WarSclerotic

The Trump administration is developing a new ‎strategy for pushing Iran’s military and its proxy ‎forces out of war-torn Syria, White House officials ‎told NBC News on Tuesday.‎

According to the report, the new strategy would not ‎involve direct U.S. military operations ‎against Iranian soldiers or Iranian proxies in Syria, but ‎would underscore political and diplomatic ‎efforts to force Iran out of Syria by squeezing it ‎financially. ‎

Sources familiar with the plan said the U.S. would ‎also impose sanctions on Russian and Iranian ‎companies working on reconstruction in Syria.‎

‎”There’s a real opportunity for the U.S. and its ‎allies to make the Iranian regime pay for its ‎continued occupation of Syria,” Mark Dubowitz, chief ‎executive at the Foundation for Defense of ‎Democracies, told NBC.‎

The report said U.S. defense officials ‎had expressed concern that an increased focus on Iran and ‎the presence of both militaries in Syria could pull ‎the U.S. closer into the conflict in Syria.

Legal experts said an expansion of the U.S. military mission in Syria ‎to directly target Iranian assets would put ‎it on the wrong side of the Authorization for Use of ‎Military Force Act passed by Congress in 2001. ‎

The act greenlighted the use of military ‎force against Islamic State terrorists in Syria but ‎limits U.S. action to targeting groups responsible ‎for the Sept. 11 attacks and their ‎associates.‎

‎”If the new strategy means opening the door to using ‎force against Iran or Iranian military forces in ‎Syria there needs to be a new Authorization for Use ‎of Military Force,” Yale Law School Professor Oona ‎Hathaway told NBC.‎

‎”Targeting Iran clearly falls outside the scope [of ‎the authorization] which only includes groups with ties to 9/11. ‎Iran doesn’t meet that test. It would be amazing if ‎‎[the Trump administration tries] to make the claim ‎that this falls under the current AUMF. That would be ‎stretching this AUMF way past its breaking point.”‎

An administration official said that since last year ‎Trump’s strategy on Syria has had four goals: ‎defeating Islamic State, deterring Syrian President Bashar ‎Assad from using chemical weapons, fostering a political ‎transition in Damascus, and curbing what he called “Iranian malign ‎influence in Syria so that it cannot threaten the ‎region.”