With the announcement of Democratic candidate Joe Biden winning the US Presidential elections, observers began to pose many speculations and questions related to his foreign policy, especially his Middle East policy and Syria in particular.
Will we witness a break in the approach taken by his predecessor, Donald Trump? By this we mean isolationism and political distancing from hot button issues in the Middle East, which has caused American influence to shrink greatly in Syria in the face of the extension and expansion of Russian influence in support of Bashar Assad.
This approach coincided with Turkish influence in the region, which practiced all forms of political debauchery in north Syria and was tolerated and encouraged by Russia. President Trump was suspiciously complicit in the policies of the Turkish president, according to what former National Security Adviser John Bolton claimed in his memoirs and meetings.
The statements of the president-elect about Turkey and the future of its president, who is obsessed with imperial dreams, do not seem to be a source of comfort or welcome to the Turkish president and his regime.
Certainly, Erdogan was not the first to congratulate the election of the new president; indeed, he was one of the last. However, he would be the first to be upset or resentful of the will that democratically toppled his ally, who had always prevented a decisive and deterrent American policy against his adventures in Syria, the Mediterranean, and North Africa.
The president-elect, at the time, expressed his indignation at Trump’s disappointment of the allies of the US in Syria, and considered Trump’s decision to withdraw his forces from northeastern Syria to be a disgrace to the US and tantamount to abandoning former allies to face the Turkish army and their affiliated jihadist mercenaries alone.
Biden supports the presence of US forces in Syria and Iraq, and supports the imposition of tougher congressional sanctions against Ankara’s rogue policy and its suspicious alliances with Moscow by purchasing and activating the Russian-made S400 missile system.
He does not seem satisfied with the Turkish president’s collusion with the Russia-Iran Astana axis, at the expense of the Geneva options and UN Resolution 2254, which ultimately led to the marginalization of the European / American role in Syria and dropping the scenarios for change in Syria at the expense of the Russian and Iranian agenda that guarantee the survival of Bashar Assad’s regime.
The evaluation of the president-elect’s possible position regarding these and other files depends to a large extent on his choice of the national security advisor, who is considered the true architect of the US national security interests externally, and who often carries a strategic approach and vision of US interests and how to ensure them.
The second disappointment to dash the Turkish president’s hopes came when the president-elect chose Jake Sullivan as a US national security advisor. Sullivan is undoubtedly the last one President Erdogan hoped would occupy this sensitive position, and his approach to the US policy in Turkey and Syria appears to be in complete contrast to the policies of the outgoing president.
Jack Sullivan is known for his repeated criticism of the Qatari role in supporting terrorist groups, and his conviction that the US did not do anything to encourage the departure of Bashar Assad, which prompted Assad to kill hundreds of thousands of Syrians and displace millions. Sullivan has also added that “we should have done more to get the regime to leave.”
But more importantly, Sullivan’s approach to resolving the Kurdish issue in northern Kurdistan (Kurdish areas in Turkey) and Syria is based on the necessity for Turkey to understand the desire of the Syrian Kurds for a kind of autonomy in a way that does not tolerate any threat to Turkish national security, provided that Turkey opens up internally, and to revive the peace process with the PKK. This is what guarantees peace in the region.
The chances of returning to the negotiating table now seem great and encouraging, provided that the Kurds in western Kurdistan (Kurdish areas in Syria) and the north realize that the next four years are the best for their cause and they must have the utmost wisdom in dealing with developments.