Abandoning the Kurds Is
Not an Antiwar Move
Turkish armed forces drive
toward the Syrian border near Akçakale in Şanliurfa Province on October 8,
2019. BULENT KILIC / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
October
9, 2019
After a calamitous Sunday phone
call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Donald Trump announced the
withdrawal of U.S. forces from northern Syria, where they had been working with
Kurdish forces to curtail ISIS activities while blunting potential Turkish
military aggression. On Wednesday morning, Erdoğan took the opportunity granted
by Trump and unleashed an attack on those same Kurdish
forces.
Trump’s abrupt decision
to abandon those Kurdish forces to their
fate presents a two-pronged dilemma for progressives, peace activists and
everyone else who is tired of endless war.
The entire U.S. foreign policy
establishment has loudly denounced Trump’s announcement as
horrifying and dangerous. Congressional Republicans, eager to pretend they are
not glued to the president’s gluteals, have erupted in the kind of harsh criticism
normal people generally use when someone locks children in cages.
Even the evangelicals are
outraged: Far-right televangelist Pat Robertson warned Trump that his Syria decision puts
him “in danger of losing the mandate of heaven,” whatever the Hell that means.
For peace activists, censure
coming from these quarters does not carry much weight, as it was the foreign
policy establishment — cheered along by evangelicals like Robertson — who got
us into these forever wars to begin with. The fact that
they hate this decision would, under normal circumstances, be an indication
that we should consider supporting it.
Unfortunately, these are not
normal circumstances. Trump’s declaration of a withdrawal of U.S. troops from
northern Syria, where they have spent the last five years partnered with
Kurdish forces trying to dismantle ISIS while staving off Turkish aggression,
will prove deadly to those former Kurdish allies, and may have dire
consequences for the entire Middle East. The manner in which Trump made this
decision is deeply troubling, as well.
The first prong of our dilemma
is the question of peace. “Bring the troops home!” is as moral a stance as can
be taken in this age of eternal war. On the surface, that metric would seem to
make Trump’s decision to remove U.S. troops from this regional conflict a
no-brainer reason for celebration.
Unfortunately, the details
present a far starker picture. Though small in number, the U.S. forces deployed
with the Kurds served to tamp down a resurgence of ISIS, and were a check
against Turkey. Casualty numbers have been comparatively low, while the
security return is high. Abandoning this partnership with the Kurds is having
immediate and drastic consequences.
The absence of U.S. forces in
this region is tantamount to issuing free reign to Turkey’s military, and some
2 million Kurdish civilians have been left even more vulnerable. The potential
for several Guernica-style massacres is all too present, and the Kurds are now
presented with a number of poor and potentially lethal options. Abandoning the
Kurds was not an antiwar move. In fact, doing so just started another war.
Trump’s declaration of a withdrawal
of U.S. troops from northern Syria could have dire consequences for the entire
Middle East.
“What to make, then, of Trump’s
latest erratic and unpredictable decision to betray the Kurds, increase the
likelihood of ISIS reviving itself, and creating many more years of instability
and violence in northern Iraq?” peace activist Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative
Nonviolence, wondered when asked by Truthout to comment
on the situation. “For ordinary villagers already displaced by violence and
possibly desperate for food and income, I wonder if many might prefer to flee
(certainly a nonviolent option) rather than risk their lives or lives of their
loved ones over the issue of where a border is drawn or which politician or
financial elite has their hand in their pockets ready to further rob them.”
Compounding this is the fact
that Syria, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, along with Turkey and
the Kurds, will almost certainly become involved in any conflict caused by this
withdrawal, making this as combustible a situation as has been seen since Trump
first took office. The foreign policy establishment folks appear to have a
point, for once: As pressing as the need to bring the troops home is, keeping a
small force beside the Kurds to stave off a massive multinational bloodbath was
the most prudent option, at least in the short term.
The second prong is Trump
himself, and the manner in which this decision was reached. According to reports, Trump’s Sunday phone call with
Turkish President Erdoğan was a disaster. Erdoğan, seething at having been
snubbed by Trump at the UN last month, managed to finagle not only Trump’s
permission to invade northern Syria by way of a U.S. troop withdrawal, but got
himself a meeting with Trump next month to boot.
A National Security Council
source who heard the call told Newsweek that
Trump got “rolled” by Erdoğan because he is “spineless.” According to that
source, “President Trump was definitely out-negotiated and only endorsed the
troop withdrawal to make it look like we are getting something — but we are not
getting something.”
The fierce reaction to Trump’s
withdrawal decision prompted him to issue perhaps the most ridiculous missive
in presidential history. “As I have stated strongly before, and just to
reiterate,” he tweeted on Monday, “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 (I’ve done before!).”
Trump’s line about his
intention to “totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey” raised a
billion eyebrows, given the existence of Trump Towers Istanbul.
Financially firebombing your own properties is not what one would quantify as a
shrewd business move, emoluments clauses notwithstanding. The basis for his
parenthetical “I’ve done before!” remains a mystery.
Yet it is the bit about “my
great and unmatched wisdom” that draws my deepest concern. Trump is not sitting
in the White House twirling his metaphorical mustache going “mwah ha ha hah,”
nor is he thinking about the welfare of U.S. soldiers. He is playing ego games
with policy in a region that has been trembling on the verge of comprehensive
combustion for decades.
Trump is throwing lit matches
at a pool of kerosene because he likes the pretty colors. “Great and unmatched
wisdom”? I don’t think that’s gaslighting. His towering authoritarian ego,
combined with his daily bouts of erratic rage, are bleeding into dangerous
policy decisions that have the potential to get an awful lot of people killed.
This is one of the most
frightening moments of Trump’s presidency to date, in my opinion, and that’s
saying something. The fact that Trump’s untethered ego and authoritarian
sympathies were the impetus for this Syria policy shift needs to be at the core
of any considerations in this matter. The Kurds won’t be alone in paying the
price if Trump’s reckless behavior is not reined in, and soon.
Copyright © Truthout. May not
be reprinted without permission.
William Rivers Pitt is a senior editor and lead columnist
at Truthout. He is also a New York Times and
internationally bestselling author of three books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You to Know, The Greatest Sedition Is Silence and House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and
America’s Ravaged Reputation. His fourth book, The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is Happening, and
Who Is Responsible, co-written with Dahr
Jamail, is available now on Amazon. He lives and works in New
Hampshire.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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