Trump may aim at quick victory over ISIL, but it's complicated

What the Arabic press says about America's military moves in Iraq

US troops patrol on the outskirts of the Syrian town, Manbij. Arab 24 network via AP Photo
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An additional 400 American troops have been deployed in Syria in preparation for the fight to oust ISIL from Raqqa. The increase almost doubles the number of US troops in the region.

Writing in the London-based pan-Arab newspaper, Al Arab, the columnist Salam Al Saadi saw the move as a telling indicator of US president Donald Trump’s great desire for a fast and double victory in the strongholds of ISIL in Syria and Iraq.

Al Saadi considered such a victory as a pillar of Mr Trump’s campaign promises after he had classified ISIL as the greatest threat to the United States.

“In fact, it is president Trump’s most achievable promise,” he noted. “All his other promises, namely annulling ObamaCare, deporting millions of illegal immigrants and building a wall along the US-Mexican border, have got into complications of US domestic policy, where the president’s powers overlap the competences of the Congress and the judiciary.”

According to the writer, Mr Trump seeks to transform the defeat of ISIL into a milestone. “On the one hand, he would garner praise for his counter-terrorism strategy and, on the other, he would fulfil his promise to get rid of ISIL.”

However, he argued, the reality is much more complicated than what the president desires.

“The past two decades have witnessed this kind of military feats over and over, but jihadist groups are still out there.

Whenever the US struck a heavy blow to a branch of Al Qaeda somewhere, another more powerful and more resilient group would shortly appear elsewhere,” Al Saadi noted.

The writer said that today, with the accelerated defeat of ISIL in Iraq and Syria, the past seems to be warning us about the future.

“Mr Trump will be praised for beating ISIL in Mosul and in Raqqah, but victory would still seem out of reach,” he concluded.

Writing in the London-based pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, the columnist Walid Choucair said that the US was increasing its troops in Syria and Iraq using the same pretext as Russia, Iran, Hizbollah and the other militias that are mushrooming in the Levant.

“The US has now roughly 1,000 soldiers on the ground. The first troops that arrived last year was on a ‘consultative’ mission. It was sent to train the Syrian Democratic Forces, mostly comprised of Kurds,” he wrote.

Choucair noted that Iranians had also called their forces "consultative" when they started interfering directly in Syria and the Russians had said their forces were there to protect the Tartus naval base, then Hmeymim airbase in Lattakia.

The Russian military police deployed in Aleppo, and subsequently in other regions, were justified by Russia’s intention to keep order in the army and the liberated territories. Then Moscow reduced its war planes in favour of infantry and special forces.

According to Choucair, the American flag raised in the north of Syria last week gives the US military presence its political dimensions after Russia’s presence had reached its peak in the quest for a political solution.

“Russia had single-handedly called for the Astana meeting and then the Geneva conference, where the Americans were merely observers,” he explained.

But the game has changed, at least that's what it appears to be.

“The agreements concluded by Barack Obama’s administration through meetings between John Kerry and Sergey Lavrov were limited to ‘organising the war’ in Syria.

“However, the new phase of the war might well include agreements on organising the presence of foreign forces in Syria as the two superpowers rush to secure their strength and expansion, while waiting for a political solution without ruling out Russia’s predominance,” he concluded.

* Translated by Jennifer Attieh

translation@thenational.ae