On July 16, President Trump will meet with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, where they are expected to address, inter alia, the situation in Syria. Alexandra Gutowski urges the American president to insist, despite likely Russian objections, that the U.S. will maintain its military base at Tanf in southern Syria. She writes:
Since 2016, American special-operations forces have used a base in the border town of Tanf to train Syrian opposition forces to fight Islamic State. The town lies near the intersection of the Syrian, Iraqi, and Jordanian borders, astride a strategic highway that provides the most direct route from Baghdad to Damascus. While the U.S. prohibits the opposition forces at Tanf from fighting the Assad regime, the presence of coalition troops serves as a bulwark against Iran’s ongoing efforts to establish and secure a so-called “land bridge” from Tehran to the Mediterranean, with the help of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria.
The Assad regime and its allies have regularly probed American resolve to defend the base at Tanf. . . . [In addition], Syria’s foreign minister, Walid Muallem, indicated that concessions regarding Tanf were essential [to his government]. Russia and Syria seem determined to raise the issue if U.S. negotiators have not done so already.
For the U.S., the abandonment of Tanf would be a serious strategic error. The current offensive in southwest Syria demonstrates that the U.S. cannot trust Russia to enforce agreements, even those made directly between the two countries’ presidents. Second, Tanf provides a valuable launching point for operations against Islamic State, including a seizure this month of $1.4 million worth of narcotics. Third, were the U.S. to abandon Tanf, retaking it in event of a crisis would be very difficult, from both a political and a military perspective. Thus, Iran would secure control of a key pillar supporting its land bridge from Tehran straight through to the Mediterranean, enabling it to accelerate the shipment of weapons and militia fighters to Assad and Hizballah.
Read more on FDD: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/alexandra-n-gutowski-us-should-not-abandon-strategic-base-near-syrian-border/