Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has a penchant for conspiracy. In recent years, he has frequently blamed foreign “masterminds” for all problems plaguing Turkey and the Muslim world. Following President Trump’s announcement, Erdoğan called an emergency summit of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, benefiting from his country’s rotating presidency of that organization, which enabled him to cast himself as the leader of the Muslim world.

Erdogan’s Turkey: The Role of a Little Known Islamist Poet
By Svante Cornell – Breaking Defense

Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has a penchant for conspiracy. In recent years, he has frequently blamed foreign “masterminds” for all problems plaguing Turkey and the Muslim world. Following President Trump’s announcement, Erdoğan called an emergency summit of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, benefiting from his country’s rotating presidency of that organization, which enabled him to cast himself as the leader of the Muslim world.

Speaking two days later at an award ceremony, Erdoğan outdid himself: “if Jerusalem goes, we will lose Medina. If Medina goes, we will lose Mecca. If Mecca goes, we will lose the Kaaba!”

Where does this vitriol come from? Dismissing it as rhetoric from an embattled regime would be a mistake. Anti-Israel animus and a penchant for conspiracy theories involving global Jewry have been a constant in Erdoğan’s shifting domestic alliances and foreign policy initiatives.

Erdoğan’s December 15 speech was symbolic indeed: the occasion betrayed more than meets the eye. Erdoğan uttered his warning at the awards celebrating the Islamist poet and writer Necip Fazıl Kısakürek (1904-83), who was the intellectual mentor not only for Erdoğan, but for a large portion of the current political elite in Turkey.

Kısakürek was once a marginal figure in Turkey. While educated partially in France, Kısakürek grew to abhor the West, and to see it as the root of all evil. But like many contemporary Islamists, he incorporated European fascist ideas, two of which stand out. The first was his rejection of democracy, and his advocacy instead for a political system led by an “exalted ruler” – a totalitarian Islamist and nationalist regime built on Sunni Islam and Turkish ethnicity, which envisaged the ethnic cleansing of other, less desirable groups.

Second, Kısakürek harbored a strong hatred for Jews and their imagined sidekicks, the freemasons, who he believed were in cahoots, hell-bent on destroying Turkey. This hatred is obvious throughout his work, but was so strong that he devoted an entire book to the subject. He viewed the expulsion of Jews – and a Turkish community of Jewish converts to Islam called the dönme – as critical to the country’s survival. Once this cleansing was complete, Turkey would “shine like a diamond.”

This repulsive and once marginal figure is now widely celebrated: Turkish cabinet ministers regularly sing his praises. Erdoğan himself once cited Kısakürek as the single person who influenced him the most, and his December 15 appearance was no exception: he makes a point out of appearing at events honoring the person he calls his “master,” and reciting his poetry.

Following the collapse of Turkey’s Middle East policies and the July 2016 failed coup, Erdoğan appeared to tone down his Islamist ideology and embrace a more nationalist persona. He also normalized relations with both Israel and Russia. And while the Turkish Jewish community has not been targeted for reprisals, the general atmosphere has led it to shrink rapidly.

In the midst of a sputtering economy, Erdoğan knows his Islamist ideology does not win elections. This is why he is in the midst of trying to co-opt the opposition Nationalist Action Party ahead of elections in coming years. While Israel-bashing will hardly cost Erdoğan any votes, it is not an issue that truly animates the Turkish public. Erdoğan’s hyperbole on Jerusalem is indicative of a broader trend: how the Islamist ideology that Kısakürek represents has become mainstream in Turkey. It is no longer marginal; in fact, it is actively propagated by many of Turkey’s media, schools and mosques. This worldview also forms the backdrop for Turkey’s central role for many Islamist organizations globally, which National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster spoke of on December 11.

Erdoğan’s reaction to the Jerusalem decision should not be construed as being only about Erdoğan. It is an indication of the country’s shifting identity. Finding ways to punish Erdoğan would not solve the deeper problem: Turkish society is rapidly slipping its western moorings. Whatever happens at the political level, it is time to take the long view, and devise ways to counter the ideological drift of this critical ally into a toxic blend of Islamism and ethnic nationalism.

