Did Trump Just Backstab Our Kurdish Allies for Turkey?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/opinion/trump-turkey-kurds-syria.html

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What just happened: In a rare feat, President Trump managed to elicit criticism from his own party on Monday following his decision to withdraw troops from areas of Syria bordering Turkey. In doing so, he also gave his blessing for Turkey to launch a military offensive against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which have proved America’s most important allies in fighting the Islamic State there. Even Senator Lindsey Graham, who has become one of the president’s most ardent defenders, called the move “a disaster in the making.”

The stateless Kurds have sacrificed, by the Syrian Democratic Forces’ estimates, 11,000 lives and are guarding around 10,000 imprisoned Islamic State fighters. But Turkey, a NATO ally that sees the Kurdish forces as terrorists tied to separatist groups and a threat to its national security, wants them off its border. Mr. Trump, who has sought to draw down the military presence in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, has now tipped the balance of the United States’ regional loyalties in Turkey’s favor.

The debate: Does President Trump’s withdrawal mark a betrayal of indispensable allies or a needed end to endless war?

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Mr. Trump announced his decision as an act of military restraint, long overdue now that ISIS has been substantially weakened. He tweeted:

The United States was supposed to be in Syria for 30 days, that was many years ago. We stayed and got deeper and deeper into battle with no aim in sight. … The Kurds fought with us, but were paid massive amounts of money and equipment to do so. They have been fighting Turkey for decades. I held off this fight for almost 3 years, but it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home.

The Turkish government, naturally, has backed Mr. Trump’s decision for allowing it to “clear” the region of “terrorists.” Carlotta Gall reported for The Times that the Free Syrian Army, the militia born out of the 2011 uprising against Syria’s dictatorial president, Bashar al-Assad, also welcomed the prospect of a Turkish invasion as an opportunity to reclaim its native country.

In Congress, Senator Rand Paul, a self-described libertarian and proponent of military restraint, was nearly alone in voicing support for the president. “I stand with @realDonaldTrump today as he once again fulfills his promises to stop our endless wars and have a true America First foreign policy,” he tweeted.

Tucker Carlson, in characteristically nationalist language, endorsed the course of action as well, asserting on his Fox News show Monday night that the “apoplectic” reaction in Washington had cast into relief the bipartisan neoconservative consensus that prizes waging war above all else:

Of countless decisions Donald Trump has announced via Twitter, you’d think this would be the least controversial of all. … For once, Americans are coming home from a Middle Eastern tar pit, rather than staying forever, and we ought to be celebrating that.

Even some of the president’s critics lamented statements of disapproval from both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell. Emma Ashford, a research fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, tweeted:

The most depressing part of this administration: Trump’s willingness to consider dialing down America’s military interventions is routinely met with more bipartisan criticism than his violation of constitutional norms or the rule of law.

Many at home and abroad have condemned Mr. Trump’s decision as a cruel abandonment of faithful allies in need. As Ben Hubbard reported for The Times, the prospect of a Turkish military invasion has sparked a sense of both deep fear and indignation among Syrian Kurds.

“There were assurances from the United States of America that it would not allow any Turkish military operations against the region,” the Syrian Democratic Forces spokesman, Kino Gabriel, said in a television interview, adding that the “statement today was a surprise and we can say that it is a stab in the back for the S.D.F.”

The Syrian Democratic Coalition, the political wing of the S.D.F., said in a statement:

Our brave men and women with the Syrian Democratic ­Forces have just won a historic victory over the ISIS “caliphate,” a victory announced by President Trump and celebrated across the world. To abandon us now would be tragic.

In the United States, people across the political spectrum joined Lindsey Graham in sharing the S.D.F.’s sentiment. “What the U.S. just did in quitting Northern Syria and abandoning one of our strongest allies the Kurds sends a chilling message to would-be allies around the world,” the conservative commentator S.E. Cupp said. “Don’t bother committing to us, because we aren’t committed to you.”

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut tweeted along similar lines:

In The Times, Ryan Gingeras and Nick Danforth explain that Turkey’s military strategy is tied to an effort to forcibly resettle at least one million Syrian refugees within a “safe zone” along the Turkish-Syrian border, in part to dilute the Kurds’ demographic claims to statehood. This, they write, is a cynical and dangerous ploy:

Whatever part of the region Turkey eventually seeks control over, it will face an ethnically mixed, substantially Kurdish population that does not want to have its territory appropriated for Ankara’s resettlement plans. … deliberately pitting two populations against each other is a perfect recipe for enduring ethnic tensions — tensions that will continue to cause instability even after fighting between Turkish and local forces subsides.

The specific circumstances of the situation have given cause for skepticism even among those on the left who oppose armed intervention in general. Stephen Wertheim, a historian at Columbia who has called in The Times for the United States to end its pursuit of global military dominance, noted that the conditions of Mr. Trump’s troop withdrawal mean merely exchanging one country’s military presence in northern Syria for another’s. “Just on his own terms,” he tweeted, “Trump is not ending any endless wars but simply ordering U.S. military personnel to move out of the way for Turkish forces to enter.”

Mr. Wertheim’s comments followed those of Senator Bernie Sanders, who said:

I have long believed the U.S. must responsibly end our military interventions in the Middle East. But Trump’s abrupt announcement to withdraw from northern Syria and endorse Turkey’s incursion is extremely irresponsible. It is likely to result in more suffering and instability.

And The Times’s editorial board writes that a Turkish offensive may create an opportunity for a weakened ISIS to rebound:

If Kurds in Syria have to defend themselves against the Turks, they are likely to shift their forces from the fight against ISIS, including the guarding of about 10,000 ISIS prisoners now in Kurdish detention centers …. What ally could look at the United States now and see a stalwart partner — and what foe could look at it and fear a determined adversary?

Critics and defenders of the president’s decision abound, but neither seem quite as voluble when it comes to imagining what a truly responsible withdrawal, one that honors the United States’ contradictory alliance with both Turkey and the Kurds, might look like. Mr. Graham, for one, has threatened legislation to impose sanctions on Turkey if it invades.

On that front, however, Mr. Trump has his own plans. “Just to reiterate,” he tweeted in a follow-up on Monday afternoon, “if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey.”

Here’s what Times readers are saying about Mr. Trump’s announcement. Do you have a point of view we missed? Email us at debatable@nytimes.com. Please note your name, age and location in your response, which may be included in the next newsletter.

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On the ground in Syria, Anne Speckhard reports that Kurdish military leaders have been preparing for Mr. Trump’s betrayal for a long time. [The Daily Beast]

Jon Schwarz writes that the United States has now betrayed the Kurds at least eight times over the past 100 years. [The Intercept]

Christian Britschgi writes that Mr. Graham’s criticism of Mr. Trump’s Syria policy “says a lot more about the senator’s appetite for endless war than the failures of an imagined noninterventionist foreign policy.” [Reason]

Ruby Mellen gives a brief history of the Syrian Democratic Forces. [The Washington Post]

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