The new American administration is sending inconsistent signals in the Middle East. It has taken different approaches in countries including Yemen, Syria and Iraq. While a universal and coherent shift under the new administration is yet to be seen, there is already some clarity in some countries about where Donald Trump and his advisers stand.
Yemen is where the United States has, so far, been most clear about its policy. A top Arab diplomat recently explained the stark difference between the approach of the Barack Obama administration to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen and that of the Trump administration: “They’re as different as night and day.” Unlike Mr Obama, who had one foot in and one out of Yemen, the current administration has shown full support to its traditional Arab allies fighting the Houthis and their allies in Yemen.
What the official considers a radical shift was helped by three objective factors absent in other key countries where support to the US allies might not be as categorical. First, the Saudi-led coalition knew specifically what it needed from Washington, in terms of military, technical, planning and political support. Clarity about those needs made it easy for the new administration to deliver.
Secondly, Yemen is seen as “low-hanging fruit”; Iran is not as entrenched or heavily involved as it is in Iraq and Syria. Unlike in Syria, Gulf officials have repeatedly indicated that Moscow is playing a relatively positive political role in the fight in Yemen. Thirdly, the Gulf states are directly present in Yemen, have allies on the ground and are cooperating with Washington against Al Qaeda.
In Syria, US policy is becoming more clear. For weeks, officials in Washington suggested that recent changes in its Syria policy were merely temporary. Whether the decision to provide air support to the Iranian-Russian-regime push against ISIL in Palmyra or the show of force in support of Kurdish allies against Turkey in northern Syria last month, the justification for such moves was that they were merely tactical moves taken by the Pentagon, not necessarily a change of policy. The White House, according to officials, was yet to organise an inter-agency meeting to set a wide-ranging Syria policy.
This explanation is dubious at best. On Thursday, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, and secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said axed the removal of Bashar Al Assad was no longer a priority for Washington. They said the removal of the Syrian president was up to the Syrian people, a statement backed by the White House the following day.
Unlike the Gulf states in Yemen, Turkey’s priorities were not accounted for by the new administration. Its adversary in Syria, the YPG (the People’s Protection Units), got its way in the coming offensive to expel ISIL from Raqqa. The YPG has also shown it is willing to cooperate with the regime, Russia and Iran. In other words, the US policy in Syria is far from countering Iran. On the contrary, it is directly helping Iran, as the examples in Palmyra and northern Syria and the decision to de-focus on Mr Al Assad show.
In Iraq, the situation is even murkier. Iran is far more entrenched politically and militarily. The US has little room to manoeuvre against Iran in this country. If anything, Washington has to set its policies in Iraq while accounting for Iran’s red lines, and this may not change soon. However, there is thinking within the administration that “something” can be done to unscrew aspects of the tight control that Tehran has established in Iraq. This could include attempts to increase American leverage through Iraqi individuals and groups and to check the growing influence of others.
The common thread in the US policy in the three countries is that the US has prioritised the fight against extremism, specifically against Al Qaeda and ISIL. The exception may be in Yemen, where it appears to have ended the Obama era’s half-measured support to the American allies in the Gulf. It remains to be seen whether the administration’s rhetoric about countering Iran’s influence will come later, after the defeat of groups such as ISIL and Al Qaeda.
The current US administration’s policy in this region is still in its early phases, and its moves so far may well be a result of how the previous policies had primed the situations with which the new administration has to grapple. Iranian influence in Iraq, for example, is understandably hard to meaningfully reverse. In Syria, Iran’s control can still be checked, especially near the Iraqi, Jordanian, Israeli and Turkish borders. But even though the Trump administration has said everything the opponents of Iran wanted to hear, a different approach may be taken in the coming months and years.
Hassan Hassan is a senior fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and co-author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror
On Twitter: @hxhassan