Read in Breaking Defense

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One way to counter Iran’s aggression? Change the map of the Middle East
By Michael Makovsky, PhD

The Trump Administration’s just released National Security Strategy properly identifies Iran as among the important challengers to U.S. security interests but does not offer a concrete strategy on how to counter its growing regional hegemony. Indeed, Iran’s geopolitical ascent is the most significant, and dangerous, development in the Middle East this century. President Trump should follow Ronald Reagan’s example and take the offensive, supporting indigenous forces that oppose, and seek independence from, Iranian domination. This requires eschewing convention and recognizing Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen for what they are: failed, artificial constructs whose capitals now serve as Iranian satrapies.

Iran has taken advantage of ISIS’ crumbling caliphate to increasingly consolidate control over Syria and Iraq, as it dominates their capitals and those of Lebanon and Yemen. It has effectively established a land bridge from Tehran to Beirut.

Reversing this strategic threat requires continued U.S. military presence and military aid to local forces in Syria and Iraq, and greater support for our regional allies, such as Israel and Jordan, who must contain the provocative actions of Iran and its proxies. But this defensive posture will not suffice even to contain Iran let alone transform its hegemonic trajectory.

Instead, we should draw from Ronald Reagan, who eschewed a defensive posture and pursued an offensive strategy to undermine the Soviet Union that included supporting indigenous anti-communist insurgents around the globe. We should pursue the same offensive strategy to roll back Iran’s regional hegemony.

We should recognize that maintaining Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen in their existing forms is unnatural and serves Iran’s interests. There is nothing sacred about these countries’ borders, which seem to have been drawn by a drunk and blindfolded cartographer. Indeed, in totally disregarding these borders, ISIS and Iran both have already demonstrated their anachronism and irrelevance.

These countries are not nation-states as Americans understand them but post-WWI artificial constructs, mostly created out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in a colossally failed experiment by international leaders. With their deep ethno-sectarian fissures, these countries have either been held together by a strong authoritarian hand or suffered sectarian carnage.

Indeed, the principal vulnerability of Iran’s regional strategy is its dependence on brutal regimes to rule lands riven by ethno-sectarian fissures. The United States should exploit this vulnerability by supporting those forces in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen that oppose Iran’s domination and seek greater self-determination or independence from the capitals. The result could be transforming these failed states into loose confederations or new countries with more borders that more naturally conform along sectarian lines.

Any redrawing of political relationships or borders is highly complex, and the United States cannot dictate the outcomes. But we can influence them. We would need to deeply examine each country for its unique qualities and histories, and consult closely our regional allies before deciding upon a policy.

Here are some examples of policy conclusions that might be drawn. We might cease supplying arms to Baghdad, declare our support and strong military aid for an eventual Iraqi Kurdish state once its warring factions unify and improve governance, and support a federation for the rest of Iraq. For Syria, we could seek a more ethnically coherent loose confederation or separate states that might balance each other — the Iranian-dominated Alawites along the coast, the Kurds in the northeast, and the Sunni Arabs in the heartland. We could also demonstrate we are not anti-Shia by improving relations with Azerbaijan, a secular Shia country bordering Iran that seeks a closer relationship with the United States.

An added potential benefit of this approach could be a fomenting of tensions within Iran, which has sizable Kurdish and Azeri populations, thereby weakening the radical regime in Tehran.

Some might argue this approach impractical, destabilizing, and offering Iran new opportunities.

Perhaps, but the region’s current trajectory is more dangerous. The burden is on the United States to adapt its policy to the dissolving of borders and Iran’s aggression. Iran is not a status quo power content to consolidate its winnings; its emboldened radical regime is intent to dominate the region and destroy Israel. An Iranian-Israeli conflict looms ever closer as Iran establishes bases and missile factories in Syria, posing a second front in Israel’s north. And Americans must concentrate on Iran’s continued development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that could eventually reach the U.S. homeland.

Further, artificial states have been divided or loosened before with some success, such as the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, all post-WWI formations. Bosnia and Herzegovina have also managed as a confederation.

The Trump Administration should follow Reagan in taking the offensive to Iran. The current political structure of the Middle East serves Iran’s interests, and it’s time to upend it.

Read in Fox News

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Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Reed, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on the need for a coherent strategy to address the manifold challenges confronting the United States in the Middle East. I have been intimately involved with the region throughout my career, including as Ambassador to Turkey and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. I have continued working on this issue since retiring from government service in 2009 as counselor at CSBA, as the Roger Hertog Distinguished practitioner in residence at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and as co-chair of task forces sponsored by JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy and Bipartisan Policy Center. In these capacities, I have co-authored a range of reports laying out recommendations for U.S. strategy, but the views expressed here today are purely my own.

