The killing of an American contractor in eastern Syria by an Iranian drone — and the embarrassing tit-for-tat precision strikes by the U.S. followed by retaliatory strikes that injured several service members — has put Syria back into the national conversation, to the Biden administration’s chagrin.
After all, it was the Obama-Biden administration that created today’s Syria, abandoning both its policy of “Assad must go” and its ultimatum of a “red line.” It likely made these actions as concessions to the Iranian regime it sought to bring into what became the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal.
Syria today remains a complex mess and is the site of a civil war whose tragic humanitarian toll over more than a decade is unspeakable. Its brutality is unmatched in any other part of the world, and it includes the use of sarin nerve gas against its own population.
Nowhere in the Middle East do American interests and security risks converge more closely together than in Syria. If the United States has a clear policy and approach in the Middle East, that is reflected in how it engages in Syria. Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, is a key proxy of the Iranian regime. Syria borders Israel, and risks posed by Assad, as well as Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon, are formidable. Al-Qaida’s main global base of operations today is in Syria, and ISIS stood up its state in much of the eastern part of the country. Turkey maintains a
