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What About the Kurds?
So Turkey is bombing the Kurds in Syria. The Kurds in northern Iraq are (were?) very friendly to the U.S. Of course most of our allies fight for their own reasons and values and not as a favor to us. Same with the Syrian Kurds. Still, this looks like another case of our having a “that was then, this is now” attitude toward those we ‘befriend” in tough times. Memories of the fall of Saigon recur.
It is not our job to police the world or right every wrong. But what sort of deal have we made with Turkey and why? What is worth risking our credibility with those we will want to enlist for aid in the future?
Or is this anxiety just further proof that my neo-con impulses are madness, that Lindsay Graham knows nothing of geopolitics, that Bill Kristol still has no reason to mistrust Trump so much, and that I should just relax and be glad that “Hilary is not President” while the Donald plays 3d chess?
(If I had to say, I guess I would go with those who said more than a year ago that there are no good options in Syria, that we had been outfoxed by the Russians, etc. and that this is just the horrible, horrible price some must pay for Great Power mistakes.)
What say ye, Ricochetti?
Published in Foreign Policy
Read those articles Drew posted.
Oh, blergh! @garyrobbins, I think I figured out what you meant by this comment. Do you think that Trump signed (and the Senate ratified) a treaty for military assistance with Erdogan? That’s the only way your comment makes any sense.
If I’m correct, you’re terribly mistaken. I’m talking about NATO (North American Treaty Organization). Turkey joined in 1952. Nothing to do with Trump or Erdogan.
I don’t know that “helping the Syrian people” was ever really a goal. But then I’m a cynic about geopolitics.
I don’t think that there are any “good guys” in the region, at least not in significant numbers.
The Turks are bad. Assad’s Syrians are bad. ISIS was bad. The Kurds are bad. The Saudis are bad. The Yemenis are bad. The Sunnis in Iraq are bad, as are the Iraqi Shiites. Iran is bad.
Everybody except the Israelis are bad.
What exactly do folks expect? That if we allow Kurdish independence, a wonderful Jeffersonian democracy will spring up in a Muslim country? When has that ever happened? Every single Muslim country is a terrible, oppressive place. Turkey was the only one that appeared to be on a better path, for a while, and that has now failed.
It seems to me that the best way to deal with the situation is to make alliances of convenience, to deal with the greatest threat of the moment. We should have no illusions that any of these allies of convenience share our values, or are “good guys.” They do not and are not.
So, we’ve effectively used the Kurds to deal with ISIS. Now this creates problems with Turkey, because they’ve been dealing with a Kurdish terrorist insurgency for years.
I’m not a fan of Turkey, at the moment, but they are a key NATO ally, blocking Russia from extending its influence into the region. So we side with Turkey, at the moment — a moment that has lasted almost 70 years, and will probably continue to do so, because of the power of Russia.
I’m not an expert in any of this, but I object to those who think that this is an easy decision, and particularly to the strange fawning over the virtue of the Kurds. I’m not saying that they’re worse than anyone else, except ISIS, which did appear to take the horror to a new level. But I see no evidence that they are any better than the others.
Politics is about interests. If you think that this is anti-American, read Washington’s Farewell Address.
If you think Washington is anti-American, cancel your Ricochet membership and subscribe to the NY Times.
Indeed, and moreover Turkey is a NATO ally. We are going go to war against a NATO ally? How does that stack up as a “betrayal of an ally”, like Trump critics have been wailing about vis-a-vis the Kurds?
Yeah, the same people who have been crying for years about President Trump destroying NATO suddenly seem very eager to do it themselves.
The Syrian people are good. The Turkish people are good. The Kurdish people are good. The Saudi people are good. The Sunnis in Iraq are good. I am reluctant to vouch for the rest you list, but some are probably ok.
It is the governments and the religions that are bad.
And the Israeli government has not always been a good friend.
Thanks for this, Skyler. I think that this is the fundamental difference in world view. You take Rousseau’s position. I think that he is utterly wrong. People are not good. It is very difficult to be good.
But the Israelies are the exception?
Rousseau? Them’s fighting words! There are different meanings of the word “good.” In the context of Rousseau, he is wrong. Men as individuals are prone to do evil if not checked by society or ethics. It is rare that the good among us are the leaders in government or religion. Those of us that are good are usually not leaders in either category, and it is that opportunity to control others that encourages evil.
In the context of daily living and the hopes for the people, most people of any place are “good.” They want to be happy, comfortable, and generally treat their neighbors with courtesy. You have seen that everywhere in your life, and the people of Iraq et al. are no different in that respect. The vast majority of Iraqis are “good” people. I met a lot of them and they were nearly universally horrified by the violence being done there by radical islamics, most of whom were sociopaths from other countries, though to be sure they had plenty of their own as well.
