The New York Times - 08.10.2019

A8 N THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALTUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2019

can presence in Japan and South
Korea, and other global deploy-
ments. Acting as the world’s
policeman was too expensive, he
complained. Allies played us for
“suckers.” Both in the campaign
and now, Mr. Trump sensed that
many Americans shared his view
— and polls show he is right,
even among some who loathe Mr.
Trump himself.
So when President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey spoke
by telephone with Mr. Trump on
Sunday, the Turkish leader prob-
ably knew exactly what he was
doing: circumventing the Ameri-
can generals and diplomats who
sing the praises of maintaining
the traditional American forward
presence around the world. The
Turkish leader could appeal to
Mr. Trump’s instincts and clear a
path for his forces to fight those
he calls “terrorists” over his
border, even though they are the
same Kurdish troops who have
long been American allies.
Mr. Trump’s sudden abandon-
ment of the Kurds was another
example of the independent,
parallel foreign policy he has run
from the White House, which has
largely abandoned the elaborate
systems created since President
Harry Truman’s day to think
ahead about the potential costs
and benefits of presidential deci-
sions. That system is badly bro-

ken today. Mr. Trump is so suspi-

cious of the professional staff —

many drawn from the State

Department and the C.I.A. — and

so dismissive of the “deep state”

foreign policy establishment, that

he usually announces decisions

first, and forces the staff to deal

with them later.

It has happened time and time

again on Syria. When he an-

nounced a unilateral withdrawal

late last year, it was the final

straw for Defense Secretary Jim

Mattis, whose resignation letter

was a searing indictment of Mr.

Trump’s disregard for allies and

alliances.

By Monday morning, tradi-

tional American allies and Mr.

Trump’s staunchest Republican

defenders, the ones standing up

for him in the impeachment

battle, argued that the decision

was a victory for authoritarian

leaders across the geopolitical

spectrum.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the

majority leader, said Mr. Trump

had rewarded America’s adver-

saries. “A precipitous withdrawal

of U.S. forces from Syria would

only benefit Russia, Iran and the

Assad regime,” Mr. McConnell

said in a statement, a reference

to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian

dictator. “And it would increase

the risk that ISIS and other

terrorist groups regroup.”

In the most biting line, he

urged Mr. Trump “to exercise

American leadership.”

Mr. McConnell was among the

Trump allies who cheered the

president when, not even three

months after his inauguration, he

ordered the first military strike

of his presidency, a missile attack

against Syrian air bases in re-

sponse to evidence that Mr.

Assad had, once again, gassed

his own people. Mr. Trump said

he reacted to images of Syrian

children suffering in the gas

attack. But he also ordered the

action while Xi Jinping, the Chi-

nese leader, was at his dinner

table at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

resort, eating what the president

called “the most beautiful piece

of chocolate cake that you have

ever seen.” It was clearly meant

as a message: There was a new

sheriff in town.

Mr. Xi may have a different

view now. Mr. Trump’s calls for

restraint have often followed his

threats of fire and fury. Mr. Xi

and the North Koreans may both

have reason to believe that Mr.

Trump may pull back from the

Pacific — their fondest wish — in

return for few concessions. It is a

possibility Mr. Trump himself has

periodically raised with aides

while complaining about trade

deficits.

After Mr. Trump mysteriously

suspended military aid to

Ukraine in July — now the sub-

ject of an impeachment inquiry

into whether he was holding the

aid hostage in return for politi-

cally damaging information on

former Vice President Joseph R.

Biden Jr. — his stated argument

was that the United States paid

too much, and Europeans too

little.

If there was any discussion in

the White House about how

slowing the military aid might

damage efforts to contain Rus-

sia’s power in the region, it has

not surfaced.

When he pulled out of the

nuclear deal with Iran, it was

over the objections of a secretary

of state, a national security ad-

viser and a secretary of defense

— all since departed — who

urged him to build on the past

agreement. Sixteen months later,

he fired his next national securi-

ty adviser, the hawkish John R.

Bolton, for fear that Mr. Bolton

would send him down the road to

another “forever war.”

In that regard, Mr. Trump has

correctly read the American

people who, after Iraq and Af-

ghanistan, also have a deep

distaste for forever wars. It is the

one issue on which Mr. Trump

and former President Barack

Obama agree, and a reason for

Mr. Obama’s decision not to

make good on his promise of

bombing Mr. Assad for crossing

the “red line” of using poison

gas.

But Mr. Trump’s objections go

beyond Mr. Obama’s. “Like some

of those who are running to

replace him, President Trump

has conflated ‘forever wars’ with

an open-ended presence,” said

Richard N. Haass, the president

of the Council on Foreign Rela-

tions and a senior George W.

Bush administration official as

America went into two wars from

2001 to 2003.

“We’ve had 70 years of open-

ended presence in Germany,

Japan, South Korea,” he noted.

“It’s part of an alliance. And it

keeps countries from doing

things you don’t want them to

do,” like building their own nucle-

ar weapons.

