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In a particularly frank moment during an exit interview, departing Syria envoy Jim Jeffrey acknowledged to me that when it came to troop levels there, “We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there." https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/
(It's hard not to read that in the context of Esper's dismissal — in part motivated by a perception in the White House that the Pentagon was slow-rolling withdrawal orders.)
I left an enormous amount on the cutting room floor from this interview. A few highlights:
I left an enormous amount on the cutting room floor from this interview. A few highlights:
If you're looking for Jeffrey to criticize Trump as his predecessor @brett_mcgurk often does, you won't find it here. He praises POTUS for asking "intelligent Qs" about our role in Syria, offering necessary support & carrying out a successful "realpolitik" strategy in the region.
He rolls his eyes at the notion our alliances are too fragile to withstand U.S. demands. Trump is popular with Middle East allies, he says, because he has stopped "nagging" them. "They can do pretty much what they want, but they’re going to have to step up and do things."
In another news nugget, Jeffrey confirms that the State Department's threat to shutter the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was very serious indeed—and apparently not totally resolved.
“That’s an ongoing issue,” he said. “It was not a bogus threat, it’s very serious.”
“That’s an ongoing issue,” he said. “It was not a bogus threat, it’s very serious.”
Jeffrey believes Trump has achieved a kind of political and military “stalemate” in a number of different cold and hot conflicts, producing a situation that is about the best any administration could hope for in such a messy, volatile region. To wit:
“Stalemale and blocking advances and containing is not a bad thing,” he said. “That’s the nature of realpolitik and great power foreign policy.”
He advocates that the incoming Biden administration maintain the same transactional, non-transformative approach to the Middle East.
He advocates that the incoming Biden administration maintain the same transactional, non-transformative approach to the Middle East.
One thing that didn't make it in, but maybe should have: Of the "A-level" problems Biden will have to face when he enters office, Jeffrey rates Turkey as "the most difficult." Erdogan is a particularly difficult diplomatic partner, he says, but not for the reason you might think:
1/2 Jeffrey on Erdogan: "One of the arguments is, [Erdogan] can’t be an ally because he’s not a democracy. Frankly, he would be easier to deal with if he wasn’t the leader of a democratic country..."
2/2 Jeffrey on Erdogan: "...because he needs enough votes in parliament and that means has to collect some of them [from people] considerably more nationalistic and extreme than he is to stay in power."
He points out Turkey is having a pretty stellar run, with its preferred side prevailing in three separate conflicts—Idlib, Libya & now Nagorno-Karabakh.
"That's a pretty good ally if you think you’ve got a war of Russian expansion in the Middle East & the Caucasus, which we do."
"That's a pretty good ally if you think you’ve got a war of Russian expansion in the Middle East & the Caucasus, which we do."
He also says he doesn't think COVID will have any long-term geostrategic impact—"unless China can truly develop a vaccine that the whole world embraces and it works, or we and Europe really screw this up and this permanently cripples our economy, which I don’t think will happen."
"That doesn’t mean we shouldn't devote a lot of effort—a lot more than we’re doing now—to fight it in the public health arena," Jeffrey adds. "But it does mean that it’s not going to have this kind of impact."
Spanish Flu didn't either, he says.
Spanish Flu didn't either, he says.