Could this be pretext for expelling Turkey from NATO?
Is that a thing?
I’ve heard that idea floated.
They Really tribal and non western. They are pretty enlightenment cultures with technology they cannot understand or build. They are parasites on civilization.
That is bad.
I don’t think you’ve been there.
Not a real thing. There is no such mechanism in the North Atlantic Treaty.
The Kurds were underdogs; Americans are primed to root for underdogs – and more recently, to exalt victims.
But that’s not worth getting your neighbor’s kids killed over.
That is right. ISIS invaded their territory, they should take it back. We are helping them with equipment, training, fire support and medevac. Because defeating ISIS is in the strategic interests of the US and the other 70+ members of the coalition.
Not a proxy. Proxy’s don’t get direct fire support or medevac.
They are “Partner Forces” or “Partners”.
Unfortunately no. There is no provision for removing a member of NATO.
That is the premise we operated under when I was there. They are Partner forces and our agreement with them is very limited. Gave them weapons, other equipment (Bulldozers were very important), training, fire support, and medevac. Extremely limited promises with regard to anything in the future. Told them if they intended to use the weapons against the regime or our allies we would cut them off. Defended them against Russian aggression.
All they had to do was kill ISIS all day long.
So are we now to assume, based on the president’s decision, that defeating (or I guess continuing to contain) ISIS is no longer in the strategic interests of the US?
Dude, we moved some guys out of the way. We didn’t abandon the entire region. President Trump’s decision was to not use our forces as human shields.
This is not the first time in the last couple of years that Turkey has invaded Syria. They did it twice during my deployment (2017-2018), not counting airstrikes they launched to get the SDF leader. This is nothing new. In both those previous times our partner forces left the fight against ISIS and had to defend themselves against Turkey. We left them to it.
As to defeating, go read the campaign plan. Here is the link. Read the words regarding Phase 2, 3, and 4. Look at “Line of effort 2” Read LOE 3 as well.
Look and see if Mosul and Raqqah are currently in the hands of ISIS. That will tell what phase the operation is currently in (hint, not phase 2).
Lines of effort 2 and 3 does not require that we stay in Syria indefinitely. The coalition has improved from 74 nations when I was there to 81 today. ISIS hold 1% of the territory it used to hold.
All this latest invasion means is that the last few places in Syria where ISIS operates openly won’t be liberated for a while.
No big deal.
BTW, The coalition does not intend to liberate regime claimed areas from ISIS. Only liberating places where our partner forces are.
Here is a link to a really helpful map. Note that ISIS controls no territory in this map.
There’s an assumption that Turkey will be able to walk in. They haven’t even really won in the East of Turkey – why would they in Syria?
Wrt help:
And yet many people persist to this day in claiming Kissinger was some sort of brilliant man.
They were being Americans that the Turks wouldn’t dare risk killing. All they needed to do to protect the Kurds from the Turks was wear American uniforms.
This is precisely the kind of strategic incompetence I feared from a Trump presidency and it is the reason I didn’t vote for him. I was planning to vote for him this time but am rethinking that plan. Judges are nice, but Commander in Chief is at the top of the presidential job description and Trump has just failed catastrophically at that role.
Yeah, why don’t you go and be the soldier in that trip wire strategy? Your responsibility in such a mission is to stand there helplessly and hope no one kills you on a whim. Good luck.
Exactly how is ‘defending the Syrian Kurds’ of strategic significance for America? I think it makes more sense to learn why Turkey, a long-standing military ally, is doing what it is doing and why that action is allowed.
Erdogan’s Turkey is an ally in name only. Erdogan is a tyrant and an islamist and if his regime survives much longer, Turkey’s NATO membership probably won’t. No point in coddling him god knows. And certainly not at the expense of a people who’ve genuinely sacrificed for their alliance with the US for the last three decades.
And that is exactly the strategic significance. You make promises to an ally and then cavalierly stand aside as they’re subjected to a bloodbath at the hands of a monster like Erdogan and you quickly find that people aren’t so eager to do your bidding in the future. This impulsive, ignorant, short-sighted move will be a humanitarian disaster and a disaster for American credibility. It is exactly what people feared when we elected a president who neither knew nor cared anything about the wider world. I’d begun to hope these chickens wouldn’t come home to roost for Trump’s presidency, but it now appears they will. I know it’s unlikely given the obsessions of the left these days but I pray we can find somebody serious to occupy the oval office soon so that we can begin rebuilding from this catastrophe.
Breaking news: The US is going to deploy ~1,800 troops to the region. Can’t wait to hear how AkShUaLlY tHiS iS GoOd.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-11/u-s-expected-to-announce-new-troop-deployment-to-middle-east