Tag Archives: CENTCOM

Trump’s Middle East Failure Was Made By Obama

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 19 November 2019

President Barack Obama meeting President-elect Donald Trump, 10 November 2016 [image source]

October 2019 may well remain in the popular memory as the inflection point marking the collapse of America’s — and by extension, the West’s — position in at least the northern Middle East. Having been thwarted twice before in efforts to leave Syria, in March and December 2018, President Donald Trump made one more try. For many, ‘Trump betrayed the Kurds’ will be the summary of the events that followed as Turkey made a swift move into the vacuum. The reality is a lot more complicated, and in truth the amount of blame that Trump can take for the events of the last month is rather limited. This catastrophe was baked into the policy of Barack Obama, and Trump’s main fault is to have followed the policy track laid down by his predecessor. Continue reading →

Obama Made America’s Collapse in the Middle East Inevitable

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A version of this article was published at The Arab Weekly.

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 12 October 2019

Turkish Armed Forces heading towards the border with Syria, 8 October 2019 // BULENT KILIC / AFP

The beginning of Turkey’s third incursion into Syria on Wednesday, this time dubbed Operation PEACE SPRING and aimed at the areas east of the Euphrates River, is the culmination of an American policy started under Barack Obama that has been continued by Donald Trump. That it is inevitable makes it no less tragic for the innocents caught up in this mess. It does mean that the emotive posturing on social media, and attempts by Obama era officials to cast the blame for the Syria catastrophe onto Trump, are more-than-usually grotesque. Continue reading →

Israel is Losing Ground to the Iran-Russia Axis

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 18 April 2019

Israeli opinion generally regards the country’s efforts to contain Iran, especially in Syria, as having been successful. In fact, the trendline runs the other way: Iran is constraining Israel, entrenching all around the Jewish state. Continue reading →

Coalition Kills Two Islamic State Weapons Engineers in Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 8 September 2017

The U.S.-led international coalition launched airstrikes into eastern Syria on 4 September 2017 that killed “two senior ISIS leaders” involved in “weapons engineering activities” and the external operations wing of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS), according to a statement from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) yesterday.
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The Coalition Targets Islamic State Propagandists and External Terrorists

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 29 July 2017

Baraa Kadek (Riyan Meshal) [image source]

The United States announced on 27 July that it had killed seven “senior ISIS propagandists and facilitators in Iraq and Syria” since late March. The removal of these terrorists takes from the Islamic State “extensive experience and training, and degrades ISIS’s ability to plan and conduct attacks on civilian targets in Iraq and Syria, as well throughout the region and in the West,” U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said. The geographical pattern of the strikes that killed these men allow some conclusions about IS’s current situation on the ground, and the information provided by CENTCOM underlines IS’s will and capacity, even as it loses its caliphate, to conduct external operations. Continue reading →

Viewing the Coalition’s Flawed Anti-Islamic State Strategy From Raqqa’s Frontlines

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 19 June 2017

YPG and U.S military vehicles in Darbasiya, northern Syria, 28 April 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo

At the end of May, Christoph Reuter, a journalist with Der Spiegel, embedded with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as it made its way, supported by the U.S.-led Coalition, toward Raqqa city, the Syrian “capital” of the Islamic State’s (IS) caliphate. Reuter’s report provides snapshots of a number of important—and worrying—dynamics at play that have made the U.S. decision to back the SDF to liberate Raqqa so worrying over the long-term, even on its own terms as a means of sustainably defeating IS. Continue reading →

Trump Might Continue Obama’s Dangerous Syria Policy

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Originally published at The Henry Jackson Society

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on November 24, 2016

There is not yet any clarity with regard what Donald Trump would do about Syria once he becomes President. Virtually everything about the incoming administration is in the “wait and see” phase. Still, on the current evidence, Trump’s Syria policy would appear to be a continuation of President Barack Obama’s policy of prioritizing the threat of the Islamic State (IS) and other non-state Sunni jihadist groups, while effectively aligning with the pro-regime coalition, made up of Russian air power and a ground force led by the Islamic Republic of Iran, stitched together out of the battered remnants of Bashar al-Assad’s army and his sectarian militias, Iranian paramilitary and regular forces, and foreign Shi’a jihadist groups under Iran’s control. The only potential difference is that Trump may formally repudiate the anti-Assad forces. The effect of this would be to destroy the mainstream Syrian opposition and empower al-Qaeda, but it would not bring stability to Syria. There are hints, however, that Trump is recruiting senior officials who will alter this policy. Continue reading →