As on other issues, our country is currently roiled in debates over what role the United States should play in the Middle East, as well as what role the region should play in our broader strategic calculus. Although the Middle East remains increasingly complex and volatile, and as the threats emanating from the region continue to threaten the U.S. and our allies both in the region and beyond, these debates are far from academic. I, therefore, applaud this committee for examining these matters and assembling today’s panel of distinguished Foreign Service colleagues who have wrestled with the most intractable elements of the problems we face in the Middle East.

Read the full testimony

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As ISIS goes down to military defeat, the United States requires a longer-range plan and an enduring force presence to deny Iran total victory in Syria.

Otherwise, the United States risks losing influence as a new Middle Eastern order is being forged.

US Must Bolster Its Presence In MidEast As ISIS Falls
By Michael Makovsky, PhD, Amb. Eric Edelman and Gen Charles Wald, USAF (ret.) – Breaking Defense

As ISIS goes down to military defeat, the United States requires a longer-range plan and an enduring force presence to deny Iran total victory in Syria.

Otherwise, the United States risks losing influence as a new Middle Eastern order is being forged.

The last ISIS-occupied towns in Syria and Iraq fell recently, but not to the U.S.-led coalition. While the United States and its allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) of Kurds and Sunni Arabs were liberating Raqqa, the Syrian regime and its backers launched an ambitious cross-country offensive into the neighboring resource-rich province of Deir ez Zour.

Assad’s ground troops included Iranian, Hezbollah, Iraqi and other Shia forces – reportedly under the direct command of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Qods Force – backed by Russian air power. Even before Raqqa officially fell, Soleimani and the SDF were racing each other through Deir ez Zour province, that last ISIS holdout and the final missing piece of Iran’s envisioned land bridge connecting Tehran directly to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Unless stopped, the multinational force marching under Tehran’s orders will determine the region’s future. We must act quickly. Were it to roll back the SDF’s recent gains – as the Iranian Supreme Leader’s foreign policy adviser stated – and cement its hold over the strategically and economically vital province, Iran would become the arbiter of postwar Syria and its hegemony in the strategic crossroads of the Middle East. This would effectively expand Iran’s borders all the way to key U.S. allies, especially Jordan and Israel, increasing the risk of an Iranian-Israeli war. U.S. credibility in the region and beyond would be undermined.

It would also put other regional countries on notice that Iran is the major power they must appease or confront, by themselves, to maintain their security. The result could be a pattern of instability that is increasingly evident across the region, including in Yemen, where Iranian-supported Houthis recently launched their most brazen missile attack on Saudi Arabia to date.

Yet American policymakers have not articulated coherent objectives in Syria beyond destroying ISIS. And even though President Trump announced in his October 13 address a new policy of countering Iran’s “destabilizing activity and support for terrorist proxies in the region,” his administration is sending mixed signals. Defense Secretary James Mattis says the military will retain a role in Syria, at the same time the president reportedly told Turkey the United States will no longer arm its Syrian Kurdish partners.

Last week the Iran Task Force at JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy, which we lead, warned of the urgent need and proposed recommendations for restoring crucial U.S. leverage against further Iranian aggression.

American policymakers must emphasize they will maintain a military presence in Syria to protect U.S.-backed groups and the territory they have clawed back from ISIS. They should also make clear U.S. forces and our Syrian surrogates will vigorously defend themselves if attacked by Syrian regime forces or Iranian proxies.

The United States should also continue developing and expanding these surrogates’ capabilities. This will preserve vital leverage for determining Syria’s political future, and will interpose unmistakable obstacles to Iran’s land bridge. American forces likely would need to bolster their own presence behind the front lines and their train, advise, assist and equip efforts in Syria.

In tandem, the United States should cooperate deeply with Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to interdict Iranian efforts to transfer weapons to Syria and its proxies, as well as build military bases and missile production facilities in Syria. This allied effort should involve integrating missile defense capabilities to counter the rising missile threat from Syria.

These recommendations are designed to rebuild leverage against Iran where the strategic stakes are the highest and where it is most vulnerable to counter-pressure: Syria. Alone, they won’t be sufficient to reverse completely Iran’s ascendance. Without them, however, the defeat of ISIS will prove the triumph of Iran.

Click here to read in Breaking Defense

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Since 2003, JINSA has distributed more than $1,000,000 to support American troops through this program. The funds are given to military men, women, and families in need from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day – and periodically throughout the year when we hear of warriors in need – and 100% of the money raised goes directly to them. JINSA does not take any percentage of the funds raised and donates the staff time to coordinate the appeal.

