P O L I T I C S
Bloomberg Businessweek October 14, 2019PHOTO
ILLUSTRATION
BY
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39Edited by
Jillian Goodman,
Alan Crawford, and
Bernie KohnThe day after he decided to shift U.S. troops out of
the path of the Turkish military incursion in Syria,
President Donald Trump took to his usual plat-
form to defend his actions. “The two most unhappy
countries at this move are Russia & China,” he said
as part of a pair of tweets, “because they love see-
ing us bogged down, watching over a quagmire, &
spending big dollars to do so.”
Some Russian and U.S. analysts and officials,
however, see Moscow as likely to be a major ben-
eficiary of the move. More broadly, a White House
decision to abandon the predominantly Kurdish
Syrian Defense Force—an ally that supplied ground
troops for the U.S.-led fight to defeat the so-called
Islamic State in Syria—risks extending a narrative of
American unreliability that began during the 2011
Arab Spring. At that time, the U.S. was widely seenin the region as having failed to give its longtime ally,
Egypt’s autocratic President Hosni Mubarak, the sup-
port he needed to survive the protests. Russia has
since filled that vacuum, from Syria to Libya, even
persuading Turkey to buy a Russian-made S-400
missile-defense system despite U.S. opposition.
“Bottom line: Trump tonight after one call with
a foreign leader provided a gift to Russia, Iran, and
ISIS,” Brett McGurk, Trump’s former envoy for com-
bating Islamic State, tweeted in the early hours of
Oct. 6, referring to Trump’s conversation with
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the night
before. Since leaving his post in December, McGurk
has become a fierce critic of the administration’s
Syria policy, not least because of the president’s
“impulsive” management style. Just before McGurk
resigned, Trump used Twitter to announce aTrump’s decision to step out of the way
of a Turkish offensive leaves the region to MoscowAdvantage, Putin