From a stance that appeared definitive, the Donald Trump administration, via its special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, rejected the possibility of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) becoming the field, administrative, and political equivalent to the authority of Ahmed al-Sharaa in northeast Syria. Washington consequently rejected the formula of a division of labor between the SDF and Damascus in a manner that would serve as a guarantee against Damascus shifting toward the adoption of hardline policies, both internally and regionally. To facilitate the management of the Syrian file, the U.S. administration decided to assert that a centralized state is more easily steered toward Washington’s interests than a state with multiple poles and centers. Barrack’s expression that “the federal state does not work” carries the absolute character that was adopted.
Ultimately, the Trump–Barrack vision gained Arab and Turkish acceptance, alongside an Israeli objection that did not carry a genuine or enduring character. In the final analysis, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham was officially sanctioned as a political authority accompanied by a military composite of multi-layered regional and Arab loyalties.
The words of Trump during his first term carried the core tenets of his second term; the Syria from which he wanted to withdraw at any cost is nothing but “sand and blood,” and despite the spectacles and the lifting of sanctions, it remains neglected on the current American agenda. Syria appears abandoned to its fate, its internal interactions, and the governance style of its ruling group, so long as this does not conflict with American foreign policy and does not cause a headache for Israel. The peak of the Trump administration’s interest in Syria manifested during the lifting of U.S. sanctions and the reception of Transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House, followed by accelerating the wheel of understanding between Damascus and the SDF via Tom Barrack. The latter accomplished the mission of centralizing governance, securing the American withdrawal from Syrian territories, and washing Washington’s hands of the ISIS file in Syria after upgrading Damascus to the 90th state in the ranks of the International Coalition against ISIS.
Prior to his election victory at the end of 2016, Trump did not hide during his presidential campaign his desire to withdraw from the Middle East entirely. This was transformed into a pressuring approach on his presidential team and his allies in the region, with the exception of Turkey. However, he collided at the time with the vision of the strategists in his administration: National Security Advisor John Bolton, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, in addition to his primary supporter in Congress, Lindsay Graham, and his Republican group who were unenthusiastic about Trump’s withdrawal tendencies. Those voices justified their rejection of the withdrawal decision as a prelude to regional turmoil, the expansion of Iranian influence inside Syria, and the growing danger of ISIS—and most importantly, the risk of the Kurds facing an expected extermination at the hands of Turkey. Opposing the team that objected to the withdrawal, the name of former Ambassador to Turkey James Jeffrey emerged as the most prominent backer of Erdogan’s approach in Syria. According to what former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confided to John Bolton, James Jeffrey “did not like the Kurds and considered Turkey a reliable partner in NATO.”
The anxiety of officials in Washington stemmed from the promises Trump could make to Turkish President Erdogan regarding a total withdrawal from Syria, following the improvement in U.S.–Turkish relations and the turning of the page on disputes represented by the “Halkbank” scandal—when Washington convicted Mehmet Atilla, a senior official at the Turkish bank, for helping Iran evade and bypass U.S. sanctions imposed on Tehran—and after the release of the American Pastor Andrew Brunson, who was accused of espionage, and turning a blind eye to Ankara’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system.
Doubts plagued the pillars of the Trump team, who distinguished between Ankara’s ultimate goals and the promises Erdogan made to Trump that he would not harm the Kurds. This prompted Trump, in numerous phone calls he conducted with Erdogan, to focus on not punishing the Kurds—a matter that was driving his Turkish counterpart to repeatedly say that he “loves the Kurds and they love him.” These statements convinced those officials in the Trump administration who wished to preserve the reputation of the United States toward its allies, away from Trump’s whims and his withdrawal mood that does not weigh the consequences. Ultimately, Trump executed a partial withdrawal from Syria despite the rejection of the pillars of the Department of Defense, led by Mattis, and the Republican bloc in Congress. Perhaps the Republicans’ rejection of the withdrawal decision in favor of Turkey surprised Trump, who used to trust the opinions of Senator Rand Paul, who had reassured him of the Republicans’ support for withdrawal decisions from Afghanistan and Syria.