Once a year, JINSA appeals to friends like you to help brighten the lives of those who have given so much to defend our freedoms and way of life. These individuals have lost limbs, or even worse, their lives. These are things we cannot fix, but we can help ease a difficult situation, and we hope you will help us in this noble mission.

Donations have already allowed JINSA to help hundreds of wounded veterans and their families. Yet, there are many more that still need our assistance. While the money we send to America’s finest heroes will not fully heal their wounds or bring back loved ones, it does make a tremendous difference – from allowing recipients to pay down medical debts, to funding their children’s education, to purchasing Christmas presents or a Thanksgiving turkey, and so much more.

JINSA works directly with the U.S. Special Operations Command Care Coalition – which receives nominations from the commanders of wounded, ill, or injured service members and their families – to whom we distribute the funds.

One recent recipient was a Staff Sergeant in the Green Berets, who tragically became quadriplegic in Afghanistan. We received the following note from his wife:

Dear JINSA,

I am writing on behalf of my family to express our deepest gratitude for your gift. We wanted to not only thank you, but to make you aware of how timely and impactful it was.

My husband was released from the hospital just in time to spend Thanksgiving with me and the children as we continue to settle into our new environment. We had to make the decision to move across the country from my husband’s childhood home so his medical needs and rehabilitative hopes could be best supported. With your gift, we were able to invest in a yearlong family membership to a hands-on science and industry museum with lots of interactive exhibits that my husband can comfortably watch the children engage in. There are very few opportunities we have found that the children truly enjoy that my husband is able to be a part of without the stability of his health since becoming quadriplegic in Afghanistan. Your gift enabled us to splurge on exactly that type of family opportunity.

[…]

However, what I wanted to share with you the most was that your gift was a gift that has already begun to multiply itself. Just after receiving your gift, on New Year’s Eve, the husband of a friend of mine lost his battle with severe [Traumatic Brain Injury] and [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] and took his own life. His wife and three children were devastated. As friends and family rallied around them for the long road to healing from this tragedy, we shared with this widow and these, now fatherless, children the blessing you bestowed upon us.

[…]

With a gratitude beyond words,
Wounded Warrior Wife

I want to take this opportunity to ask you to make a contribution so we can help others who not only need, but truly deserve, our support. I call on you to contribute so that this may be the most successful year in the history of this program!

How to Contribute:

1. 1. Donate online here and mark your gift as being designated towards the Deserving Soldiers Holiday Appeal. Please consider covering the transaction fee; remember, every dollar counts to those in need!

• Send an e-mail to JINSA staff member Leo Nayfeld at Lnayfeld@jinsa.org letting him know you will be contributing.
• Mail a check payable to JINSA Soldiers Appeal Fund to Leo Nayfeld’s attention at:JINSA
  1101 14th Street, NW
  Suite 1030
  Washington, D.C. 20005

• If you wish to contribute with a credit card, please call Leo Nayfeld at 202-667-3900.

Your support makes a real difference in the lives of these individuals.

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It’s time to end the Washington myth that the United States must tread carefully in confronting Qatar over its support for Iran, Hamas and radical Islamic groups in order to avoid losing access to a strategic U.S. air base.

US doesn’t need Qatar air base if Qatar won’t support our fight against terrorism
By General Charles Wald, USAF (ret.) – Fox News

It’s time to end the Washington myth that the United States must tread carefully in confronting Qatar over its support for Iran, Hamas and radical Islamic groups in order to avoid losing access to a strategic U.S. air base.

As someone who helped establish U.S. air operations in Qatar in 2001, I can say two things with great confidence: the U.S. military can leave Qatar just as quickly and painlessly as it arrived; and Qatar needs America far more than America needs Qatar.

Less than 48 hours after the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, I landed in Qatar to establish a new air operations hub at Al-Udeid Air Base, just outside Doha, to support the coming war in Afghanistan. The Qataris had built Al-Udeid in the 1990s as an immaculate, albeit terribly oversized, base for their own air force.

With a few temporary hangars and a steady supply of fuel, we had what we needed to initiate round-the-clock air combat operations in less than a week.

Within 18 months, as the U.S. ramped up for war in Iraq, the Pentagon poured in military construction dollars to relocate its Coalition Air Operations Center from Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia to Al-Udeid and stand up a forward headquarters for U.S. Central Command.

