{"id":2435,"date":"2019-10-23T08:46:27","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T12:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=2435"},"modified":"2019-10-23T08:46:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T12:46:32","slug":"take-the-cannoli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2019\/10\/23\/take-the-cannoli\/","title":{"rendered":"Take the Cannoli"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cLeave the Gun; Take the Cannoli\u201d \u2013 Peter Clemenza, after a murder, from the movie:\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>The Godfather<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not Really Leaving Syria<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In didn\u2019t take many US forces to keep Turkey from attacking America\u2019s former allies, the Syrian Kurds.  But in a single phone call, President Donald Trump agreed to pull those forces out, leaving the Kurds open to Turkish attack.  While Mr. Trump claimed,  \u201c\u2026he was bringing our soldiers home,\u201d in fact he simply shuffled them back into Iraq, a country that doesn\u2019t want them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except, that he didn\u2019t even do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now some US forces are staying in Northern Syria.  And it\u2019s not from some \u201cregret\u201d at abandoning the Syrian Kurds to Erdogan, Assad, and Putin.  While alliance and loyalty seem to have little meaning to President Trump, what does attract his attention is money, and oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So now some US forces will remain in the eastern part of Northern Syria.  They won\u2019t be protecting the Kurds, but they will be protecting oil fields, a dark rewrite of Clemenza\u2019s line:  \u201cLeave the Kurds, take the oil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s About Oil<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Why are we concerned?  According to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper (not Esperanto as the President tweeted)  \u201cA purpose of those forces, working with the SDF, is to deny access to those oil fields by ISIS and others who may benefit from revenues that could be earned.\u201d (Foreign Policy<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wait \u2013 the President has said, over and over and over: “…ISIS is 100% DEFEATED, AND I DID IT!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0So if they are 100% defeated, why do we need to leave troops to protect oil fields?\u00a0\u00a0Are we protecting them from ISIS, or are we protecting them from Syrian forces under Assad\u2019s control?\u00a0\u00a0Or perhaps we are protecting them from Russian forces, \u201chelping\u201d Assad.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oil is a major distraction for Mr. Trump.\u00a0\u00a0Throughout his recent political career he complained that the US should never have gone to war in Iraq.\u00a0\u00a0But he was quick to add, that once we did, we should have taken their oil revenues.\u00a0\u00a0And of course, the President is a close friend with the leaders of a major oil-producing nation, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.\u00a0\u00a0He has even sent US troops to defend Saudi from Iran, at Saudi expense, of course.\u00a0\u00a0This is still true, despite the fact that the United States is supposedly energy independent and even exporting petroleum (Washington Post<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The President\u2019s fixation on oil may be the trait that his personal allies used to try to convince him to change his decision on Syria.  Lindsey Graham literally took a map with him to the White House, pointing out exactly where the oil fields are located.  It made Mr. Trump take pause, and re-think at least a portion of his plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the Motherland<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But the President\u2019s \u201cfriend\u201d Vladimir Putin took almost no time at all to fill the vacuum created by the US troop withdrawal.\u00a0\u00a0Not only is he interested in oil, but even more in making Russia the major player in the Middle East.\u00a0\u00a0This week he and Turkish President Erdogan redrew the map of Syria, creating a northern border zone patrolled by Russian and Turkish troops, and a neighboring zone controlled by the Syrian Assad government.\u00a0\u00a0The careful \u201cceasefire\u201d negotiated by Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo was erased, just like the US military presence in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the hapless Syrian Kurds are left to make the best deal they can with the new power players.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia is fighting a campaign to regain the stature of the old Soviet Empire.\u00a0\u00a0Just as the US stood in their way in the Cold War, the US controlled their expansion in the current era.\u00a0\u00a0But the isolationist Trump Administration took a course allowing Russia to rebuild their influence.\u00a0\u00a0Russia is no longer worried about US reaction in Ukraine, nor are they concerned about what the US now does in the Middle East.\u00a0\u00a0And they are undermining other democracies throughout the world, attacking them through the fundamental process that makes democracies work:\u00a0\u00a0elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The election of more authoritarian regimes in Hungary, Italy and Brazil, the Brexit decision in the United Kingdom, and Russia\u2019s continuing involvement in Syria:\u00a0\u00a0all are part of a greater plan of increased Russian influence.\u00a0\u00a0Just a couple years ago, hundreds of Russian mercenaries fighting in Syria were killed when they attacked US forces.\u00a0\u00a0Now the US has conceded our influence there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Choses<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In the Godfather, <\/em>Clemenza was a prime lieutenant to the Godfather himself, Don Corleone.  He supposedly died of a heart attack cooking for the \u201cfellas,\u201d but as one of the Corleone assassins said, \u201c\u2026that was no heart attack.\u201d   The United States is abandoning its role in the world, using the phrase \u201cAmerica First\u201d to cover for isolationism.  Is it a coincidence that the Russians supported the election of this administration?  What can the rest of the world do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leave the Americans, take the Russians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cLeave the Gun; Take the Cannoli\u201d \u2013 Peter Clemenza, after a murder, from the movie:\u00a0\u00a0The Godfather Not Really Leaving Syria In didn\u2019t take many US forces to keep Turkey from attacking America\u2019s former allies, the Syrian Kurds.  But in a single phone call, President Donald Trump agreed to pull those forces out, leaving the Kurds open … Continue reading “Take the Cannoli”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTake the Cannoli : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The United States left the Kurds, but kept the oil in Syria. 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