Reports & Analysis From Israeli Newspapers addressing the US Troops’ withdrawal from Syria/تقارير وأراء من صحف إسرائيلية تتناول الإنسحاب الأميركي من شمال سوريا

Who benefits as US withdraws from Syria? Not Israel
تحليل سياسي من صحيفة يديعوت أحرونوت بقلم رون بن يشاي: من سوف يستفيد من انسحاب الولايات المتحدة من سوريا؟ بالتأكيد ليس اسرائيل
Ron Ben-Yishai|/Ynetnews/December 19/18

Analysis: Washington’s decision is counterproductive: it gives Iran a second front in its war against the Jewish State and leaves IS active, whatever Trump says—it erodes US standing on the world stage and gives Putin even more power in the Mideast.

Islamic State is still present in Syria and Iraq, and yet US President Donald Trump is withdrawing his forces from Syria. He intended to do so long ago, but US Defense Secretary James Mattis deterred him. The stated reason for keeping American troops in Syria was their Kurdish allies, since if American consultants abandon the Kurds—the betrayal would decimate American standing and credibility. Such a move will also invalidate Israel’s insistence that Syria, Iran and Turkey should not be given carte blanche to do as they wish in the strategically located country.

But Trump wanted out of Syria, mainly for economic reasons, and therefore he declared victory over IS. The White House was quick to state that the US departure does not signal that the Americans are leaving the coalition against IS, but rather, now that IS lost its strongholds, the White House is “transitioning to the next phase of the campaign.”

It is not clear what it means to “transition.” Will the US withdraw its military advisers from Syria and transfer them to Jordan? Or will it be satisfied fighting IS with its troops in Iraq? Will the Americans use their airpower from the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean instead of military bases in Syria? Whichever way this goes, this is not good news for Israel.

The White House’s announcement means that the US is letting Russia and Iran, and to a certain extent Turkey, shape both their own interests and the new order that will form in Syria at the end of the civil war.

As a result, Iran will cement its foothold in Syria more easily and Putin’s influence in the Middle East, including Iraq, will grow. The Syrian Kurds, who are losing the support of a protector and adviser, will have to seek shelter in Assad’s arms while, once the US forces leave the area, Turkey is free to attack them at will.

Who will trust the US now?
The United States had about 2,000 military personnel in Syria. They were stationed there to assist the Syrian Democratic Forces, a prominent opposition group, to fight in rebel enclaves in the desert east of the Euphrates River.

Despite what Trump claims, IS has not yet been completely destroyed—the American troops and their Kurdish allies were successfully wiping them out. Until now.

The American presence in Syria, therefore, is still necessary, even though they are small in numbers. In fact, this force, together with its Kurdish allies, holds all territory to the east and north of the Euphrates River—about a quarter of the entire territory of Syria. When the American military advisers return home, the US will lose an important asset that would grant it influence over whatever surfaces in Syria after the civil war.

Another American military asset in Syria is a Special Forces base in Al-Tanf, near to the Syrian-Iraqi-Jordanian border triangle. From this military base, US air and intelligence forces operate against IS enclaves in the Deir ez-Zour area. But more importantly, these troops prevent Iran from transferring militias, missiles and other weapons through the land corridor from Iran through Iraq to Syria, and onto Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Therefore, the American departure from Syria does not bode well, both from an Israeli and a Jordanian perspective. It is this American presence that currently blocks the establishment of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Shiite militias it brought into Syria, near its borders with Jordan and Israel.

More importantly, this withdrawal erodes the status of the United States as a world power and as an influencer in the Middle East. The Russians want the American military advisers out so that Washington wouldn’t be able to demand a share of the spoils once the civil war is over.

Worse yet, the US will be perceived as abandoning the interests of its allies in the Middle East, not just Israel and Jordan, but also Saudi Arabia, which is considered the patron of the Sunni Muslims in Syria. In addition, by withdrawing its forces, Washington is losing a negotiating card in their dealing with Russia.