Al-Udeid transformed nearly overnight to become the nerve center of two major wars. From a Defense Department perspective, it wasn’t hard to do and wasn’t particularly expensive – and if we could do it once, we can surely do it again.

Today, as policymakers in the Trump administration and Congress become increasingly alarmed by Qatar’s schizophrenic foreign policy, some have forgotten how we arrived at Al-Udeid. They fear that by pressuring Qatar, we could lose a supposedly indispensable national security asset. But history reminds us that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Al-Udeid is not critical to U.S. national security. The base is a matter of convenience in a region with many other options of equal convenience. The U.S. could expand its footprint at Al-Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates or could even return to Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the Pentagon budget contains $143 million for upgrades to a strategic air base in Jordan.

The U.S. didn’t build Al-Udeid. We merely invested additional infrastructure in an existing Qatari base. That investment does not justify turning a blind eye to a host nation that aligns with Iran, Hamas, Sunni extremists in Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood – especially when alternative bases in the region are available.

Qatar has a long history of providing sanctuary to terrorist leaders, including Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In March 2014, a senior U.S. Treasury Department official called Qatar a “permissive jurisdiction” for illicit financing of terrorist groups in Syria, including ISIS and al-Nusra.

Since 2012, Qatar has hosted senior leaders of Hamas – a designated foreign terrorist organization – including terrorist masterminds responsible for the murder of Americans. Much of the tunnel infrastructure and missile technology that Hamas used in three wars with Israel in the past decade was funded and built with the help of Qatar.

The recent Central Intelligence Agency release of Osama bin Laden’s papers exposed how closely aligned Qatar has been with Iran for years. It’s clear that bin Laden saw Al Qaeda’s two key patrons as Qatar and Iran.

Qatar provided funds to Muslim Brotherhood affiliates whose interests bin Laden shared and also fomented radicalism through Al-Jazeera and Qatari-based and sponsored clerics, such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Iran funded many of the same Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and provided everything from training to logistical support – much as it did for Al Qaeda.

There is far more evidence, especially looking at Qatar’s real foreign policy – Al-Jazeera’s coverage – in proxy fights across the region.

In Bahrain in 2011, the “uprisings” enjoyed fawning coverage from Qatar’s famous news outlet. But Al Jazeera largely ignored the well-established Iranian influence behind those suspicious “protests.”

And consider what happened when the six Arab nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council and Egypt announced their blockade of Qatar this summer. Among the first foreign entities to condemn the action were Iran and the Iranian-funded, supplied and trained Houthi rebels of Yemen.

This is reminiscent of when North Korea was the only country to condemn the 2007 Israeli airstrike in Syria that took out a suspected North Korean-built nuclear facility.

The United States asks our allies to aggressively confront terrorism in all its forms and to deter Iranian expansionism and aggression. How can we continue to ask this of our allies if we turn a blind eye to Qatar?

We are arriving at an historic moment in the Middle East where alliances are shifting, historical conflicts are realigning and the future of the region is unknown. Alliances evolve throughout history and U.S. national security interests should direct this evolution. After all, what good is an alliance with a nation that isn’t actually an ally?

Qatar has a choice to make. It can choose to be a U.S. ally that confronts all terrorists and extremists and joins the U.S. in actually aligning on national security issues against Iran and its proxies – or it can continue a two-faced foreign policy.

Whatever path Qatar chooses, American policymakers need to remember that the U.S. has never been and never will be dependent on a military presence at Al-Udeid Air Base. We need to put Qatar’s rulers on notice that if they don’t shape up, we can easily ship out.

Read in Fox News

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A sobering report on the Trump administration’s nonexistent Syria policy is out from the Iran task force of the Gemunder Center of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). While the administration has been playing games with “decertifying” but not negating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the real fight against Iranian aggression is being lost on the ground:

Without a Syria policy, Trump has no Iran policy
By Jennifer Rubin – The Washington Post

A sobering report on the Trump administration’s nonexistent Syria policy is out from the Iran task force of the Gemunder Center of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). While the administration has been playing games with “decertifying” but not negating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the real fight against Iranian aggression is being lost on the ground:

Most urgently, and consistent with the Administration’s stated intention of pushing back against Iran’s malign behavior throughout the region, the United States must impose real obstacles to Tehran’s pursuit of total victory by the [Bashar al-] Assad regime in Syria. Time is of the essence, as Iranian-backed forces recently have retaken nearly all the country, save lands liberated from Islamic State (IS) by the U.S.-led coalition. These, and any further, strategic gains threaten to entrench Tehran as the arbiter of postwar Syria and consolidate its control of a “land bridge” connecting Iran directly to Lebanon and Hezbollah.

