Eastern Syria now presents a recurring challenge and crises. Rarely in history has Washington had to keep two ostensible allies at bay, while trying to achieve a third goal. Additionally. Washington has trouble moving “rapidly” on any major issue in the Middle East and it is unclear how it can accomplish the safe zone concept. The United States doesn’t want to make any major investments in Syria and it has few allies who are willing to invest in the country. Efforts to get Riyadh, London, Berlin or Paris to do more have generally resulted in little outcome.

This has created a constant, slow-burning crises in eastern Syria that has allowed Turkey to have a lot of leverage and the United States also faces pressure from Iran and Russia. The White House wants to end the U.S. role in Syria. That might have been possible if Turkey and the SDF had amicable relations and all the United States needed to do was complete the training of 110,000 security forces and then wrap up operations. But the continued existence of ISIS sleeper cells, and ten thousand ISIS fighters who have been detained, including two thousand foreigners who often can’t be repatriated, presents a major multiyear challenge. With Ankara constantly pressuring Washington, including its heightened rhetoric and a slow drift towards working more closely with Moscow, the United States will continue to face a cycle of crises, threats, compromise in eastern Syria.

Seth J. Frantzman is a Jerusalem-based journalist who holds a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the executive director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis and a writing fellow at Middle East Forum. He is the author of After ISIS: America, Iran and the Struggle for the Middle East (forthcoming Gefen Publishing). Follow him on Twitter at @sfrantzman.

Image: Reuters