Birds of a Feather
President Trump announced Wednesday, via tweet, that the United States was withdrawing troops from Syria. Two thousand American forces are there, fighting the remains of ISIS side by side with our allies from Iraq, the Kurds. There was no warning of his decision; not to the Defense Department and Secretary Mattis or General Dunford; not to the State Department and Secretary Pompeo; not to the Congress; and not to our allies. Secretary Mattis has resigned as a result.
The President has “declared victory” over ISIS, and is determined to leave. This is a time honored American tradition, starting with Nixon’s Vietnamization strategy and leading to Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” sign in Iraq. We don’t “win,” we find an “exit strategy.” We do seem to have ISIS on the ropes, estimates are that as many as three thousand ISIS fighters are left from the thirty-five thousand that began the year. Most American strategists see that they are near finished in Syria, though there are ISIS fighters in Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, and scattered areas throughout the world.
The President’s abrupt proclamation leave our allies flat-footed; particularly the Kurdish forces. The Kurds from Northern Iraq have proven to be most loyal, instrumental in winning the battles against ISIS in Iraq and continuing into Syria. They also are the strongest force in Iraq standing against Iran. We have served as “protection” for the Kurds from their enemies, particularly Turkey, who plans to exterminate them. By abandoning them, we are not only leaving them to the ISIS remains, but also to the assaults of Turkish and Iranian forces.
President Erdogan of Turkey sees the Kurds, not ISIS, as the biggest threat to his regime. For over a century there has been pressure from the large Kurdish minority in Eastern Turkey for more autonomy or even independence. The Turkish Kurds get support from their kinsmen in Northern Iraq, and Erdogan has continually moved to suppress them. With the US withdrawing, the Kurds are left caught between ISIS, the Assad regime forces in Syria, and the Turks.
President Putin of Russia has fully backed the Syrian forces led by Assad. Six years ago Assad was near disaster, caught in a civil war between his forces, reformers originally supported by the US, and ISIS. He has been willing to use chemical warfare and weapons of mass destruction on his own civilians. It was only with Russian backing that he was able to regain control of most of the country: with ISIS dwindling, the US and the Kurds are the only forces that stand in the way of his total control.
Ultimately the United States is the reason for the current situation in the Middle East. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the removal of the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein destabilized the region and empowered Iran. The US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 set the stage for the creation of ISIS, who conquered much of Syria and Iraq. The US was forced to return there to help Iraqi and Kurdish forces re-conquer Iraq and destroy ISIS. The forces now in Syria, as well as the five thousand remaining in Iraq, are serving that continuing mission.
There is an ongoing political controversy about whether the US should have invaded Iraq, and the steps we took once we did so. However, it does seem that this current strategy has been more effective, using a minimum number of US forces to stop ISIS and keep Iraq stable. With only a small number of ISIS forces left, it would seem reasonable to actually finish the job before we withdraw.
President Trump must be acting on the advice of Turkish President Erdogan; they spoke last week. Erdogan notified Trump that Turkey plans on waging a campaign against the Kurds. Trump’s own advisors, including National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary Mattis, have been unanimous for staying in Syria until ISIS is eliminated, and standing by our Kurdish allies. But the President has accepted the views of Erdogan and Putin over his own advisors. Now Erdogan is delaying his offensive, happy to wait until the US Forces withdraw.
Just yesterday the President asked for a plan for rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan. Again, on the surface that isn’t a bad thing; we have been fighting in Afghanistan for seventeen years and have little to show for it. But without consultation with NATO allies and provisions for sustaining the Afghan Army training mission, we are simply abandoning this post as well.
The US is continuing a policy of withdrawing from world leadership. From pressuring NATO to the Paris Accord, the US under President Trump is becoming self-absorbed. Certainly the ongoing internal political crisis is making it even easier to put “America First” and ignore the rest of the world’s problems. So it shouldn’t be a big surprise that we would withdraw from Syria or Afghanistan.
Finding ways to end US combat involvement is a generally good thing. The issue is: with the US so close to finishing off ISIS, wouldn’t it make more sense to complete that work and really be able to declare “mission accomplished?” And wouldn’t it make long-term sense to show some loyalty to those forces that have fought beside us?
With the current crisis in confidence in our own President, wouldn’t it be better if some of his own advisors agreed with his decision? And, of course, with the real concern that Trump might be in some way compromised by other nations, wouldn’t we all feel better if Trump’s buddies, Erdogan and Putin, didn’t think this was a good idea?
