against the common enemy of ISIL that put off enforcing that declaration. The defeat of the ISIL caliphate has exposed the wide gap between the stated preference for Assad to leave and the focus of military action on ISIL only. So what do we do now?
America did not decide to push for the defeat of Assad. Trump made moves to pull out, which led to some silly panic, but did not. Yet remaining in eastern Syria without a mission worried me:
I was uncomfortable because we could face an attack that leads to a large loss of American lives that prompts a rapid retreat and defeat that encourages enemies. See the Marines Beirut Barracks bombing and the Battle of Mogadishu for examples of that worry.
There are reasons for American troops to remain in eastern Syria. These include bolstering the Syrian Kurds. Weakening Assad. Fighting ISIL. Screening Iraq from infiltration from Syria. And fighting Iranian influence there. Are we doing any of those things? And are we willing to die for those things?
What would such a defeat do to our already shaken credibility following the Afghanistan skedaddle debacle?
So at some point the Biden administration should figure out if we have a policy or inertia in Syria. I congratulate Congress for raising this long-neglected subject. Don't hold having a policy for what we want to achieve hostage to a grand plan to "solve" Syria.
Nor should the Democrats' strange love of Iran be allowed to spoil a policy direction.
And do it before we have a Beirut Barracks or Mogadishu moment that prompts a sudden retreat when our dead troops expose that we have not decided what we are willing to fight for in Syria.
