The argument often proffered to justify President Trump’s precipitous decision to withdraw U.S. forces from northeast Syria is that “America must end its ‘forever wars.’” Costly wars in Syria, Afghanistan and even Iraq have made the loss of American lives an almost daily occurrence, drained the American treasury, sapped the vigor of the world’s most powerful and dynamic nation, and divided the nation into multiple pro and con camps. In the view of the American public, America has become bogged down in wars with no apparent end.
The explanation for this historic and, for Americans, deeply frustrating phenomenon is simple. The solution is more complex, if one even exists. In places like northeastern Syria or Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East and South Asia, the U.S. and its allies are fighting against a foe not encountered in recent history, if ever. We face a “forever enemy.” Al Qaida, the Islamic State and groups of similar ilk have all sworn eternal enmity against the West and all things Western: Western political systems, Western values and the institutions on which they are founded, Western religions (and even more tolerant versions of their own), Western literature and symbols, Western economic systems and more. The U.S. stands at the apex of all that is Western.
Their ambition is as grandiose as it is preposterous, to utterly defeat and eradicate the West in a God-willed epic and apocalyptic conflict. Moreover, to distinguish themselves from almost any other adversary in warfare, they represent a movement, not a state, and one with global ambitions.
In their own literature, they sometimes stipulate that in their quest there may be temporary truces or ceasefires. However, for the most part, they assert that there can be no surrender, no long-term armistice, and no treaties of peace. In the words of their patriarch Osama Bin Laden in an audiotape aired on Al Jazeera in 2003, “There is no dialogue except with weapons.” The other side, the West and the values and systems it espouses, must be vanquished… forever.
There is actually a modern parallel to the dilemma the United States faces. It is Israel and its decades-long struggle to keep at bay its sworn enemies, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and others, who historically have asserted their intention to eradicate the Jewish state. They are Israel’s forever enemy.
Israel long ago recognized that defeating such movements would deplete the small nation’s limited resources and doubtlessly inflict enormous and unacceptably high casualties on itself. Instead, it has settled into a seeming forever war against them, confronting them when necessary, tolerating them when alternatives might prove too costly but remaining vigilant in and committed to ensuring they don’t threaten the state and its citizens. It is a war whose costs in lives and financial resources Israel’s leadership and citizens accept, however grudgingly. One alternative that can never be acceptable, however, is allowing these groups to even approach their ambitious aims, elimination of the State of Israel.
The U.S. and its allies do not face anything close to the existential stakes that Israel does. But the parallels between the ultimate objectives of the groups Israel faces and those that the U.S. and the West confront are similar. And as have the Israeli people, Americans must come to accept that the strategy for now is to accept long-term, seemingly endless confrontation in order to ultimately wear down and deplete the enemy. For the U.S., as with Israel, there is unlikely to be a grand dénouement or vanquishing of enemies, which both nations in fact share. No Yorktown, no Appomattox, no Treaty of Versailles, no surrender ceremony on the deck of the USS Missouri. Such definitive finales to wars are a thing of the past.
In Syria, Mr. Trump’s announcement to withdraw U.S. forces only lends credence to Bin Laden’s claim, quoted in Lawrence Wright’s 2006 book, The Looming Tower. “Look at Vietnam, look at Lebanon. Whenever soldiers start coming home in body bags, Americans panic and retreat. Such a country needs only to be confronted with two or three sharp blows, then it will flee in panic, as it always has.” In the view of Bin Laden and the thousands of his minions, ultimate victory is theirs because America doesn’t have the grit or stamina to fight a protracted war, especially one far from home.
Rather than remove America from its Syrian forever enemy, Trump’s order to “flee” will reinvigorate ISIS to fight on in a war it sees it can win against the U.S. and its allies. Al Qaida saw the Americans behave similarly in Afghanistan in 2003 (when the U.S. thought it could turn its attention to Iraq) and then in Iraq in 2011, when U.S. forces were withdrawn. Al Qaida reemerged in Syria and then morphed into the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, even declaring its caliphate.
However, in Syria, as in Afghanistan, the U.S. military belatedly has learned that the U.S. can fight a seemingly forever war with modest cost and still maintain the necessary pressure to grind the enemy down. In Syria, the U.S. with its allies and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have established a zone of stability in northeast Syria, destroying the caliphate, though still far from eliminating ISIS forces completely. It has done so with a U.S. force of less than a 1,000, incurring fewer than ten casualties and expenditures on the order of $15-20 billion.
In Afghanistan, U.S. troop levels have been reduced from a high of over 100,000 in 2009-2010 to about 14,000 today (as well as some 17,000 from allied forces). Total American fatalities number about 2,400 but the number has fallen from nearly 500 in 2010 to approximately 20 this year. Costs have similarly declined, from over $100 billion in 2010 to about half that today.
In both countries, the vast bulk of fighting is now done by local forces, backed by U.S. and allied advice, training and assistance. The result in these theaters of combat may not be desirable when viewed by the U.S. public. No epic battles, no mortal defeat of the enemy, no big advances, no thorough thrashing of the enemy as the U.S. did against Saddam’s army in the First Gulf War. Instead, it’s the steady grind of beating back the enemy, depleting its ranks and resources, and preventing it from signature victories so desperately needed.
But the continued U.S. presence has been able to make progress, bring a semblance of stability (though not everywhere) and keep its forever enemies on the defensive. And in both areas, the U.S. presence has given it undisputed command of the air and an all-important role in ultimately ending these conflicts on terms acceptable to the populations of these countries and to the interests of the U.S. and its allies.
In Syria, Mr. Trump’s decision to abandon the field sacrifices U.S. air superiority in that region of Syria, exposing its Kurdish allies to Syrian, Russian and Turkish air and artillery attacks, and surrenders America’s modest but vital role in eventually ending the conflict. Moreover, the U.S. withdrawal has breathed new life and sparked renewed hope into the Islamic State.
It may be axiomatic that all wars eventually end. In truth, no war has gone on forever. But in conflicts like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. and its allies face enemies who accept no outcome but defeat by one side or the other. Even when suffering a major setback, the enemy never disappears but rather retreats into densely populated areas and remote mountains or deserts, awaiting the opportunity to renew their endless campaign.
Maintaining U.S. commitments to these nations ensure that neither the U.S. nor its allies may be defeated. Demonstrating the impossibility of victory – repeatedly, relentlessly and incessantly hammered into a sworn forever enemy – may be the only strategy to end a forever war.
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