American troops have been exchanging fire
with alleged Iran-backed militas all week.
The timing is curious, and dangerous.
By Daniel Larison
August 29, 2022:
Information Clearing House
-- U.S. forces in
Syria have been carrying out strikes against
“Iran-backed” militias this week in response
to a recent
drone attack on the American base at
Tanf and rocket attacks at two other bases
in northeastern Syria.
The first U.S. strike this week came in
response to an August 15 attack, and that
was quickly followed up by
another hit. These airstrikes reportedly
targeted bunkers used by the militias
and killed between six and 10 people.
A later militia strike at bases in Deir
al-Zour resulted in three U.S. troops
suffering minor injuries, and the U.S.
responded to that with Apache attack
helicopters on Wednesday,
reportedly resulting in casualties. It
remains to be seen if the clashes will
continue, but there has already been
considerable escalation in just a few days.
Get Our Free Newsletter
Keeping American troops in Syria has been
a serious mistake that multiple
administrations have failed to correct. The
longer that U.S. forces illegally remain in
that country, the more likely it is that one
of these clashes will result in casualties
that could have been avoided. The Biden
administration may be reluctant to withdraw
troops from another country after what
happened during the Afghanistan withdrawal,
but their continued presence in Syria makes
them targets and does nothing to make the
United States more secure.
Bottom line: The risk to U.S. forces in
Syria is increasing, and there are no
discernible benefits from keeping them where
they are that justify taking that risk.
Contrary to what Biden has said, the U.S. is
still at war in Syria, but it shouldn’t
be and it doesn’t have to be.
What caused this latest eruption of
fighting? The original August 15 attack on
Tanf was likely
retaliation for Israeli airstrikes in
other parts of Syria just hours before. This
is not the first time that U.S. troops have
come under fire from militias as a response
to Israeli strikes in Syria. Something
similar happened in October 2021, when the
base at Tanf was
targeted in a drone attack in response
to Israeli strikes.
As The Wall Street Journal reported in
June of this year, Israel
coordinates with the U.S. on many of its
airstrikes in Syria, and these attacks take
place with our government’s knowledge and
approval. U.S. troops are being put at risk
at least in part because the Israeli
government is waging its so-called shadow
war against Iranian targets in Syria.
As we know, American troops in Iraq and
Syria have been coming under fire many times
in tit-for-tat exchanges for several years
dating back to the Trump administration.
These are not isolated incidents, but form a
pattern of hostilities with several armed
groups in both countries. Fortunately, there
have been no American fatalities as a
result, but these troops should not continue
to be put in harm’s way when no vital U.S.
interests are at stake.
Meanwhile, the repeated clashes in Syria
have ratcheted up tensions with Iran and
threaten to undermine the ongoing nuclear
negotiations with Iran. The Biden
administration cannot allow this latest
episode interfere with the successful
conclusion of the nuclear negotiations to
restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA). On the contrary, the
back-and-forth attacks in Syria serve as a
reminder of how important it is for the U.S.
to salvage the nuclear deal.
When the JCPOA was fully in force before
the U.S. withdrawal, tensions with Iran were
relatively low and U.S. forces in Iraq and
Syria were not being attacked on a regular
basis. The best way to return to that
earlier state of affairs would be to restore
the nuclear deal and end the economic war
against Iran that followed the U.S. breach
of the agreement. One of the main benefits
of the JCPOA for the U.S. was that it made
direct conflict with Iran less likely, and
it is because it removed one of their main
pretexts for war that Iran hawks have
opposed the agreement so bitterly since its
inception.
The Israeli government has made no secret
of its hostility to the nuclear deal, and it
has been consistently lobbying against it
since before it was first concluded. It is
possible that the timing of the recent U.S.
strikes on militias in Syria was meant to
“reassure” Israeli officials
visiting Washington this week that
reviving the nuclear deal will not prevent
the Biden administration from using force
against Iranian proxies. If the Biden
administration thinks that its willingness
to bomb targets in Syria will earn it a
reprieve from the Israeli government’s
resistance to the agreement, they are sure
to be disappointed.
Even though many Israeli security
officials believe reviving the nuclear deal
is squarely in the best interests of Israel
and some former officials have said so
publicly, the political leadership will not
budge from its die-hard rejectionism. There
is no point in making efforts to “reassure”
a government that is dead-set on refusing to
be reassured.
This latest military action in Syria has
implications for the debate over war powers
and presidential authority as well. Recent
U.S. strikes in Syria are legally
questionable at best. The Biden
administration has
cited the president’s Article II
authority and justified the actions as
self-defense, but, like earlier strikes that
Biden has approved, the strikes have been
carried out as
reprisals many days after the original
attack.
The administration has not claimed that
the strikes are covered by either the 2001
or 2002 AUMFs. Regardless, the U.S. military
presence in Syria is
unauthorized by Congress and has no
international mandate. The ostensible
purpose of the deployments in Syria — to
combat the remnants of the Islamic State —
is difficult to take seriously when ISIS is
a shadow of its former self and the main
threat to U.S. personnel at these bases has
been coming from Iranian-backed and
pro-Syrian government forces.
Even if one accepted the official line
that U.S. troops are simply there to fight
ISIS, Congress never authorized that
mission, either. If there is a military
mission that cries out for a war powers
challenge from Congress, it is the one in
Syria.
It would be wise for the Biden
administration to remove all U.S. forces
from Syria as soon as possible. Ideally,
Biden should do the same for U.S. troops
still in Iraq. Keeping troops in Syria makes
no sense in terms of protecting the United
States or its treaty allies, and it only
puts them at risk for an ill-defined mission
that Congress never approved.
Withdrawing from Syria would make good
on the president’s commitment to end our
country’s endless wars, and it would
eliminate the chance of new incidents that
could spiral into a larger conflict. If U.S.
forces stay in Syria, it is probably just a
matter of time before American troops are
seriously injured or killed, and there is no
good reason to take that chance.
Daniel Larison has a Ph.D. in History
from the University of Chicago. Follow
him on Twitter @DanielLarison and at his
blog, Eunomia,
here.