President Trump’s surprise announcement last week regarding the abrupt departure of American troops from Syria elicited condemnations from both Republicans and Democrats in Washington. Most news media in America and Europe continue to run stories about the dire consequences this move will have for the uncompleted war against the Islamic State (ISIS), for American policy in the Middle East, for the Syrian Kurds and for others in Syria who joined the pro-US Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Syrian Christians sent an open letter to Washington warning of the dire fate they now face at the hands of Turkey and its Islamist proxies, who are even now massing troops to invade the areas as US troops depart. Amongst the Left in the Western world the reaction to all this appears very divided. The true international Left views the American withdrawal with alarm. Although no fans of American imperialism and military occupation of other countries, these Leftists – including intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky – have the common sense and sufficiently consistent principles to recognize priorities. They know that the Democratic Union Party (PYD) program of “Democratic Autonomy” in northern Syria remains the only genuinely revolutionary program of its kind in the region and perhaps in the world. They know that the PYD, although far from perfect, practices genuine gender equality and liberation rather than just preaching such things. They know that the so-called “Islamic State” are misogynistic fascist butchers. They know that the Assad regime is little more than a mafia-like Alawite clan willing to drop barrel bombs on civilians and execute dissidents by the tens of thousands. Finally, they know that ethnic cleansing and massacres, which are the very foreseeable result of a Turkish-Islamist invasion of the area, are much worse outcomes than the presence of some 2,000 American special forces in the area. Then we have the so-called Left in the other camp. This group consists of little more than anti-Americans hiding behind a leftist ideological veneer. For them, anything that looks like an American defeat, retreat or withdrawal from international affairs deserves praise. Their “Leftism” amounts to little more than tribal partisanship – not sure of what they really stand for, they only know what they are against. They are against the United States of America. We thus witness the predictable partisan supporters of the Assad regime, Russia, Iran, and other paragons of human rights cheering Trump’s announcement of a withdrawal last week. Journalists such as Stephen Kinzer, for example, argued during the past week that “Trump's vow to pull US out of Syria is his best foreign-policy decision” yet. Completely ignoring the Assad regime’s nature and record or the likely result of a Turkish invasion that appears imminent, Mr. Kinzer in his Boston Globe column tries to argue that America’s goal in Syria was “To assure that the remaining two-thirds of Syria does not stabilize and prosper under government control” – as if former dissidents in Syria have any likelihood whatsoever of “prospering” under renewed control by the Assad regime. The biased anti-American or anti-Kurdish lens of others may appear less obvious than Kinzer’s, but remains present nonetheless. Such observers claim to want peace and stability in Syria, but seem oblivious to the fact that PYD-controlled parts of the country were the only peaceful and stable areas in the country – until Turkey invaded Afrin two years ago, that is, which is also what it appears poised to do to the remaining cantons of Kobane and Jazira now that US troops are departing. As Turkish president Erdogan promises to return these areas to their non-Kurdish “rightful owners,” the smell of ethnic cleansing hangs in the air. The peace that much of the population of northern Syria can now look forward to appears to be the peace of the graveyard. Others claim that the US presence in Syria lacks legal validity and had to end in any case, and that the Kurds should never have become “pawns of American imperialism.” This ignores, of course, the fact that local authorities – the PYD-led administration that arose in the vacuum left by the departure of Syrian regime forces in 2011 – invited the Americans in to help when faced with the impossible choice of either ISIS annihilation and rule or Turkish annihilation and rule. The Turkish occupation of Afrin and imminent invasion of other areas, in contrast, truly lacks legal validity. The American presence in Syria was also light – only 2,000 troops – and clearly not designed to become long-term. It only needed to last long enough to train more SDF forces and defeat the remaining ISIS militants in the area. During this time, the PYD-SDF could have negotiated a reasonable accommodation with the Assad regime for the eventual pullout of American forces. Instead, the region is left with a scenario that only Assad, Russia, Iran, Ankara, various militant Islamists and their supporters can cheer for. True supporters of democracy, human rights, and simple decency are right to be appalled at how the Americans are betraying their former allies against ISIS and leaving like thieves in the night, without so much as a “thank you.” David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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