US to reevaluate presence in Syria, increase pressure on Iraq: Former US official

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Former United States assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs stated on Thursday that the US might acquiesce to Turkey’s request to leave Syria and draw Iraq into the “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, but resume “conditioned” support to the Kurdistan Region.

During a discussion on US foreign policy and its regional engagement in the Middle East at the Erbil Forum 2025, David Schenker noted that US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is largely defined by “transactionalism.” This approach may result in “downgraded US involvement in the Middle East” and a focus on “deal-making” in the region instead.

Schenker addressed the deployment of some 2,500 US troops in Iraq and another 850 in Syria, stating that Trump views these forces as part of “forever wars,” which he vowed to end during his electoral campaign.

Describing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the “Trump whisperer,” Schenker noted that Erdogan had phoned Trump to convince him that “Turkey can play the US role in Syria,” urging Washington “to pull out.” He explained that Turkey sees “Syria as a sphere of influence” and is willing to “take up the US’s role” in the country, including in routing out remnants of the Islamic State (ISIS).

Schenker also referenced Trumps’ stance, stating that “he's not interested in being involved in Syria” and views such a move as a mistake. However, he suggested that shaping Syria’s future might be a task Trump “is delegating it to the Europeans.”

LIVE: An Interview on US Foreign Policy and its Regional Engagement in the Middle East under Donald Trump with David Schenker, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. #ErbilForum25 https://t.co/SV8S6CID6k

— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) February 27, 2025

The following is the transcrip of the interview:

Roj Ali Zala, Rudaw journalist: Thank you, Shahyan, for that introduction. For those who may have difficulty understanding Kurdish, my name is Rosh Zala. I'm a Rudow journalist, and I'm pleased to be joined by Honorable David Schenker, former Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. As you've noticed, there's a lot of interest in understanding what the next four years of President Trump's term may look like for the Middle East in terms of US foreign policy. So let me begin by asking, are there any indications, or based on the few statements that we've had so far, based on the administration staff picks, do we know what direction the U.S. foreign policy under Trump may look like? Are we going to see a departure from the first term or a repeat of the kind of reactive and transactional foreign policy that we saw in the first term?


Schenker: Well, thank you. It's good to be with you today. Thanks for having me. Let me start by just citing a few characteristics of our Trump administration policy and foreign policy, one, as you said, is transactionalism. The other would be the predilection to try and make deals. Finally, and then perhaps most importantly, or maybe not finally, the disruptive nature of the approach.


And finally, I think a real strongly held aversion to war–very opposed to U.S. military action. I think there will be some, I think, consistency with the last administration, but I think many of these tendencies, many of these characteristics will be accentuated. By that I mean Trump and the MAGA group, and this will be more MAGA certainly than the first mandate, will be really against these forever wars, long-standing U.S. troop deployments. In terms of transactionalism, there'll be less traditional American altruistic approach, more transactional approach looking for distinct benefits to the U.S. from any particular U.S. action in the region. So I think there will be less engagement, less involvement. There will be a real heightened focus on US domestic politics that is anti-immigration, less of a focus on the U.S. traditional role abroad as the indispensable ally.


Right, but so based, I mean, the amount of focus that the U.S. administration, the next administration is going to give to foreign policy, are there, what are some of the priorities? Are we seeing the Middle East being one of the priorities, or China and Russia and other issues are taking more of that priority?


Right now, listen, the administration came in. They were the first administration. President Obama had talked about it a lot, the pivot to China.
I think in the last Trump administration, they really did it. And part of that was because of COVID. We were forced to focus on China and the pernicious role they play in the world and the nature of being the primary major strategic challenge for the United States. Trump II is all about the pivot to Asia. It seems right now that the focus is distinctly on the Middle East, and that may be the case for a little while longer. But I really do think that in terms of the major issues that we're looking at right now at this conference–Syria, Iraq–you're going to see downgraded US involvement, less intense engagement, less willingness to devote troops, certainly less interest in humanitarian development assistance. He will be focused here in the Middle East on deal-making. Deal-making by enlarging the Abraham Accords, if possible, with Saudi Arabia. And this, we can talk about this more, but this may cause some issues of irritation between the administration and Netanyahu in Israel, but certainly a Saudi deal, and most importantly, as we heard in the last panel, I think a movement toward getting back into a nuclear deal with Iran rather than a military confrontation. 


