Michal Kranz | Vox

Why Trump’s withdrawal from Syria is bad news for Israel — and good news for Iran

2019-01-03T10:22:53-05:00

President Trump greeted members of the US military during a stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, on December 27, 2018, during a lightning visit to Iraq to defend the withdrawal from Syria and to declare an end to America’s role as the global “policeman.” | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

BEIRUT — When President Donald Trump suddenly declared that ISIS was defeated and decided to end America’s mission in Syria last month, he stunned members of his staff, key US allies, and military partners on the ground. But the president took the time to alert his closest ally in the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in advance.

The reason is pretty clear. Israel has staunchly opposed an American withdrawal from Syria’s eight-year conflict out of fear that Iran and its proxies would move in to fill the vacuum. And Trump’s decision to withdraw roughly 2,000 US troops over the next four months comes at a particularly bad time for Israel, which is facing growing pressure from Iran in Syria and from Iran’s proxy, the Shia militant group Hezbollah, in Lebanon.

Netanyahu didn’t openly criticize the president’s decision, but members of his staff were quick to voice their misgivings — Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon called Trump’s decision “not good for us,” and Education Minister Naftali Bennett told Reuters that he’s concerned about Iran’s growing reach in Syria. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak also weighed in, tweeting that “Trump is deserting Syria and the Iranians are celebrating.”

But a few days after Trump’s decision, Netanyahu was talking tough, saying that Israel would “intensify” its fight against Iran in Syria. He added that it would do so with American “support and backing” — though it’s unclear what this would actually look like.

Regardless of what happens next, Trump’s decision to withdraw troops will embolden Iran. And if Israel escalates its campaign against both Iran and Hezbollah, war becomes much more likely.

In a region that’s already dealing with its fair share of unrest, that could be a very dangerous prospect indeed.

Israel and Iran have been engaged in a proxy war for decades. The Syria conflict made things worse.

Tensions between Israel and Iran are nothing new — the two countries have been enemies since the 1980s and early 1990s, when Iran began challenging Israel largely because of its role as the strongest American ally in the Middle East.

When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 during the Lebanese Civil War to wipe out Palestinian militias that were active in the country, Hezbollah, a militant Shia group, emerged with the stated purpose of expelling Israeli and Western troops. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was instrumental to the group’s rise, and provided weapons, funding, and guidance.

Hezbollah soon branded itself as the leader of Lebanon’s resistance to Israel, and when the Israeli army finally withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah’s militants flooded in to take their place. Tensions between Hezbollah and Israel resulted in a full-on war in July 2006 that left 158 Israelis and nearly 1,200 Lebanese, most of whom were civilians, dead.

Fast-forward to the present and Hezbollah has expanded its operations into Syria, Lebanon’s neighbor, where a civil war has been raging since 2011. Hezbollah, together with Iranian forces, has been helping the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stay afloat — and the two have opened up a new arena in which to threaten Israel in the process.

Israel, for its part, has made its opposition to a long-term Iranian presence in Syria clear by conducting hundreds of airstrikes against Iranian and Hezbollah targets over the past year and a half. The most recent of these took place this week, when Israel apparently killed several high-ranking Hezbollah officers in Syria.

Though US troops were in Syria for the stated purpose of wiping out ISIS, one of Trump’s major foreign policy goals is to counter Iran’s influence in the region. To this effect, the Americans had helped Israel push back on Iran. An American base called al-Tanf had acted as a key bulwark, blocking Iran from shipping weapons from Iraq across Syria into Hezbollah’s hands in Lebanon.

But now, with the news that US troops are leaving, this base will be closing. And the withdrawal of American forces could also allow Iran and its proxies, which include militias from Iraq, to sweep in and fill the void — much to the chagrin of the Israelis.

Israel also has more to worry about than Iran’s presence in Syria. Hezbollah is entrenched across the border in Lebanon — and things on this front seem to be heating up.

“[A] challenge from the Israeli perspective is the cost for the Israelis to operate against Iran inside of Syria and Iran inside of Lebanon is growing by the month,” Nicholas Heras, a senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington, DC, told me. “It’s becoming more and more difficult for the Israelis to take this all up on their own.”

The chances of another war between Hezbollah and Israel are increasing

Tensions along the border between Israel and Lebanon rose to their highest point in years recently when Israel launched Operation Northern Shield, a military effort to destroy a series of cross-border tunnels that Hezbollah had built since its last war with Israel in 2006.

