Why a US-Russian conflict over Syria is unlikely

Trump has used military force against Bashar Al-Assad after the alleged chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun. And this is the basis from which to expect the US will not go to war with Russia over Syria.

When Trump struck the Syrian Government before - the US' first use of military on the Syrian Government in the entirety of the civil war - Russia responded by suspending the cooperation line between the US and Russia, which had been established months after Russia entered the conflict. The US, in turn, decided to send drones to bomb ISIS in north-western Syria, to avoid planes being shot down by Russian military. Eventually the crisis was resolved and the cooperation line restored.

More recently, the US has struck Iranian allies in Syria which encroached too close to US-backed forces, both the Free Syrian Army in the south of the country and the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces. The US also shot down a Syrian aircraft, the first time the US shot down one such as this in the entirety of the Syrian Civil War.

Russia has, once again, suspended the cooperation line between the US and Russia. Even more drastic has been the Russian threat to shoot down any US aircraft found west of the Euphrates river - the city of Raqqa, thankfully, sits to the east of the Euphrates.

This recent rise in tensions has been compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the closest time then USSR and the United States reached a state of nuclear war. And experts fear that a large conflict may result from this rising of tensions in Syria.

But it is unlikely that the US will allow itself to be drawn into a conflict against Russia in Syria. The reason should be obvious: the best time to strike Russian and Syrian military forces was after Khan Sheikhoun, when Trump had the element of surprise.

Because Trump only struck the air base and not the Damascus palace, it is clear that Trump policy is not directed against regime change in Syria. It should be more obvious given Trump's statement after striking the Syrian airbase: "we are not going into Syria."

To be fair, the US will be directing future policy against Iranian influence in the Middle-East - but Syria is not the country at the forefront of Trump policy against Iran. The countries to be targeted by the Trump Administration to decrease Iranian influence include Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, and perhaps the Kurds in Syria as well.

But unlikely - very unlikely - that Trump will use military force against Russia and Syria to oust Bashar Al-Assad.

Why Afghanistan is key to containing Iran

For more information:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1339411
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-afghanistan-mineral-reserves-235962


In Trump's search for containing Iran, one of the most viable options is Afghanistan.

In the campaign Trump talked about how the Iraq War knocked out a "block" in the Middle-East spheres of influence. A country with traditionally Sunni and secular leadership, Saddam Hussein under the Ba'ath party, was knocked out and replaced with Iranian dominance stretching from Tehran to Beirut unabated.

Now the areas in which Iranian dominance can be countered are scarcer. In Syria and Yemen, the two countries in which Saudi Arabia is waging proxy wars, the conflicts are unlikely to produce the results necessary to beat back Iran. Both sides chosen by Saudi Arabia - the Syrian rebels and the Hadi government - are exceedingly unpopular with the people of each nation and these proxy wars are, subsequently, doomed to fail.

As for Iraq, well, nobody is interested in regime change there to counter Iranian influence.

Afghanistan, however, has a small Shi'ite population and has enormous economic potential. Instead of engaging in proxy wars in Yemen or Syria, which destabilize the region, a US focus to strengthen Afghanistan against Iran would mean that a new "block" would emerge in Iraq's place.

The Trump Administration has even suggested that they will do such a thing. Jim Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, has suggested that the Afghan policy will be comprehensive and will include a regional approach, focusing on India, Pakistan, the whole South Asian area and "especially Iran." This suggests that the Afghan policy will include making sure that the government in Kabul has no reproachment with Iran and acts as a bulwark against growing Iranian influence.

However, such stabilizaton of Afghanistan would be insufficient to completely counter Iranian dominance in the Middle-East, but it would be a key starting point. Other options include making Iraq more neutral in the Sunni-Shi'ite proxy wars, increased relations between an anti-Iranian Afghanistan and Iraq and between Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

In any case, an anti-Iran Afghanistan would give many in Washington a renewed desire to pursue stability in Afghanistan. It would certainly go ways to containing Iranian influence and stop their meddling.