Right, maybe briefly, but when it comes to the, in the last Erbil forum, you actually alluded to the areas of continuity between the first Trump administration and then the Biden administration. So now Maybe we revisit that question. What areas of continuity, or the biggest area of continuity between the previous administration and the second Trump presidency do you see? And what are the biggest areas of change?


Well, I think Iran will be one that there is an effort to get back into a deal. The difference between Biden and Trump, of course, is that Trump is going to try and get back into a deal and a negotiation with Iran through a maximum pressure campaign. Another, I think, consistency between the administrations will be, of course, the support for Israel. I think Biden was beaten in many ways over a perceived somehow lack of support for Israel. I think he was among the most pro-Israel presidents in history, and I expect that to remain consistent. Beyond that, in the region, I think there will be even less interest in developments in Syria than there was in the Biden administration, in the Trump administration, and regrettably, I think, less interest in Iraq.


Right. So actually, to narrow the conversation down a little bit to Iraq and Syria, the Trump administration is now using heavy pressure on Iraq to push Iraq to resume Kurdish oil export, including threats of sanctions. What does this tell us about Trump's approach to Iraq versus the Kurdistan region?


Listen, I think there is within Washington, within both Congress and within the administration, an enormous amount of support and empathy for the KRG. That, I think, will benefit the KRG in many ways, in particular if there is a downsizing of the U.S. military presence in Iraq, there will likely be residual force remaining in the KRG. There also, as there will be, enormous downsizing in U.S. military financing around the world, I think the $20 million per month to the Peshmerga will likely continue, although it may be conditioned in some ways. It is already conditioned but not enforced on the unification of the Peshmerga forces. For the rest of Iraq, I think we're going to get back to where we were in Trump 1, which is starting to hold Iraq to a higher standard. And if you go back and read from, I think it was February 4th, the President's Presidential Security Memorandum, he talks about Iraq as being a priority, a priority in the maximum pressure campaign against Iran, closing off all routes for the illicit use of dollars, smuggling a source of cash for the regime in Tehran. Likewise, there will be moves against smuggling and an effort to compel the government of Iraq in Baghdad to stop providing safe haven support to Iranian proxies like the Hashd.


Right. But does this tell us anything in terms of how President Trump is viewing Iraq now? Does it tell us anything about, is President Trump viewing Iraq as an actor that needs to be coerced into certain demands that the U.S. basically is having in the region? 


You know, I don't think President Trump gives a great deal of thought to Iraq.
Iraq is part of the maximum pressure campaign for him. It is a country, and if you read Joe Wilson's tweets, which I'm sure you're reading, many people here are reading them with great interest. It is a country thatI think for good reasons, has to balance its relationship between the United States and Iran. And yet, the government, of course, in Baghdad, pays 338,000 members of the Hashd salaries, including several US-designated terrorist organizations. I think that's going to be a problem for the Trump administration.


Right. With the Trump administration's freeze on financial or foreign aid and orders to the Pentagon to prepare for budget cuts, how likely is it that the Trump administration will keep the defense appropriation Act unchanged or unchallenged? We know that the fiscal year for 2025 allocates about $528 million to the Peshmerga forces, the SDF, Iraqi Security Forces. So will that remain?


So you're talking about Syria or Iraq? So I think the $430 million or so in FMF and other economic aid to Iraq is going to be on the chopping block. Some of it may remain, but I don't think President Trump will consider that a priority, something that has benefited the United States. Now, by the way, when I say this, I want to say that I disagree. I think it's very much in the U.S. interests to remain engaged in Iraq for any number of reasons, not all of them related to Iran. But I think that the President will view not only the 2,500 troops in Iraq but the 850 that were in Syria, now 2,000 since the revolution. I think he'll view these troops as part of forever wars, something that the president has said he was elected to end. And so I would expect that the president will get a perfect phone call from Erdogan. Erdogan is somewhat of, in my view, the Trump whisperer. He will convince the president that Turkey can take up the U.S. role in Syria, can provide security, can secure a whole camp, can fight ISIS there in cooperation with the new government of Syria, and the United States will likely withdraw its troops and later downsize its presence in Iraq. 