No real conflict has broken out so far, but verbal disputes erupted between the Israeli and Lebanese armies last month, and Israeli soldiers fired shots. In addition, Netanyahu called Hezbollah’s tunnels an “act of war,” significantly escalating Israel’s rhetoric.

Although the Lebanese army is distinct from Hezbollah’s militia fighters, Israel has made it clear that it would not differentiate between them in a future war, claiming that the two are inextricably linked. This stance, combined with the fact that Israeli, Lebanese, and Hezbollah forces are all operating in close quarters along a border that has been disputed for years, makes the situation somewhat of a powder keg.

Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based researcher and author who has been reporting on Hezbollah for more than 20 years, told me that local residents observing Israel’s demolition efforts along the border could increase the risk of accidental escalation.

“You’ve got a lot of Lebanese civilians at the moment who are going down and watching the Israelis work,” he said. “If one of them decides to take a pot shot at an Israeli soldier, or even just [throw] stones, if the Israelis shoot back, kill two, three people, then the pressure is on Hezbollah to maintain their deterrence posture by doing something about that.”

There’s real reason to worry if fighting does begin. Recent estimates show that Hezbollah has around 130,000 missiles in its possession. Over the past year, Iran moved its weapons production facilities from Syria to Lebanon and is reportedly helping the militant group create precision-guided missiles as well.

Israel, for its part, has one of the most technologically advanced armies in the world.

While bombing Iranian targets in the free-for-all Syrian war has had few consequences, military action in Lebanon would be much more complicated — and more deadly. If such a conflict did break out, Blanford said, it would “make the 2006 war look like a walk in the park.”

A conflict is certainly not off the table. This past month, Netanyahu threatened to carry out strikes against Lebanon if Hezbollah does not stop building precision-guided missiles. And Hanin Ghaddar, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told me Iran has become more confident in confronting Israel because the withdrawal of the Americans will allow it to become entrenched throughout Syria — and secure a coveted corridor between Iraq and Lebanon. “It definitely makes the chances for an escalation higher,” she said.

She added that the cost of a war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon means that both sides remain wary of jumping headfirst into a new conflict. But as Hezbollah’s capabilities grow stronger, Israeli leaders may find themselves forced to respond.

In light of the rising stakes for both Lebanon and Israel, a senior Lebanese official condemned Iran’s role in strengthening Hezbollah in recent years, and called on the international community to step in before it’s too late. “I think the major powers should get in this crisis before it starts a war,” the official told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “It’s something that can be avoided if the international community would really try to solve it.”

Trump’s withdrawal from Syria puts Israel at a disadvantage

Yet in spite of Netanyahu’s fiery language, Ghaddar told me, recently Israel has been pursuing a more diplomatic approach behind the scenes to deal with Hezbollah. One way Israel has done this is by trying to mobilize support from the UN, the US, and the rest of the international community for its anti-tunnel operation.

But despite some limited successes, this outreach has mostly failed. The United Nations Security Council rejected Israeli proposals to explicitly condemn Hezbollah for border violations, and the US refused an Israeli request to sanction the Lebanese state for its inaction on the tunnels.

And now, with his decision to pull US troops out of Syria, Trump has dealt Israel another blow. It seems clear to many that Trump’s America First policy, in which American allies must fight their own battles, has come home to roost in Israel. “This is a big deal,” Ghaddar said. “Whatever Israel finds itself in confrontation with, whether it’s Hezbollah in Lebanon or Iran in the region, no military support is going to happen from the US.”

However, Heras, the fellow with the Center for a New American Security, said that protecting Israel is still high up on Trump’s overseas agenda, which for months has been defined by its “maximum pressure” policy against Iran.

And an official at the State Department, whose leadership was reportedly opposed to the Syria withdrawal, confirmed that the pressure campaign against Iran was still on. “We will continue to use other tools of national power, particularly economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure, as leverage to press for the withdrawal of Iranian-backed forces in Syria,” the official told me.

The Trump administration has already been pursuing sanctions against Iran and Hezbollah as a policy, and more are likely on the way. But Iran has endured American sanctions for decades, and their efficacy in reducing its regional aggression is definitely not certain. Heras claims this makes Iran’s network more resilient and more dangerous than Israel often realizes.