The United States needs a coherent strategy and force presence that looks beyond the impending downfall of IS to deny Iran’s destabilizing objectives in Syria and restore leverage against Tehran. . . . A complete Assad victory facilitated by Russia and Iran would further undermine the credibility of U.S. commitments to the region and consolidate Tehran’s position as the predominant power in the strategic crossroads of the Middle East. Increasingly, the consequences of Iran’s rising influence are evident across the region, from Lebanon, where the prime minister cited Iranian interference as a reason for his recent resignation, to Yemen, where Iranian-supported Houthis launched their most brazen missile attack on Saudi Arabia to date.

The lack of any diplomatic or regional strategic plan is evidence of Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson’s lack of stature and influence within the administration, as well as the ongoing destruction of his department. A complex policy cannot be created without competent officials who are not merely “acting” heads. Unlike every predecessor, Tillerson seems bent on decimating his own department. He has destroyed morale and launched a parade of retirements that further deplete State’s institutional knowledge and influence. Under such circumstances, we may see a successful military victory against the Islamic State – thanks to competent Pentagon planning and execution in the final Obama years and continuing to the present – only to see a massive geopolitical victory, for Iran.

The fault lies with both the Obama and Trump administrations. The Obama team never committed fully to support for non-jihadi rebels. Then, the task force report says, its “failure to uphold its redline on chemical weapons usage by the Assad regime in 2013 – after Iran told American diplomats it would pull out of nascent nuclear talks if the United States tried to enforce it – undercut further the United States’ reliability to uphold regional order.” Trump accelerated the process of destroying U.S. influence in the region by an ill-conceived “truce” agreed upon with Russia that cemented Russian and Iranian control. (“Notably, its cruise missile strike in retaliation for Assad’s chemical weapons use in April was not tied to any statement of policy for the future of Syria.”)

The task force recommends a three-part approach. First, the United States and its partners should “maintain a military presence on the ground [where we reportedly have approximately 2,000 troops] and in the skies of Syria, to provide security for reconstruction, and to prevent both the re-emergence of IS and Assad recapturing the entire country” and should “vigorously defend themselves if attacked.” Second, the United States should help the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) retain and hold those areas liberated from the Islamic State both to prevent Assad and the Islamic State from recapturing these areas. This would help “cement SDF authority” and thereby help shape the postwar political situation. Third, the United States and our regional allies should cooperate to “intercept shipborne weapons transfers from Iran to Syria” and develop “a more concerted policy of cutting off land routes via Iraq and Syria [so as to] constrain Iran’s ability to maintain significant force presence in Syria and resupply its proxies.” The report urges the administration to “work with these same allies to integrate missile defense capabilities against Tehran’s aggressive proliferation drive across the region, most worryingly its continued efforts to transfer advanced missiles to Hezbollah and establish its own production capabilities in Syria and Lebanon.”

It is no longer realistic to obtain complete victory over and immediate ouster of Assad after two administrations’ policy blunders. However, the JINSA task force argues, its suggestions can help “rebuild leverage against Iran where the strategic stakes currently are the highest, and where it is most vulnerable to counterpressure.” Moreover, if we do not undertake such measures, the risk of military confrontation between Israel and Iran’s allies (both Hezbollah and the Syrian regime) intensifies, a fight that could easily envelop the region in a new round of bloody warfare.

Read in The Washington Post

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As the Trump administration winds down the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Iran is gearing up to expand its territorial gains in the region, stoking concern among U.S. allies and partners.

Iran is establishing military bases in recently seized territory in southern Syria with the support of President Bashar al-Assad and has made clear its desire to seize the country’s oil-rich Deir al-Zour province.

Experts: Trump Must Detail a Clear Syria Strategy to Block Iranian Influence Post-ISIS
By Natalie Johnson – The Washington Free Beacon

As the Trump administration winds down the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Iran is gearing up to expand its territorial gains in the region, stoking concern among U.S. allies and partners.

Iran is establishing military bases in recently seized territory in southern Syria with the support of President Bashar al-Assad and has made clear its desire to seize the country’s oil-rich Deir al-Zour province.