Right. Actually, I do want to come to that, but before we get to that question, I do want to ask another question. Now transitioning to more serious, specific questions. Kurds have lost 15, over 15,000 lives in fighting ISIS under American leadership. On Tuesday, the Syrian national conference concluded without a single Kurdish party being invited to the conference. In response, there was a joint statement by 35 Kurdish parties where they were expressing concern over the direction that Damascus is taking.

Several declarations were made. None addressed Kurdish rights or even acknowledged their existence in the country. So the question is, how will the U.S. position itself in response to this kind of exclusion of the Kurds? Do you think Washington may address this kind of exclusion or do you think it will remain indifferent to it? 


Well, let me start off and say that there's been much hand-wringing about Mohammed al-Shara and the future of Syria, whether this is a member of ISIS or Al-Qaeda. To be sure, in Idlib for eight and a half years, al-Shada actually fought ISIS and Al-Qaeda. He has said many things that are the right things about the future of Syria being tolerant, and pluralistic, no implementation of Sharia law, he may end up eventually to be repressive.

And I still think that's better than the Assad regime, which murdered half a million of its own civilians and forced six to 10 million Syrian, mostly Sunni Muslims, into exile abroad. I think that the murder resembles genocide and the exile resembles ethnic cleansing. And so I think that Shara will be better.


This conference was organized, there was a day and a half of notice. It was poorly organized, there was poor attendance, and it showed really a lack of organization and forethought, and I hope they are more conscientious in the future. What I would say. is that this was a pre-conference to the actual constitutional conference. And I think the international community should be focused on pushing al-Shara and others to do better moving forward once again. This may turn out to be a repressive, non-tolerant regime. The Assad regime was repressive, intolerant, and also murderous. I wish I could have a higher standard of what my expectation will be. But I think the West really has to keep a close eye on the trajectory of this. And one final point, President Trump said he's not interested in being involved in Syria. I think this is a mistake. I think the United States should be engaged in helping to shape the future direction of Syria, to push them in a positive direction that is an inclusive society where all the components of Syria play a role and their rights are safeguarded. But I think so far we're seeing that this is just one area where Trump doesn't want to get involved and he's delegating it to the Europeans. 


Right. Now, given all the radical changes in the past year or so in the Middle East, Is it any more feasible for President Trump to actually go through with withdrawing troops from Syria? I hear a lot of people saying, well, we do need American troops in Syria for multiple reasons. But also, is it a dichotomous choice? Is it either or? Or is there some middle ground that can be worked out?


Well, listen, policy is people, and we still have to see who the people are in the right positions in Washington. We know Joel Rayburn will be coming to be Assistant Secretary of Near East Affairs. We'll see how involved the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, wants to be in this issue. The Department of Defense as well, I don't see them wanting to remain in Syria. But listen, Erdogan, the Turks, want to play this role in Syria. They want the United States out. They see Syria as a sphere of influence. This, as you know, is not going to be particularly good for the Kurds. Right. And that is actually the dichotomy because Washington supports the Kurds. And yet Trump has this relationship with Erdogan that is probably going to mitigate toward a greater Turkish role in Syria. And the bigger the role that the Turks play in Syria, by the way, the bigger the role the Israelis are going to play because these two states, while one is a major non-NATO ally and the other is a NATO partner, these two states are not getting along particularly well.


I'm actually glad that you mentioned that because, as you mentioned, withdrawing troops from Syria is not just between Turkey and the U.S. and other regional actors. We've seen high diplomatic traffic between Saudi Arabia and the new authorities in Damascus. U.S. legitimized its presence in Syria by basically countering Iran, fighting ISIS. 


The United States has never had the authority to be in Syria. 