The Syria presence, Mr. Mattis

had argued, was in that vein —

low risk, low casualty, high re-

turns for America’s security. It

was a tripwire to keep the Is-

lamic State from rising again,

and Turkey from starting a war.

Mr. Trump’s Sunday night tweet,

saying everyone in the region

was going to have to work things

out themselves, announced an

abdication of that role.

He may well pull back in com-

ing days; in fact, by lunchtime on

Monday he already appeared to

be pivoting, declaring on Twitter

that “if Turkey does anything

that I, in my great and un-

matched wisdom, consider to be

off limits, I will totally destroy

and obliterate the Economy of

Turkey.”

It was a strange threat to utter

to a NATO ally. It did not specify

what was out of bounds. And

most of all, it did not describe

how the United States would

exercise that kind of power in a

world in which America is

viewed in many capitals as al-

ready getting out.

NEWS ANALYSIS

When ‘Get Out’ Is the U.S. Security Strategy

From Page A

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey appealed directly to

President Trump, bypassing American generals and diplomats.

DJORDJE KOJADINOVIC/REUTERS

A president who time

and again disregards

allies and alliances.

Lara Jakes and Edward Wong con-
tributed reporting.

The 45th PresidentForeign Policy

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Before
dawn on Monday, at a military
base in northeastern Syria, an
American general delivered the
bad news to his Syrian counter-
part.
The United States was going to
allow Turkish forces to move into
the area, leaving the Kurdish-led
Syrian militia vulnerable.
“You are leaving us alone,” the
Syrian commander, Mazlum
Kobani, responded angrily, and he
accused the United States of com-
plicity in a looming Turkish attack,
according to a United States offi-
cial and another person with
knowledge of the meeting.
President Trump’s surprise an-
nouncement that the United
States would allow Turkey to take
over a swath of northeastern Syr-
ia, at the expense of the militia
that fought alongside the United
States against the Islamic State,
could alter the course of the coun-
try’s eight-year civil war.
In addition to betraying the mi-
litia, the Kurdish-led Syrian Dem-
ocratic Forces, analysts said, the
move could empower Turkey, ex-
tending its control over another
part of northern Syria. It could
also create a void in the region
that could benefit President Ba-
shar al-Assad of Syria, Russia,
Iran and the Islamic State, also
known as ISIS.
And it would most likely further
limit the United States’ influence
over the conflict.
“The United States just threw
away the last leverage it had,” said
Dareen Khalifa, senior Syria ana-
lyst with the International Crisis
Group. Even if the United States
kept its roughly 1,000 troops in
Syria, Mr. Trump’s announcement
late Sunday night made it clear to
the war’s other combatants that
he wants out.
“They are just waiting for the
tweet,” she said.
After the jihadists of the Islamic
State seized control of nearly a
third of northeastern Syria, the
United States joined with a Syrian
Kurdish militia in 2015 to fight
them. Other groups also joined to
form the Syrian Democratic
Forces, or S.D.F., which claimed
control over the land it liberated
from ISIS.
Since then, a small contingent
of American troops, now number-
ing about 1,000, have backed the
S.D.F. in holding the area.
After the decline of ISIS, the
Trump administration came to see
the S.D.F. as the best means to
check the influence of Iran and
Russia, prevent a jihadist re-
surgence, and maintain a stake in
eventual peace talks.
But if the S.D.F.’s hold on north-
eastern Syria weakens, it could
make it easier for Mr. Assad and
his Russian and Iranian backers
to reclaim the territory. An open
conflict with Turkey could siphon
Kurdish fighters to the front lines,
allowing ISIS remnants to re-
assert themselves elsewhere.
Turkey has always objected to
the S.D.F. presence on its border.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
saw the Kurdish fighters who
form the group’s backbone as an
extension of the P.K.K., the Kurd-

ish guerrilla movement that has

fought a bloody, decades-long in-

surgency against the Turkish

state.

He worried that greater Kurd-

ish autonomy in Syria was a secu-

rity threat and demanded a corri-

dor, a so-called safe zone, up to 20

miles deep and hundreds of miles

long, to keep Kurdish forces at

bay.

For months, American diplo-

mats had been working to ward off

Turkish threats to send troops

across the border, most recently

carrying out joint security meas-

ures in a small safe zone with the

United States.

But Mr. Erdogan was not satis-

fied, and he spoke by phone with

President Trump on Sunday.

Shortly afterward, the White

House announced that the Turk-

ish military would enter Syria and

that the United States “will not

support or be involved in the oper-

ation.”

Mr. Trump argued Monday that

the United States’ partnership

with the Kurds had essentially

served its purpose, writing on

Twitter that the Kurds had fought

well “but were paid massive

amounts of money and equipment

to do so.”

He dismissed their conflict with

Turkey as of no concern to the

United States. “It is time for us to

get out of these ridiculous Endless

Wars, many of them tribal, and

bring our soldiers home,” Mr.

Trump wrote.

