US withdrawal from Syria carries serious risks

India’s biggest headache is Trump’s demonstrated ability to sideline his advisers in announcing such momentous decisions.

The US President Donald Trump’s announcement to withdraw American troops from Syria took the world by surprise on Wednesday. It was not long ago that General Joseph Dunford, America’s highest ranking military officer, had cautioned that the US still had a long way to go in preventing a resurgence of ISIS. It appears that Trump had not kept the Pentagon and State Department in the loop. Naturally, the announcement has created a lot of debate.

The US presence on the ground was too thin to prevent a resurgence of ISIS. What mattered was the US support to Kurdish and Arabic forces fighting against ISIS (AFP)

There are definite merits in both sides of the argument. Those against the sudden withdrawal are correct that this will reduce American credibility in the eyes of its allies. The possibility of ISIS’ resurgence, too, cannot be ruled out. Barack Obama’s decision, one should remember, to hastily withdraw from Iraq had contributed to the rise of ISIS in the first place. Obama’s withdrawal timetables from Afghanistan, too, weren’t helpful, if not entirely counterproductive.

Those favouring the withdrawal from Syria are right to point out that the American people are fatigued by the post-9/11 ‘war on terror’ and Trump had successfully campaigned on the plank of withdrawing the US from a global policing role. Besides, the US presence on the ground was anyway too thin to prevent a resurgence of ISIS. What mattered was the US support to Kurdish and Arab forces fighting against ISIS. If the Trump administration could find a way to continue supporting them, the negative fallouts of the withdrawal could be partially mitigated.

How should India look at this development? If Trump’s withdrawal helps boost Iran and Russia, mandarins in New Delhi are not likely to lose sleep over it. India would not want a re-emergence of ISIS but it is more worried by the ideology of the terror group that continues to live on. India’s biggest headache, however, is Trump’s demonstrated ability to sideline his advisers in announcing such withdrawal decisions. If he follows the same approach in Afghanistan, it is almost certain that the South Asian country will fall to extremists aided by Pakistan. American presence in Afghanistan continues to remain in India’s interest. There is a slim hope that Russia might reciprocate Trump’s Syria decision by cooperating with the US in Afghanistan. However, New Delhi should not bank on such possibilities and continue to engage with the Afghan ruling regime as well as its old allies outside Kabul’s state apparatus.