Not officially, correct, not officially. But now the Iran factor is kind of almost gone. Fighting ISIS, Turkey is proposing or suggesting that Turkey can lead a coalition to take over that role. But other regional actors, Saudi Arabia for example, how they may react to an expanded role of Turkey in Syria? 


Yeah, I think this is why we're seeing the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and other states in the region getting involved. They too are concerned about perceived Turkish expansionist tendencies. And I think al-Shara himself, listen, is no doubt Islamist, to some flavor of Islamist, whether this is now, you know, Al-Qaeda light or Muslim Brotherhood. And that clearly is an ideological fellow traveler with Turkey, which is essentially highly sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood trend. And so there is, I think, a natural role or relationship between the government in Damascus and Turkey, but this is a grave concern. Syria is the center of the Fertile Crescent, the center of the region, it's bordering on Jordan, an American ally, it's bordering on Lebanon, on Turkey, on Israel, and Iraq, not least among them. It can do a great deal of damage if this country doesn't turn out to be a government that is effectively controlling its territory. There will be spillover and all sorts of regional consequences. Nobody wants to see that.


I'm wondering...

I mean, it could go the way of Libya, right? There's nothing that says that Turkey, that Syria is going to be able to, that al-Shara is going to be able to bring all these militias under his control and succeed at this state-building endeavor.


Right. Actually, I have time for one more last question, and I want to go back to the foreign aid and President Trump's focus on stopping foreign aid, especially when it comes to the situation of al-Hol camp. We know in the past encouraging other countries to repatriate their citizens from al-Hol hasn't worked very well. There are still over or close to 40,000 individuals linked to ISIS. So with the US administration signaling that it cannot fund Al-Hol camp, what other alternative strategies can Washington pursue to prevent the camp from becoming a ground for ISIS recruitment? 


Yeah, listen, I think we're very early on into the Trump administration. They've frozen all funding. I think they have, in effect, taken a sledgehammer to the problem of US spending when you really need a scalpel, right? And so they cut the CDC, right? So we're not investigating Ebola in Africa anymore. We're not investigating outbreaks of measles or bird flu in the United States. They had to hire these people back. They fired the people in charge of nuclear weapons safety in the United States. They had to go rehire them. And this is another one of those cases where they have cut funding that help secure. The people for the security are covered by Defense Department funding, right? There are still guards that are being paid. But the social services and other services, well, they can't have stopped. And this in the long term is going to create a large problem. And my hope is that Secretary of State Rubio will see this as something important and advocate for its return. Otherwise, there will have to be other states, including perhaps Europe, that actually step up and cover this expense. Listen, United States does an awful lot around the world. As a percentage, maybe not as much as many other countries, but as a gross amount significantly more than any other country in the world. In terms of humanitarian security, we have enormous responsibilities and enormous debt. And this administration is committed, for better or for worse, to getting down the debt and that means another principle of trump foreign policy is burden sharing that our partners are going to have to do more. And while I disagree with much of the approach so far, I think burden sharing is right. I think it is not beholden. The United States is not responsible for funding every mission around the world, particularly missions where other states are going to be more directly affected and have the wherewithal to cover these expenses.


You worked at the State Department, removing this important diplomatic tool. Does it worry you that other actors may try to make use of it to regain a foothold?


Yes, this is a key question for the Trump administration and for the United States going forward. We have a very small tool, a small tool bag of foreign policy tools. We've got the diplomatic approaches where we can and convince states to do things. We've got the military instrument. We can threaten you. We can attack you. We can drone you. We've got the economic coercive instrument. This is the Treasury sanctions, which are crippling. Right? Incredibly difficult for many people once they get sanctioned. And then we've got what is the incentivizing device, which is economic humanitarian assistance. And I think that this is what traditionally among other things, has set the United States aside or differentiated us from other states. We have been historically incredibly altruistic. If you take that tool out of the toolbox, I think over time it will dramatically increase our ability to convince adversaries and partners to move in our policy direction. I'm not particularly worried about countries like China filling that vacuum. China doesn't give money away. China loans money at predatory rates that cause debt traps. You could just ask Jordan about that or Djibouti.