The decision surprised many of

the military and State Depart-

ment officials who carry out Syria

policy and was met with opposi-

tion by Mr. Trump’s Republican al-

lies in Washington. Mr. Trump lat-

er tried to mollify his critics, say-

ing that if Turkey “does anything

that I, in my great and unmatched

wisdom, consider to be off limits, I

will totally destroy and obliterate”

its economy.

The S.D.F., which has said it lost

more than 10,000 fighters battling

the Islamic State alongside the

United States, was bitter. Mr.

Trump’s decision, Mustafa Bali,

an S.D.F. spokesman, wrote on

Twitter, “is about to ruin the trust

and cooperation between the

S.D.F. and U.S. built during the

fight against ISIS.”

He and other Kurds also shared

a video on Twitter of Mr. Trump

lauding the Kurds as military

partners during a news confer-

ence at the United Nations last

year.

“We do get along great with the

Kurds. We are trying to help them

a lot,” Mr. Trump said in the video,

adding that many of them had

“died for us.”

“I can tell you that I don’t forget,

these are great people,” he said.

On Monday, American forces

pulled back from two observation

posts in Syria, near the towns of

Tel Abyad and Ras al Ain near the

Turkish border.

Turkish news media and mili-

tary analysts have widely re-

ported that Turkey will soon enter

the area between the towns. Al-

though Mr. Erdogan wants a buf-

fer zone running the entire length

of the Turkish-Syrian border, he

said this summer that he would

accept a smaller area to start with

and proceed step by step.

A different group of Syrian

fighters, known as the Free Syrian

Army, is preparing to deploy with

Turkish troops. The group has

said that the plan was to enter the

two border towns but that the

Turkish-backed forces would not

enter towns where Americans are

based.

But the Turkish incursion raises

questions about the future of the

entire area under S.D.F. control,

which extends for hundreds of

miles along the Turkish border

and deep into Syrian territory on

the eastern side of the Euphrates

River. It includes major cities such

as Raqqa, once the Islamic State’s

de facto capital; some of Syria’s

richest agricultural land; and a

number of oil fields.

The S.D.F. warned in a state-

ment on Monday that a Turkish

military incursion could force it to

divert its forces from areas where

ISIS remains a threat in the south

to defend itself against the Turks

in the north. Abandoning anti-

ISIS operations would “destroy all

that has been achieved in terms of

stability over the last years,” the

statement said.

A Kurdish redeployment would

put other American objectives at

risk, too.

“Bottom line: Trump tonight af-

ter one call with a foreign leader

provided a gift to Russia, Iran, and

ISIS,” Brett McGurk, a former

presidential envoy who pushed

for the partnership with the S.D.F.

wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

An immediate concern are the

Kurdish-run prisons in the area

holding captured ISIS fighters

and at least two large camps for

their families. One of the camps,

Al Hol, houses tens of thousands

of people, including extremists

whom the S.D.F. and aid organiza-

tions have accused of seeking to

re-establish ISIS rule.

The White House statement

said that Turkey would assume re-

sponsibility for “all the ISIS fight-

ers in the area captured over the

past two years,” but two United

States officials said there had

been no discussion with Turkey or

the Kurds about a possible hand-

over. The camps and prisons are

far from the area Turkey is ex-

pected to occupy.

Not long ago, the Kurds were

seen as among the biggest win-

ners in Syria’s war, having gone

from being a sidelined minority to

the strongest component in a mili-

tary force that controlled more

than a quarter of Syria’s territory,

thanks to their fierce fighting and

their partnership with the United

States.

As their military victories

against ISIS mounted, they estab-

lished local councils to govern and

instituted Kurdish education in

their communities’ schools.

Those projects are now at risk.

A decline in American support

could leave them vulnerable to at-

tacks by ISIS or by others who re-

sent their rise. They have few

other international allies, which

analysts suspect could push them

to seek an accommodation with

Mr. Assad’s government in Da-

mascus.

But even that may not protect

them from Turkey, which has sent

its forces into other parts of Syria

farther west, displacing Kurds

and establishing zones where it

has provided services and reset-

tled refugees. It says it will do the

same in areas now controlled by

the S.D.F.

It remains unclear how the

S.D.F. would respond to a Turkish

incursion, but on Monday it called

on the inhabitants of northeastern

Syria to “stand with our legitimate

forces to defend our homeland

from the Turkish aggression.”

While the S.D.F. and United

States officials have sought to

play down the group’s ties to the

P.K.K., many of its leaders and

fighters have roots in the move-

ment and could deploy its guer-

rilla tactics against Turkey if it en-

tered Syria.

“So far they have been incredi-

bly reasonable and have shown

restraint,” said Ms. Khalifa, the

Syria analyst. “But I don’t know

how long that is going to last.”

American Pullback Is Viewed as a Potential Boon to Assad and ISIS

Fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which had been backed by the United States. “The United States just threw away the last leverage it had,” one analyst said.

IVOR PRICKETT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

By BEN HUBBARD

Opening a void that

could also benefit

Iran or Russia.

Carlotta Gall contributed report-
ing from Istanbul, and Hwaida
Saad from Beirut.