A ceasefire deal recently brokered between the United States, Russia, and Jordan to establish a de-escalation zone in the southwestern region bordering Israel and Jordan will do little to constrain Iran’s ambitions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has complained the truce, intended to secure liberated territories from the Assad regime, lacks an adequate enforcement mechanism to keep Iran and Hezbollah from positioning forces in the buffer zone. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a week after the deal’s signing the Kremlin would not force Iran to exit Syria, despite statements to the contrary by the Trump administration.

Iran has been racing against U.S.-backed forces to carve out a land corridor connecting Tehran to the Mediterranean. The route would enable Tehran to hold communication lines and more easily move its forces, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah, and other Shia militias in the region.

Lacking a coherent strategy proposal from President Donald Trump post-ISIS, a coalition of former senior-level U.S. diplomatic and military officials recently released a series of recommendations for the administration to combat Iran’s spread in Syria.

“The United States must impose real obstacles to Tehran’s pursuit of total victory by the Assad regime in Syria,” said the report by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “Any further strategic gains threaten to entrench Tehran as the arbiter of postwar Syria and consolidate its control of a ‘land bridge’ connecting Iran directly to Lebanon and Hezbollah.”

The JINSA task force recommended Trump lay out a decisive strategy in Syria and make clear the United States will maintain troops on the ground and in the air, even after the inevitable fall of ISIS. The administration must make clear the troops will provide security for reconstruction and prevent both the reemergence of the jihadist group and Assad recapturing the entire country.

The Pentagon must also continue to develop the capabilities of those living in areas liberated by U.S.-backed troops to help local forces, primarily the Syrian Democratic Forces, hold strategic territory.

Third, the U.S. must coordinate with regional allies to prevent Iranian weapons proliferation through Syria. The task force recommended Trump do this by escalating maritime monitoring and efforts to interdict shipments from Iran to Syria.

Retired Air Force Gen. Charles Wald, who co-chairs the task force, said the success or failure of Iran in Syria is dependent upon a U.S. strategy.

“We’ve got to show leadership, I don’t care if people say we’re too involved, we don’t have a choice,” Wald to the Washington Free Beacon. “The world is what it is and we’ve got to be involved and we’ve got to lead the solution.”

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said while the lack of a U.S. strategy certainly helped Iran gain power, it’s unlikely the Trump administration will be able to prevent Tehran from expanding its influence in the near-to-medium term.

“Iran has basically created its own foreign legion,” he said. “You’ve had a variety of Shia militias from other countries, including from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bahrain, and elsewhere, come to the Syrian-Iraq theatre to aid in the fighting, not just against ISIS, but also to aid the fight for Assad. That’s something which gives it the ability to project power significantly.”

That’s not to say Trump should abandon Syria entirely. Gartenstein-Ross said the United States needs a clear strategy in the region to succeed in the long run.

Read in The Washington Free Beacon

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While the Trump administration celebrates a new deal meant to freeze the battlefield in southern Syria, the Assad regime and Iran are preparing for the next phase of the long-running war, in which they will attempt to conquer the rest of the country. Whether Iran succeeds depends largely on whether the United States acknowledges and then counters that strategy.

The U.S. must prepare for Iran’s next move in Syria
By Josh Rogin – The Washington Post

While the Trump administration celebrates a new deal meant to freeze the battlefield in southern Syria, the Assad regime and Iran are preparing for the next phase of the long-running war, in which they will attempt to conquer the rest of the country. Whether Iran succeeds depends largely on whether the United States acknowledges and then counters that strategy.

Tehran is pouring thousands of fighters into newly acquired territories and building military bases. Although U.S.-supported forces hold territories east of the Euphrates River in Syria’s southeast, as well as along the borders of Israel and Jordan in the southwest, Iran has stated its intention to help Bashar al-Assad retake all of Syria.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani has been recently spotted in the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zour, showing how high a priority it is for Iran to take the oil-rich land nearby. Soleimani has also been spotted near the town of Abu Kamal, which sits just across the border from the Iraqi city of Qaim and is the last piece of the land bridge Iran seeks to establish from Tehran to Beirut.

The agreement President Trump struck with Vladimir Putin in Asia was sold as a way to ensure that the liberated areas of Syria stay out of Assad’s control and to provide for the exit of foreign fighters. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow has no intention of pushing Iran to remove its troops from Syria.