“At the end of the day, Iran through its Hezbollah network and its infrastructure of missiles has Israel over a barrel, because Iran is used to dealing in times of austerity,” he said. “The Israelis have forgotten that.”

In addition to sanctions, Ghaddar and Heras both said that American covert actions against Iran are also likely, and that Israel will continue to challenge Iran and Hezbollah through diplomatic channels for now.

Heras also speculated that in order to make the troop withdrawal more appealing, Trump may have given Israel the go-ahead to conduct unlimited strikes on western Syria, the part of the country where Iran and Hezbollah are most entrenched.

But regardless of whether this is the case, with adversaries present on two borders and no US presence in Syria, Israel is more exposed than it’s been in years. Many seem to think that a confrontation between Israel, Iran, and its proxies is not a matter of if, but when. And Trump’s decision just gave Iran an advantage.

Why Eastern European countries aren’t attacking Trump over NATO

2018-07-26T11:35:38-04:00

US President Donald Trump (3R) speaks with Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May (2R) next to Poland’s President Andrzej Duda (L), Slovenia’s Prime Minister Miro Cerar (2L) and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (R) as NATO leaders gather for a group photo at NATO headquarters in Brussels on July 11, 2018. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

WARSAW, Poland — As the US and Western Europe reeled from President Donald Trump’s rhetoric in Helsinki and Brussels, Eastern European leaders who have long feared an emboldened Russia refrained from criticizing his performance.

Over six days in Brussels and Helsinki, Trump called on America’s NATO allies to increase their defense spending “immediately,” questioned the usefulness of the alliance itself, and sided with Putin over his own intelligence services on Russian interference in the 2016 US election.

For some countries in Western Europe that belong to NATO, which was created during the Cold War to counter Russian expansion, Trump’s erratic behavior was a step too far. But on the other side of the continent, Eastern Europeans who have historically felt the most threatened by Russia were singing an entirely different tune. From Estonia to Romania, current and former leaders said they saw nothing to fear from Trump’s tough talk on NATO.

“Trump said things plainly, as is normal between friends and allies,” said President Klaus Iohannis of Romania, which has tense relations with Moscow. Leaders in Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere in the region echoed his sentiments, and approved of Trump’s calls for increased military funding.

More spending on NATO’s defenses has been a goal for many Eastern Europeans since Russia’s invasion of the Republic of Georgia in 2008 and the beginning of Russia’s “shadow war” in Ukraine in 2014, so their support of Trump’s demands in Brussels is nothing new. But more surprising were leaders’ reactions to Trump’s summit with Putin in Helsinki, where Trump failed to challenge Putin on a litany of international offenses, such as his annexation of Crimea in 2014.

“It’s good for Poland that two big countries talk with each other and that they even present publicly their understanding and friendship,” Polish Ambassador to the US Piotr Wilczek told Boston’s WBUR. Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, made similar comments at a meeting he had with Putin the day before Trump’s summit in Helsinki.

For countries that were under Moscow’s sway for decades after World War II and continue to face pressure from their huge eastern neighbor, putting a rubber stamp on Trump’s coziness to Putin might seem paradoxical, even shocking.

What’s going on here?

Eastern Europe knows it needs to stay in Trump’s good graces — whatever the cost

Since the end of the Cold War in Europe in 1989, most countries in Eastern Europe have joined NATO, and in 2008 the alliance promised two others, Ukraine and Georgia, that they would also be able to join one day.

As a result of their membership, Eastern European countries began to rely more and more on American forces to guarantee their security, and soon after their ascension, the US proposed plans for a missile defense system to be implemented in Poland and Romania.

Although NATO has argued that the defense system will be a deterrent against Iran, Russia has always bristled at the possibility of Western missiles along its eastern frontier and considers any eastward NATO expansions as acts of aggression.

Eastern European countries’ worst fears about Russia were finally realized when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, bringing its prospects of NATO ascension to a grinding halt. But the Russians weren’t finished yet — in 2014, following the Ukrainian revolution in which pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown, Putin invaded and annexed Crimea and began to foment a proxy war in Eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian rebels and government forces.

Today, thousands of US soldiers are stationed in Eastern European NATO countries, and the American presence there may only increase. With Russian rockets now deployed to Kaliningrad, a tiny piece of land belonging to Russia that borders Poland and Lithuania, Eastern Europe is prepared to do anything to avoid Ukraine and Georgia’s fate.

