In his October 10 article, “An Exit Strategy for Syria,” Christopher Alkhoury argues that the United States has achieved its main objective in Syria—eliminating an Islamic State (also known as ISIS) safe haven—and should therefore focus on negotiating a swift withdrawal from the country that both preserves U.S. access to Syrian airspace and protects the Syrian partners who fought alongside U.S. troops. At first blush, this argument seems sensible—after all, who wants another endless war? But Alkhoury quickly rebuts his own argument by citing the destabilizing effects of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, an event that sent shock waves through the international system even though the U.S.-led campaign was failing and Washington had few strategic interests there. In Syria, by contrast, the U.S. approach is succeeding, if modestly, and U.S. strategic interests abound. An Afghanistan-style withdrawal from Syria would generate an even more destabilizing shock, one that would make the chaos that accompanied U.S. President Donald Trump’s brief call to pull U.S. troops out of Syria in 2019 look mild by comparison.
But the problems with Alkhoury’s proposal run far deeper than the Afghan analogy. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has not won the war in Syria, as Alkhoury asserted. Nor did the Trump administration freeze Syrian humanitarian funding, as Alkhoury’s piece claimed when it was originally published (it halted and then partially reinstituted a smaller stabilization program). More important than these errors of judgment and fact is the reality that withdrawing from Syria would endanger regional interests of the United States and of the international community. That is why the Trump administration rejected an approach similar to Alkhoury’s in 2018, a decision that subsequent events have vindicated.