So what can be done? A task force of senior former U.S. diplomatic and military officials has come up with suggestions for how Trump could prevent Iran from taking over what’s left of liberated Syria and fulfill his own promise to contain Iranian influence in the region.

“Most urgently … the United States must impose real obstacles to Tehran’s pursuit of total victory by the Assad regime in Syria,” the report by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America states. “Time is of the essence.”

First, the United States needs to declare a clear Syria policy that removes suspicions that the United States is going to pull up stakes now that the Islamic State caliphate has fallen. The policy should make clear that a U.S. military presence will remain on the ground and in the air, to ensure that the Islamic State doesn’t reemerge and Assad doesn’t retake the entire country, and to provide security for reconstruction.

Second, the Trump administration must increase its assistance to Sunni communities lucky enough to live outside Assad’s rule and help U.S.-supported local groups hold valuable territory in Syria’s southeast. This territory can provide local communities economic benefits now and political leverage down the line.

Third, the United States should work with regional allies to stop Iran from moving weapons and troops into Syria. That would require interdicting shipments by sea and ensuring that U.S.-supported forces control key border towns in Syria and Iraq. Such moves could check Iranian aggression without triggering armed conflict with Tehran.

“We need to cut off Iran’s ability to build a crescent of influence,” said the task force co-chair, retired Air Force General Charles Wald. “We need to continue to build our coalition with countries of like mind.”

Trump is right when he points out that he was dealt a terrible hand in Syria. The Obama administration policy of halfhearted support for the Syrian rebels and wishful diplomacy backed by no leverage led to the situation on the ground today. But Trump must not repeat Barack Obama’s mistakes.

“We have all sorts of cards to play here if we have the wit and wisdom to play them,” said former ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman, the other co-chair.

There is no appetite in the United States for a prolonged military mission in Syria, but the lessons of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 are fresh in the minds of military leaders. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis pledged last week that U.S. forces would remain to prevent the emergence of “ISIS 2.0” and until the political process gets off the ground, but he stopped short of saying America would keep Iran’s aggression at bay.

The U.S. national security interest is clear. Long-term Iranian control in Syrian areas liberated from the regime and the Islamic State would cause further instability, fuel extremism and prolong the crisis.

“The United States Coalition with its partner forces on the ground have been the key to defeating ISIS, but liberating Syrians from ISIS into the hands of Iran will only perpetuate radicalization in the country,” said Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force.

We are constantly told there is no military solution to the Syrian crisis, which is true. What’s also true is that no diplomatic solution is possible while Iran and Assad are still pursuing military victory and getting away with it.

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JINSA’s Gemunder Center Iran Task Force
Co-Chairs Ambassador Eric Edelman and General Charles Wald, USAF (ret.)

Consistent with the Trump Administration’s stated intention of pushing back against Iran’s increasingly malign behavior throughout the Middle East, American policymakers urgently need to rebuild credibility and positions of strength by contesting Iran’s rising influence across the region. Most urgently, the United States must impose real obstacles to Tehran’s pursuit of total victory by the Assad regime in Syria. Time is of the essence, as Iranian-backed forces recently have retaken nearly all the country, save lands liberated from Islamic State (IS) by the U.S.-led coalition. These, and any further, strategic gains threaten to entrench Tehran as the arbiter of postwar Syria and consolidate its control of a “land bridge” connecting Iran directly to Lebanon and Hezbollah.

This requires a coherent U.S. strategy and forces presence that looks beyond the impending downfall of ISIS to deny Iran’s destabilizing objectives in Syria and restore leverage against Tehran that was damaged by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program. Despite recent battlefield successes, Iran has overextended itself in Syria. In reconquering the country for Assad, it has become dependent on Russian airpower to achieve even tactical gains. Tehran also contrasts its support for Assad with apparent U.S. abandonment of its regional allies in recent years, in the process staking itself to Assad remaining in power and reconquering all remaining Syrian territory.

To avoid this outcome, which would upend regional politics and pose unacceptable threats to key U.S. allies like Israel and Jordan, the United States must adopt a clear declaratory policy emphasizing America will maintain a military presence in Syria to provide security for reconstruction and prevent both the re-emergence of ISIS and Assad recapturing the entire country. The United States and its must also make clear it vigorously will defend itself and its allies on the ground if attacked.

The United States should also continue developing its Syrian surrogates’ capabilities and assist them in holding strategic territory liberated from ISIS, and work with regional allies against Iranian weapons proliferation in Syria, including ballistic missiles and other strategic capabilities.

Download the full report

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