Eastern Europe and especially Poland, Latvia, and Estonia see America as “the ultimate guarantor of their security,” John Herbst, the former US ambassador to Ukraine and current director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, told me.

“They are reluctant to criticize the United States even if they are not happy with what President Trump said,” Herbst said. “They want to stay on Washington’s good side.”

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters after the Helsinki summit that despite lots of media hype before the meeting, he saw none of the worst-case scenarios that would have emboldened Russia further actually materialize, like concessions on Crimea or the conflict in Ukraine.

Poland especially has reasons for keeping Trump happy. It recently signed the largest military deal in its history with the US in March, and has hoped for years to convince the US to open a permanent military base there — it has even offered to pay $2 billion for it.

But many political figures in Eastern Europe recognize that appeasing Trump can only go so far, and say they aren’t happy with this fragile status quo.

Eastern European leaders are increasingly worried the US won’t come to their defense if attacked

Herbst claimed that behind the scenes, leaders in the region certainly were not pleased with the Trump-Putin summit.

After Trump’s comments to Tucker Carlson on Fox News in which he questioned why the US should step up to defend new NATO member Montenegro, former Polish Foreign Affairs Minister Radosław Sikorski penned an op-ed in the Washington Post questioning whether Poland’s longtime friendship with the US would guarantee that Trump would come to Poland’s aid if the hour of need truly came.

He expanded on his critiques in an interview on Polish TV the next day:

Judging by the fact that he does not see the need for the defense of Montenegro, then I think that our authorities have to very seriously ask themselves the question: How does Poland really differ from Montenegro in the perception of the president of the United States?”

Sikorski is not alone in his fears. In an official statement released on Thursday, the government of Montenegro stated that its friendship with the US was “strong and permanent,” but the document also made clear that Montenegro is ready to defend itself, by itself, when faced with very real security threats.

In 2016, it had to do just that when a pro-Russian coup attempt threatened to overthrow the pro-NATO government of the country. The coup was ultimately stopped, and Montenegro successfully joined the NATO alliance last year.

The same cannot be said for Ukraine, where Russian aggression continues to paralyze the country. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko seemed to take Trump’s behavior in Helsinki as a sign that although the US signed a deal to sell missiles to Ukraine late last year, his country might have to maintain diplomatic pressure on Putin without America’s backing.

“We are ready and will protect our land even if we stay ourselves, without international support,” he tweeted.

What this all means is that despite the lack of a strong reaction to the meetings in Brussels and Helsinki, Eastern Europe may waver in its support for Trump.

And if he loses these key allies, the US would lose the part of Europe that is most open to advancing America’s goals on the continent — Poland, Lithuania, and other nations have been some of the strongest cheerleaders for increased defense spending in the European Union; more importantly, they have embraced the influx of American soldiers that have arrived since their countries joined NATO.

Without a strong US and NATO presence here, parts of Eastern Europe would likely again slide into Russia’s orbit; countries in southeastern Europe like Bosnia, Serbia, and Hungary have increasingly started turning to Moscow in recent years, and eastern Ukraine serves as a daunting worst-case scenario for countries along Russia’s frontier.

Trump has personally questioned the need to counter Russia’s expanding regional reach. But his pro-Putin stance remains at odds with that of the State Department, the US military, and the US intelligence community, all of which continue to maintain that Russia is a US rival that needs to be checked.

For the vast majority of the US government, Eastern Europe is still a region with irreplaceable strategic importance to American interests and is America’s main bulwark against westward Russian expansion.

If he hopes to keep his allies in this region, Trump will have to make sure his administration remains tough on Russia. Although his rhetoric has already unnerved governments in Eastern Europe, Herbst told me Trump’s “crazy” ideas about Russia are unlikely to make it past his advisers, and the US won’t recognize Crimea as part of Russia or hand Putin eastern Ukraine anytime soon.

For the most part, when all is said and done, it seems America’s strong ties to Eastern Europe will survive — for now.

Michal Kranz is a freelance journalist who has covered US national security, the Robert Mueller investigation, and geopolitics in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. He was formerly based in New York City, where he wrote for Business Insider, and is currently reporting on politics and society in Warsaw and Beirut.