The United States failed in the Middle East
The C-17 plane that the Afghans hung on and fell from after taking off is a testament to America's failure in Afghanistan.
From the source
The former US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, said the United States should remain in eastern Syria indefinitely to support the Kurds.
From the source
The YPG realizes that it will not attack Iran for Israel's benefit.
Reuters
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Nothing sums up the catastrophic failure that Washington has suffered during its two decades of involvement in Afghanistan, and its inefficiency in nation-building in the Middle East, more than the pictures of Afghan youths clinging to the American C-17 cargo plane before some of them fell and died from a height of hundreds. meters in the air. Spending $2.3 trillion in US taxpayer money, and sacrificing 2,400 US troops, was not enough to overcome ethnic, tribal, and religious disparities in order to build a democratic and friendly Afghanistan.
In Iraq, a very similar story occurred. After spending about two trillion dollars, and killing about 4,500 American soldiers, Iraq was handed over to Iran on a silver platter.
By overthrowing former President Saddam Hussein, Iran's archenemy, the United States was able to achieve what Iran could not do during the eighties of the last century, as Tehran became controlling Iraq in a way it had never dreamed of before. , while Iran supports Shiite militias.
In addition, the US invasion of Iraq not only paved the way for expansion inside Iraq, but also in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, and facilitated the exploitation of Russia and other countries by the lucrative Iraqi oil industry.
Russia became the main supplier of arms to Iraq.
The same happened in Syria, where about 900 soldiers were deployed, and billions of dollars were spent, as was done in Afghanistan and Iraq. Washington failed to see any fruits from its state-building efforts in Syria.
"ISIS"
Given its emergence as a result of the collapse of the Iraqi state in the aftermath of the 2003 war, ISIS has engaged in extermination campaigns against Shiites, as well as thousands of Syrians, Iraqis, Turkmen, Yazidis, Chaldeans, and Assyrians. ISIS has killed dozens of civilians in Turkey. But the two Americans killed by ISIS were two journalists, in addition to two American contractors.
While the American air campaign, led by the United States in the period between 2014-2019, helped to defeat ISIS, although it resulted in the killing of about 10,000 civilians, Washington justified staying in Syria under the pretext of ISIS’s return from New, which is currently unlikely given the geopolitical change in the region.
The Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, managed to regain control over most of the areas west of the Euphrates River.
Turkey has demonstrated itself as an important military power by executing or facilitating several successful military operations in northern Iraq, Libya, southern Caucasus, and northern Syria.
By relying on proxies, Iran has proven that it will remain a military and political power in Iraq and Syria.
And if ISIS were to re-emerge, it would represent a dilemma for Turkey, Syria, Russia and Iran, rather than a problem for America, and the region has all the means to confront it.
the Kurds
Many in the United States and elsewhere view the Kurdish region, which stretches from the city of Sulaymaniyah in Iraq to the Mediterranean, as a buffer for Israel against Iran and other potential threats in the region. Yet the Kurds, especially the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which is controlled by Kurdish forces, seem loath to upset the fragile balance they have created with Iran. And after talking with the higher ranks of the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria. “There is deep concern within the SDF about the extent to which the United States will use these forces to confront Iran and Syria,” said Nicholas Heras of the Center for a New American Security. In fact, when things go wrong for the Syrian Kurds, the YPG will lean toward the backed Assad government. from Iran in order to preserve its survival.
In addition to its relations with the Kurdish PKK, the alliance of the Kurdish People's Protection Units with the Assad government is the main reason why the British government refused to support them.
And we should always remember that, at the end of the day, it is the United States, not Iran, that is the strange country in the Middle East.
The leaders of the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Kurdish People's Protection Units are aware that their alliance with the United States is temporary, and the leaders of these units are fully aware that they will not attack Iran for the benefit of Israel.
What now?
America has many feats, but nation building is not one of them.
From Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq, Washington has repeated the fact that it is a total failure in the cause of nation-building.
Indeed, the United States' inability to understand the thousands of years of old social and tribal dynamics that have characterized the Middle East, its overreliance on the U.S. military, which has only resulted in more destruction and chaos, and its reckless support for its proxies, has upset the regional balance.
All were factors that contributed to the failure of the United States to make progress in the Middle East.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States has wasted the last 30 years by stumbling between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq and in the mountains of Afghanistan, chasing the specter of terrorism, which has contributed to financially draining it, and tired the American people of "eternal boring wars", and allowed China to become A dangerous challenge to American hegemony over the world.
Instead of continuing on this path, and sinking into the quagmire of Syria, it is better for Washington to turn its attention to more important issues, and it should let the regional powers tackle a problem that was never Washington's responsibility.
A Kurdish state is almost impossible
When the Franco-British alliance was able to successfully dismantle the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East into independent states, it did not care about establishing a Kurdish state for several reasons, including that the Kurds “lacked unity,” and they “did not have the competence to cooperate to create a comprehensive entity.” Trust among the Kurdish tribes is so great that it remains the biggest obstacle to the establishment of an independent state in the post-Ottoman period.
In view of the conflict within the Kurdish people, and the presence of Turkey, a strong member of NATO, it has become quite clear that it will not accept the existence of an independent Kurdish state on its borders. In addition, as Turkey is a regional economic power, and a political giant given that it controls most of the trade, the movement of raw materials, and most of all, the Euphrates River, which is the lifeblood of the Kurdish state. And the US ambassador to Syria from (2011-2014), Robert Ford, admitted that “the current US approach towards Syria lacks a viable end. Without diplomatic and military coverage for the Kurds, they may face several fronts against Turkey and Syria, and to prevent this and support the Kurds at the same time, the United States must remain in eastern Syria for an indefinite period. Turkey's Afrin operation assures that Kurdish forces can be crushed within a few days.The issue of US forces remaining in eastern Syria indefinitely was a disappointment for the administrations of President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden, leading to the abandonment and subsequent rapid collapse of the Kabul government.
• At a time when the American air campaign, led by the United States in the period between 2014-2019, helped to defeat ISIS, although it resulted in the killing of about 10,000 civilians, but Washington justified staying in Syria under the pretext of the return of ISIS » again.
Ali Demirdas is Professor of Political Science at the University of South Carolina
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