From Reagan to Obama, presidents have left office with “strategic regret” – will it be up to Biden or Trump to leave troops in Iraq and Syria?

US presidents often leave the White House expressing “strategic regret” over perceived foreign policy failures.

Lyndon Johnson it was haunted By war in Vietnam. Bill Clinton he regretted the failed intervention in Somalia and how “Blackhawk downwhich the incident contributed to his administration’s inaction in response to the Rwandan genocide. Barack Obama said the Libyan intervention was “worst mistake” of his presidency. And after 241 American service personnel died in the tragic bomb attack in 1983 on the Marine Barracks in Beirut, President Ronald Reagan called his decision to send troops to Lebanon “my best regret and my best sadness“

With the upcoming U.S. presidential election likely to put an end to the longer term White House ambitions of one in every of the last two occupants of the White House – Joe Biden and Donald Trump – one may ask whether either or each of them will experience similarly “strategic regret.”

As an authority on American foreign policy and grand strategy, I consider that if history is any guide, a possible answer can be found in the writings of each men decisions to maintain American troops in Syria and Iraq.

With branches in each countries – approx 900 in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq – face to face missile attacks from Iran-backed proxy servers recently, the United States may be on the verge of one other event just like the 1983 Beirut terrorist attack, a fact made much more obvious by the recent death three American soldiers in Jordan along the Syrian border.

Another Beirut?

The Middle East has entered an unstable period. The threat to U.S. personnel in the region comes in the shape of each the Islamic State, which is intent on striking Western targets, and an increased risk from a network of Iran-linked militants in search of to avenge what they see as U.S. complicity in Israel’s siege of Gaza.

If there have been an enormous attack on American forces, the occupant of the White House would face two conditions that made departing presidents feel strategic regret: the lack of American lives on their guard and the prospect of being drawn into an expanding war.

By historical standards in the Middle East, conditions may be ripe for strategic regret. Today’s situation in Iraq and Syria is in some ways eerily similar to the circumstances Reagan faced in Beirut, but potentially far more dangerous.

Like Lebanon, U.S. troops are in Iraq and Syria for secondary moderately than primary security purposes.

Soldiers in Lebanon in the early Eighties they were peacekeepers. They support in Iraq and Syria a clean-up mission against the threatened Islamic State group US national security ended with the collapse of the United States caliphate in 2019. According to the newest Pentagon reportthis threat stays extremely weak to the United States today.

As in Lebanon, today’s U.S. troops are also highly vulnerable due to their small numbers, hostile environment, and dependence on supply lines in Iraq, Turkey, and Kurdish forces. This makes them a simple goal for attack.

While Reagan was unaware of the high exposure of the US Marines in 1983, the danger facing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria today is abundantly clear. American forces faced greater than 160 missile attacks from Iran-backed proxies from mid-October 2023.

Apart from the attack in Jordan, US service members have already suffered serious injuries from rockets, including: dozens traumatic brain injuries. Iran said in April that the U.S. “must answer” with Israel killing three Iranian Quds Force generals in Syria this week, the prospects for more lethal attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria appear to be increasing.

Fostering pride

Some may consider this fear of “another Beirut” to be exaggerated. Finally, proxy attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria dropped for the reason that attack in Jordan in late January, which supplies the impression that deterrence is already working great American retaliatory attacks in February.

However, in this case too, history warns. Marine barracks from 1983 the bombing was preceded just a few months earlier by a smaller but still deadly bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut. In the silence that followed the embassy attack, Reagan officials failed to strategically properly rethink U.S. policy or consider troop reductions.

Instead, fueled in part by their determination to make the mission successful, they redoubled their efforts and took on a more aggressive role in the civil war in Lebanon.

It was a terrible decision. In short, the stagnation of violence currently going down in Iraq and Syria can fuel hubris and provide a dangerous sense of false security and determination to stay the course.

Like Lebanon – also Somalia under Clinton AND Vietnam under Johnson – shows that that is the essential condition for strategic regret.

If grief does spread to Iraq and Syria, there may be reason to consider that it may be even deeper for the present occupant of the White House than it was for Reagan in 1983. After the Beirut bombing, Reagan took advantage of the distraction Invasion of Grenada quietly withdraw US troops from Lebanon moderately than escalate military motion and risk additional US bloodshed.

If Biden or Trump, if he replaces the present occupant of the Oval Office in November, they might not have the luxurious of a Grenada-level distraction.

Rather, a highly partisan politics will take hold in Washington, in which the president may seek to avoid being perceived as weak and being criticized for doing too little. Critics Biden charges have already been brought I like this in connection with the attack in Jordan – this number will increase with the following mass event.

How research shows“You see, I told you so” is a robust rhetorical tool in such circumstances.

Ghosts of history

In response, Biden or Trump – how their predecessors – may feel pressure to “attack” militarily. However, anything an excessive amount of risks triggering a response that may lead to lasting and devastating effects.

For example, imagine a scenario in which the US president is provoked to strike Iran following repeated attacks by Tehran’s proxies on US soldiers. Iran in such a scenario he will have no alternative but to respond in nature.

The result would be expansion – and further US involvement – ​​in the Middle East conflict. And that is something that Americans generally consider I don’t need.

The majority of progressives, young voters AND Black Americans oppose the war. MAGA Republicans do too.

What’s more, it’s inevitable economic pain war would likely evaporate support at home and threaten America’s ability to devote resources and efforts elsewhere, especially in Asia and Europe.

None of that is inevitable; Presidencies don’t have to end in strategic regret. And like their predecessors, Biden and Trump would have a alternative. Presidents Johnson, Reagan, Clinton, and Obama selected the flawed options and regretted them. Their experiences and the specters of history now function a warning when it comes to American forces in Syria and Iraq. Perhaps this will result in fewer regrets.