Michael Doran on America's Allies and America's Enemies

On December 19 of last year, President Donald Trump made a surprise announcement: the United States would withdraw American troops from Syria. What was the strategic thinking behind this withdrawal? What did it mean for America's allies in the region? Did this withdrawal betray those alliances and abandon our friends? Did this action compromise Israel, which shares a border with Syria? In his January essay for Mosaic, the Hudson Institute's Michael Doran argues that, contrary to the conventional wisdom among the president's critics, the White House's strategy in Syria is rooted in a prudent assessment of geopolitical realities. He makes the case that, in light of the American public's sharp turn against deploying troops in the Middle East, the wisest course for the United States is to trust its allies in the region—from Turkey to the Gulf states to Israel—to serve as a counterweight to the Russian-Iranian axis seeking regional hegemony. In this podcast, Dr. Doran joins Tikvah's Jonathan Silver to make his case for the Trump Administration's Middle East policies. He outlines the realities—both foreign and domestic—that lay at the heard of his analysis and forcefully makes that case that if the United States is to advance its interests and elevate its allies, Washington's current strategy is the only one worth pursuing. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble as well as "Shining Through the Rain" by Big Score Audio.