When Trump takes his soldiers from Syria, you can be sure Qasem Soleimani , the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, will be cheerfully rubbing his hands together and gleefully informing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that another obstacle has been removed from their path in Syria, and a second front against Israel is now ripe for opening.

Trump orders US troop pullout from NE Syria. Israel left alone against Russia, Iran
موقع دبكا: ترامب يأمر بسحب القوات الأميركية من شمال سوريا تاركاً إسرائيا بمفردها بمواجهة روسيا وإيران
DEBKAfile/December 19/18
US President Donald Trump has announced in a series of tweets the imminent withdrawal of US forces from northern and eastern Syria. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” he said. Senior administration officials confirmed on Wednesday, Dec. 19, that there would be a “full and rapid withdrawal.”
DEBKAfile notes that this is not the first time that President Trump has decided to pull the 2,000 US troops out of Syria. He decided this in March but was persuaded to hold off by Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. They explained that, as soon as American troops were out of the way, the Russians would move in and take control of the Syrian-Iraqi border and pro-Iranian forces would swarm across. Iran would be gifted its biggest military triumph ever by achieving a land bridge under its control up to the Mediterranean. Hizballah too would be further strengthened.
Trump accepted their arguments at the time but is now reverting to his consistent belief that US troops have no business in Syria since accomplishing their mission and Syria should be left to the Russians. Whether or not Mattis and Pompeo will again succeed in postponing the US military exit from Syria cannot yet be determined. If it does go forward, Israel will face a new and disastrous military reality against an unbridled Iranian-Syrian lineup on its northern front. This situation would virtually reduce the IDF operation against Hizballah tunnels to comparative irrelevance.

Israel says will study US pullout from Syria, ensure its own security
وكالات/صحيفة يديعوت أحرونوت/اعلنت إسرائيل أنها سوف تدرس انسحاب القوات الأميركية من شمال سوريا وتؤكد على على أمنها الخاص
Agencies//Ynetnews/December 19/18
Russia hails US decision to withdraw, while Trump comes under fire from Republican lawmakers, British ally; Pentagon: withdrawal already underway. Israel will study the US decision to pull its forces from Syria and will ensure its own security, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday. Netanyahu in a statement said he had spoken over the past two days with US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about their intention to withdraw troops from Syria.
“They made clear they have other ways to have influence in the area,” Netanyahu said. “We will study the timeline, how it will be done and of course the implications for us. In any case, we will make sure to maintain Israel’s security and protect ourselves from this arena,” he said.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said the US decision to withdraw creates prospects for political settlement to the years-long, bloody Syrian civil war, according to the TASS news agency.
TASS also cited the ministry as saying that an initiative to form a Syrian constitutional committee had a bright future with the US troop withdrawal.
Russia is a key backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support is believed by many to have turned the tide of the war in Assad’s favor.
Trump tweeted that the troops would be leaving as the US had defeated ISIS, which he said was his sole reason for being in Syria.But in the UK, minister in the Defense Ministry Tobias Ellwood used Trump’s favored means of communication to express his disapproval of the decision. “I strongly disagree,” Ellwood tweeted in response to Trump’s claim that Islamic State had been defeated. He warned that the organization “has morphed into other forms of extremism and the threat is very much alive.”
In the US, senior members of Trump’s own Republican Party denounced the decision as having a far-reaching, negative impact.
Withdrawing the troops, said Senator Lindsey Graham, a recent staunch supporter of the president, would be “a big win for ISIS, Iran, Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Russia.”
Fellow GOP Senator Marco Rubio also condemned the move, saying that a full, rapid withdrawal would be a “grave error” that had implications beyond the battle against Islamic State. The Pentagon said Wednesday that the process of withdrawing had already begun, while a US official said that the full redeployment would take between 60-100 days.
“The Coalition has liberated the ISIS-held territory, but the campaign against ISIS is not over,” Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement, using an acronym for Islamic State.
“We have started the process of returning US troops home from Syria as we transition to the next phase of the campaign,” she said. “For force protection and operational security reasons we will not provide further details. We will continue working with our partners and allies to defeat ISIS wherever it operates.”