Trump Gets It Wrong, Very Wrong

In early March, I wrote the below piece on how President Donald Trump ultimately decided correctly to stand by the hardened Kurdish warriors that shed the lion’s share of blood in the defeat of ISIS.

Trump Gets It Right, with Collateral Damage

As with almost anything Trump, that policy victory was fleeting. Sunday night, under pressure from Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump removed American soldiers from advanced positions that protected Kurdish-held territory in northern Syria from Turkish forces. Just hours later, Turkey began offensive operations in the region. The level of Turkish engagement in northern Syria is unknown, but it is a near certainty that the Turks are desirous of undermining Kurdish self-rule in large swaths of northern Syria.

Trump’s decision – which is only explicable if you accept that the Kurds’ lack of involvement at Normandy should somehow impact our relationship with them 75 years later – undermines not only hard-fought Kurdish gains in greater Kurdistan but also the fragile peace in much of Syria. Even Trump-supporting GOP politicians, such as Mitch McConnell, have expressed strong reservations regarding the decision to cede parts of northern Syria to Turkish influence and control. Dick Cheney’s daughter, Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, accused the Trump Administration of “abandoning” the Kurds and giving Turkey a “gift.”

Bottom line, the defeat of ISIS and much of the fragile peace in Syria is owed to the valiance of the Kurds, and the support they have received from a small but highly-skilled cohort of American special forces. Leaving the Kurds, despite their impressive and successful service of American interests for years (service that has included resistance to Saddam Hussein, the defeat of ISIS, and the end of much of the Syrian civil war), to suffer a bloody fate at the hands of a Turkish dictator is not only a betrayal of a current US ally but also a message to future potential allies that American support might be removed in a time of need. Such diplomacy, or lack thereof, undermines the American interest.