Under Trump in his second term, everything took place under the impact of the fall of the Assad regime and the arrival of an alternative whose ideological policies and those of its regional backers clash with Iran. Thus, the issue of withdrawal became closer to a matter of time, nothing more, as the dilemmas that obstructed his total withdrawal began to dissipate: Iran withdrew from all Syrian territories, the connecting link between the Dahiyeh and Tehran was severed, and the ISIS file was handed over to Damascus without scrutinizing the conditions of competence and capability. Iraq, which feared—after what happened at the Shaddadi prison—the influx of ISIS fighters into its territory, was finally forced to participate in sheltering a portion of ISIS prisoners on its soil, as well as receiving the families of the organization’s fighters arriving from the Al-Hol camp. Here, it is necessary to recall one of the reasons for obstructing the total American withdrawal in 2019, when ISIS prisons constituted a dilemma for Trump, who suggested bringing ISIS prisoners from northeast Syria to Guantanamo Bay—an idea that Mattis strongly opposed, compounded by the fact that many countries refused to repatriate their citizens from those prisons.
As for the final dilemma that was obstructing the path of withdrawal during Trump’s second term, it was the future of the SDF and the Kurds in general. Consequently, Washington encouraged the implementation of the March 10, 2025 agreement, and sought to extend al-Sharaa’s control within a vision based on the premise that the president of all of Syria can conclude a peace agreement with Tel Aviv. Indeed, the Paris Agreement on January 5–6 accelerated the control of government forces and the loyalist tribal coalition over the eastern part of the country, accompanied by the SDF’s withdrawal from the governorates of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa. The agreement, which settled on a memorandum of understanding and future cooperation between Damascus and Tel Aviv, reduced the latter’s fears regarding the project of total American withdrawal. In 2019, the Israeli Ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, confided to American officials that the withdrawal decision was the worst decision President Trump had made. At that time, the probability of the Iranians filling the American vacuum and the absence of the monitoring line at the Al-Tanf base and northeast Syria represented Tel Aviv’s biggest nightmares. However, Dermer himself participated in the Paris meetings at the beginning of this year, and Tel Aviv agreed to Damascus expanding into the governorates of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa, according to what Reuters reported.
Amidst the developments of the withdrawal and the probability of government forces advancing toward Hasakah and Kobani, a set of objections surfaced. These objections facilitated Washington’s execution of the withdrawal on one hand, and blocked the path against voices refusing to abandon the Kurds on the other. Thus, Washington’s official distinction came to center on “protecting the Kurds” instead of protecting its partner, the SDF. This is what was stipulated in the draft of the “Kurds Rescue Act,” which Lindsay Graham threatened to place before the U.S. legislature if Damascus continued its war, in addition to the communications conducted by Trump with al-Sharaa, and likewise his Vice President JD Vance, to resolve Damascus’s disputes with the Kurds through dialogue.
American pressures, alongside other factors, contributed to defusing a zero-sum war that would have been heavy on the Kurds and the region. It paved the way for the emergence of the term “integration,” which must occur between the institutions of the Autonomous Administration—both military and civilian—and the institutions of the state. Meanwhile, the signatories to the unpublicized January 29 agreement know that any miscalculation by Damascus and the SDF could lead to dire consequences. Perhaps integration, which does not enjoy the necessary respect from Kurdish and Arab blocs alike, is the final destination that the two parties to the January 29 “contract” can reach.
What matters in every reading of what has occurred since the beginning of this year is that the Trump administration succeeded in executing the difficult withdrawal after resolving three nodes in succession: ensuring that Iran does not reappear in Syria, the partial withdrawal of Washington from fighting ISIS and guarding its detention facilities, and guaranteeing the future of Syria’s Kurds, rescuing them from the jaws of extermination, and ending the cooperation program with the SDF. Perhaps the password to Trump’s success in ridding himself of the burden of the Syrian file—which he does not like to delve into—lies in the roles provided by Tom Barrack in his capacity as the “plenipotentiary” and overseer of Washington’s policy in four countries simultaneously: Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. This meant intervening in the affairs of a total of approximately 160 million people, who are the inhabitants of these four countries with all their internal contradictions, and all of this before the conclusion of his duties as special envoy to Syria.
It is noticeable that Trump rid himself of Syria, where his initial—and perhaps alleged—enthusiasm toward it receded. In accordance with his two terms in office, he does not favor staying in it or returning to it under any circumstances. For this reason, no internal Syrian or regional party should count on Trump returning to it; it still represents the “sand and blood” that he detests, or because, in other words: it does not match his preferences in the fields of investments and oil.
