Michael Doran on America’s Allies and America’s Enemies
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.6 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2019
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On December 19th, President Trump announced that the United States would withdraw its troops from Syria, |
| 0:14.0 | a nation still smoldering from civil war, a close ally, proxy client of Iran, |
| 0:19.7 | and a key piece of the Shia land bridge that brings Iran |
| 0:23.2 | to the shores of the Mediterranean. Why did President Trump, who has so consistently opposed |
| 0:28.8 | Iranian hegemony, announce this withdrawal? What does it mean for Israeli security, for the |
| 0:35.1 | U.S.-Israel relationship, and for America's role in the Middle East. |
| 0:38.8 | This week, we look at President Trump's Syria announcement as an entree into the larger |
| 0:43.3 | strategic picture of the Trump administration, how they're thinking about the application |
| 0:47.6 | of American power, America's allies and America's enemies. In January 2019, Michael Duran |
| 0:54.1 | wrote the featured essay in Mosaic, |
| 0:56.7 | entitled, The Strategy Washington is Pursuing in the Middle East is the only strategy worth pursuing. |
| 1:02.5 | That essay provoked strong reaction from Israel and America, and it's our subject in this |
| 1:07.5 | episode of the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. If you enjoy this |
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| 1:32.5 | To learn more about our work at Tikva, you can visit our website, tickfa fund.org, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. |
| 1:39.8 | Here now is my conversation with Hudson Institute Senior Fellow, former National Security Official, |
| 1:45.7 | and author of Ike's Gamble, Michael Duran. |
| 1:48.7 | Mike Duran, welcome back to the Tickfoot podcast. |
| 1:51.3 | Great to be here. |
| 1:52.1 | So what's the argument of the piece? |
... |
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