“The Kurds are fighting for their land, just so you understand. They’re fighting for their land and as someone wrote in a very, very powerful article today: They didn’t help us in the Second World War, they didn’t help us with Normandy, as an example… but they’re there to help us with their land. And that’s a different thing. And in addition to that, we’ve spent tremendous amounts of money on helping the Kurds, in terms of ammunition, in terms of weapons, in terms of money, in terms of pay. With all of that being said, we like the Kurds.”
What was the president thinking when he offered such a seemingly nonsensical reply to reporters? It is no secret that the president’s rhetoric usually suffers from more than a little incoherence, rambling free associations and other quirks. He gave us a clue in his answer this time, however, by referring to “a very, very powerful article” he read. The article by Kurt Schlichter, a right-wing columnist, came out in Townhall on October 8: “Critics Aghast As Trump Keeps Word About No More Wars.”
In stark contrast to the verbal summaries of some of the article’s readers, Mr. Schlichter’s piece actually offers a logical, if terribly mistaken, defense of Trump’s logic on Syria and the Kurds. The idea is that the United States helped the Kurds fight ISIS because it was in their common interest to do so, and that the Kurds were already fighting ISIS in any case, in order to protect their land from the jihadis. Once that fight ended (Mr. Schlichter and Mr. Trump naively and contrary to all the evidence believe the fight against ISIS to be over), so did the American and Kurdish confluence of interests. Just as Kurds did not have an interest in helping America in faraway places like Normandy in WWII (a strange analogy), so the United States has little interest in shedding blood and treasure to help the Kurds in conflicts unrelated to ISIS.
Mr. Schlichter writes: “I generally like the Kurds. I generally dislike the Turks. But they’ve been killing each other for a long time and no one has yet offered a sufficient reason why America should stick its troops in the crossfire between them. We hear words like ‘betrayal’ tossed around, often by people whose track record re: honor is (charitably) lacking, but that assumes America had a say in this latest round ramping up. If the Turks are intent on invading, a firm ‘No’ from the Oval office is not going to stop a battalion of Leopard tanks. If you want to stop them, you have to be prepared to stop them. That means war, and the president – along with millions of us – say ‘No thanks.’”
This really gets to the crux of the matter. It seems likely that during their Sunday evening phone call, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Trump that, despite all the work America did in satisfying Turkish demands for a safe zone and getting the Kurds to dismantle their fortifications near the Turkish border, Turkey still plans to invade northeastern Syria – and things might get ugly. Instead of displaying any resolve in the matter or a posture that would have prevented a Turkish invasion, Mr. Trump simply gave in to the Turkish threats.
If they think this will save American lives and treasure, both Mr. Trump and the right-wing columnists he reads lack any real understanding of the situation. It would help if Trump would take advice from his generals and national security experts, which by all accounts he refuses to do. These experts unanimously point to the fact that ISIS lost all of the territory it controlled in Syria because local American allies – the Syrian Kurds and their allied Arab, Christian and Yezidi forces – fought them (with American air support) for it. This cost America around six casualties (four military and 2 civilian) in five years of fighting, while the Syrian Kurds lost close to 11,000 dead and many more wounded.
If Turkey – which directly aided ISIS on multiple occasions in the past and which relies on its Syrian jihadist proxies in Idlib, Aleppo and Afrin – conquers the Kurdish areas of Syria, all these gains may be lost. ISIS prisoners will likely escape in the chaos of a Turkish invasion, or be offered new roles within Turkey’s other jihadist proxy forces. Sooner or later, this will lead to many more American lives lost.
The Syrian Kurds could have worked with Russia, Iran and the Assad regime to fight ISIS, but Washington convinced them to work with America instead. With this crass betrayal, recruiting allies in the future – as well as countering Iranian and Russian machinations in the Middle East – will prove much more difficult. This too will cost America many more lives at some point.
Finally, the whole Turkish invasion scenario could have been avoided by a leader with a bit more courage and resolve. The correct attitude in a phone call with Mr. Erdogan would have necessitated remaining strong on the issue. Mr. Trump should have told his autocratic friend: “We are working with you to patrol the border. We are helping you against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey. We are assiduously making sure Turkey faces no attacks or threats from the Kurds in Syria, who are not the same as the PKK. If you nonetheless insist on invading, you will face withering sanctions from us, we may lead UN Security Council Resolutions against you, we will not sell you any more weapons, we will prevent you from using your air power in the area, we will push you out of NATO and we will de-list the PKK from our list of terrorist groups.” Any one of these threats by itself would have likely sufficed.
That is what strong American leadership would have done to protect American lives and the American national interest. This would have prevented a Turkish invasion and humanitarian catastrophe, without a single American life lost and no loyal allies betrayed.
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.
